In September 2017, almost 1,400 people signed a petition to “save the soul of Dover”.

Traders and townsfolk were worried about the effects the new St James’ retail and leisure park would have on the traditional high street.

Usually, such shopping and entertainment centres are built out of town - like Westwood Cross in Thanet and Eureka Park in Ashford.

But here the £53 million complex - complete with a Cineworld, Nando’s and Next - was arriving just a few hundred yards away from the pedestrianised precinct.

Would it suck the life out of the high street, or help those businesses thrive?

I covered the debate at the time - and last week went to see if St James’ really did kill the town centre.

Today there are 13 empty business premises in Biggin Street and Cannon Street - exactly the same number as just before the new complex opened.

Traders in the precinct I spoke to say they are coping - but believe it is no longer the same focal point for footfall.

Steve Rother, boss of the Rotherwood butchers in Biggin Street, said: “You can see the amount of closed premises still here but our business is holding its own.

“We are a family butcher and there has never been any direct competition from St James’ against us. Our shop has a good customer following.

“Places like Food Warehouse in St James’ are totally different retailers.”

Mr Rother says the problems they face in the high street have more to do with high rents and parking costs.

“I think there should be free parking for customers for the first one or two hours to get more people to come here,” he added.

James Pearce is the manager of the Gamebase computer games shop, which has been in Biggin Street for 21 years.

He said: “This store used to be the prominent position of Dover in the high street. Now definitely it's the back end.

“McDonald's has gone, Woolworths has gone, and lots of stores have relocated to St. James'.

“There really needs to be a reason to come down this end.”

Mr Pearce is right that much has changed in Dover town centre over the decades.

When I first moved here in 1987, it was a very different place.

Biggin Street and Cannon Street had not yet been fully pedestrianised. It seemed like a self-contained high street, meaning you barely needed to leave the town for most of your shopping needs.

For clothes in the Eighties and Nineties, Marks and Spencer was in Biggin Street while at Market Square and Cannon Street were Burton and the independent gent's tailor George Lock - now home to a wine bar, Vinoteq Jazz.

The corner of Biggin Street and Pencester Road had a branch of the discount record shop Our Price in the days when cassettes were still king but CD popularity was rising fast.

There was even a small Tesco in Biggin Street, which was still clinging onto life for a few years after the giant store in Whitfield opened in 1988.

Woolworth’s had been in Dover town centre until January 2009 when all UK branches closed in the wake of the global banking crisis.

More gaps started appearing before St James’ opened in 2018, as several chain businesses in the high street announced they were moving to the new complex.

Those that did so included Holland & Barrett, Marks & Spencer, Shoe Zone and Superdrug.

Mr Pearce said: “I don't think the town realised that the current businesses were going to relocate.

“I think they kind of expected new businesses to come in and expand in the town, but it didn't quite work like that.

“It's a bit of a sad sight that this high street has empty shops.”

But the truth is, parts of the precinct were already in a sorry state before St James’ opened.

The most grotesque symbol of its decay was a property nicknamed Triffids House. I photographed an upper-floor window at 50/51 Biggin Street with vines and weeds creeping inside and outside of it. It has since been cleaned up and occupied.

Another improvement to the town has been the demolition of one of Kent’s ugliest buildings - Burlington House in Townwall Street.

The empty 12-storey office block was finally flattened in 2016 to make way for St James’.

It was in September the following year that Sandra Malho, owner of La Salle Verte café in Cannon Street, presented a 1,388-name petition to district councillors raising concerns about the impact of the new retail park. She asked: “What is going to happen to the high street? One shop has been closed for 21 years.”

In October 2017, I walked up and down the precinct to count the number of empty properties between Market Square and the Town Hall.

The total was 12 that month but unlucky 13 came on November 4 when McDonald’s in Biggin Street closed after exactly 30 years.

Both Dover district and town councils heeded the distress signals and offered hundreds of thousands of pounds to buy up empty shops or provide grants to renovate them.

On December 9, 2017, traders and residents marched through the town centre to promote it.

John Heron, at the time a Dover district councillor, had warned: “If we lose the high street we risk losing the soul of Dover.”

While at first he was fearful for the precinct's future, he began to hope it might benefit from an overspill of customers from St James'.

But this week he said: "That did not happen - so the precinct did not benefit from St James' as it should have.

"There was no real development from the complex to the town centre - the two needed integration, which never happened.

"It could have even been done by simple signposting because St James' is almost walled off with only narrow exits such as from Castle Street.

"It is a shame because overall the potential is vast in Dover."

Chris Precious, who was mayor of Dover in 2015/16 and town councillor for 17 years until 2023, says the precinct is “just scraping by now”.

“The variety of shops is too limited - there are many hairdressers and cheap supermarkets,” he said.

“You can’t even get a pair of jeans or a suit in Dover any more.”

But despite the ongoing challenges, some businesses are still making a success of life in the traditional high street.

Mr Pearce says Gamebase is holding its own, attracting customers from as far as Ashford and Maidstone.

He said: “We bring a lot of people into the town but they say they go to the high street and there's just nothing there.

“St James' is a nice development but I don't think it's quite what everybody expected. There are still a lot of empty shops down there.”

This week a spokesperson for Dover District Council (DDC) said towns around the country are “having to look at issues affecting town centre shopping, as times continue to change”.

“DDC continues to work with partners to encourage regeneration and promote investment in the district for the future,” they added.

“As well as the St James’ development, we are seeing a whole range of exciting initiatives coming together for the town, including the groundbreaking Dover Bench project getting underway, the Roman Painted House project, and the multi-million-pound Dover Maison Dieu redevelopment, which is now nearing completion.”

Revisiting the precinct this week, I could see there has been a bit of musical chairs. Not the same 13 premises are empty - and shops have come and gone.

Yet the precinct seemed eerily quiet on a weekday afternoon, making me wonder whether the traders are getting enough of the customer support they need.