If money was no object and you were to open a shop or restaurant, you’d be a fool not to pick a location for your venture where crowds throng.

And, for Kent, that inevitably means Canterbury. The place is blessed like no other in the county.

It has a steady stream of year-round tourists – from both home and abroad – keen to feast their eyes on its magnificent, history-drenched cathedral and stroll its pretty medieval streets.

The bulk of which will come with spending money to eat, drink, shop and generally enjoy themselves. Ideal.

To further bolster that, you have the student population swelling the crowds yet further. Granted, they don’t tend to come with as much of the folding stuff, but that student debt has got to be run up somewhere, so why not in its inns and stores?

Add to that, it has the county’s premium theatre pulling in big crowds for the bulk of its productions – further swelling the night-time economy.

So, footfall – that horrible word which means simply the number of people trampling the streets in any given area – is pretty much unrivalled.

You may – particularly if you live there - think the city has changed for the worse over the years, but for everyone else it remains one of the county’s most attractive spots to visit.

In short, it has all the ingredients for commercial success.

Which brings us to the dilemma of The Riverside complex in Kingsmead. For those of us with long memories, you’ll remember this area as once being home to a greyhound track (and a speedway track before that) and the home of Canterbury City FC. Oh, and a car park for coaches. It even, temporarily, hosted the Marlowe Theatre panto (in a giant tent) while the theatre was being rebuilt.

Today, it is a swanky multi-million pound leisure quarter – think bars, cinema and restaurants – with surrounding apartments (mostly for students). A success, however, it is proving, so far at least, not to be.

That pesky footfall isn’t what it should be and one restaurateur – who splashed out £1m to fit out his eatery – has described it as a “ghost town”, while grumbling he’d been “sold a dream” which clearly hasn’t materialised. He’s upped sticks and moved into the proven hit of the city centre.

And you can’t argue with his logic. So why has Canterbury, so full of folk, struggled on this project?

The answer, almost inevitably, is its location.

Stroll around the city centre and the moment you start veering from its main thoroughfare, the crowds start to dissipate. By the time you’ve reached its outer reaches, the streets are pretty clear. I’m not suggesting they’re empty, but that footfall craved by every business lessens considerably. Even in Canterbury.

It’s far from a long distance to walk, but for visitors, it would be relatively easy not to know it’s there to discover.

Plus, why stretch your legs upon an evening when the city centre is so blessed with restaurants and interesting bars already?

And that’s not to mention that Canterbury’s charm – its raison d’être as a tourist hotspot – is its history. Why not eat within its narrow streets overlooking beautiful architecture than head to a very modern spot with views over, ahem, the nearby Sainsbury’s supermarket?

Don’t get me wrong, I think Canterbury is a wonderful place – but if I was heading there for an evening’s entertainment, I’d be hard-pushed to be persuaded to venture far from its olde worlde heartland. It is, after all, what pulls in the crowds.