Chatham Dynamic Bus Station

The ultra-violet lights in the rattling plastic bus shelter of Chatham’s new Dynamic Bus Station flickered fitfully through the rain and wind and darkness. Passengers huddled in the partial shelter of the doorway to the concrete hulk of The Pentagon Shopping Centre. They peered wistfully towards the deserted wind-swept bus shelters for the longed-for illuminated sign of a bus.

A cry went up from the look-out through the mournful howl of the wind “it’s a bus! It’s a 155” he yelled and started running towards the lumbering vehicle through the storm. Those passengers bound for Borstal, and the outlying villages of Wouldham and Burham and eventually the thriving county town of Maidstone ran, trotted, walked, limped and hobbled into the lashing gale desperate to reach the bus stop. They negotiated their way over the once-landscaped mud and once-decorative concrete slabs through the remaining newly-planted, fatally-damaged young trees to reach their goal and get away.

Regeneration had taken its toll on the poor, once-proud town and now even resuscitation was pointless. The plastic bags, food containers and empty beer cans swooped, tumbled and clattered down Waterfront Way like the tumbleweed on Desolation Row. The old lady knew that this time she couldn’t run the gauntlet across the Paddock, this time was just one time too many. She pleaded with her friend to save herself and watched as her stooped body frantically shuffled through the debris to catch the last bus out of town.