I first moved to Dunstable in 2001 just before the birth of my first Daughter. Having moved from Staines, South West London, I was apprehensive to say the least about bringing my new family to a strange far away place. I remember my first impression of Dunstable being a very busy industrial town with two scary roundabouts at the junction of High Street North and West Street. I called them “suicide roundabouts” because people almost seemed to close their eyes behind the wheel of their cars and stamp on the accelerator to get through! These roundabouts were soon replaced by the worst phasing of traffic lights in the history of Bedfordshire.

There were lots of shops all the way down High Street south and one shop in particular took my fancy as it had lots of lovely pieces of small furniture and knick knack items which seemed to mystically pull people in to look at them more closely, I loved that shop but it closed down to my dismay.

There were soon to be a lot more changes in Dunstable and this was more to do with an increasing amount of shops closing which I found very sad. Things did not seem to get better when some of the businesses from the High Street relocated to the White Lion Retail park such as Pizza Hut. And to this date I believe their old site is still vacant.

There have been lots of campaigns to generate more business and interest in Dunstable not least of which is the new bus link being built to join Luton with Dunstable, is this a good thing? Together with the fact that the bypass (50 years in the making) this is finally getting some attention and things could well change for Dunstable and only time will tell if its for the best, I am hoping so because Dunstable is a great town with lovely people in the main.

My love for Dunstable was such that in 2005 I joined Bedfordshire Police as a Special Constable, so that I could make a difference in my adopted home town in my spare time. You would often see me on footbeat in the town most evenings and weekends getting to know the locals (good and bad). One of the saddest things to date that I have had to deal with was the burning down of the Norman King public house. I was called to attend with my van crew as we were on patrol at the time in Luton and this was at the time of the London Riots, I can’t comment too much about it for obvious reasons but suffice to say, it felt like one more nail in the coffin.

On a brighter note I went into Dunstable town center today and although there are still a lot of vacant shops, I can feel the buzz beginning to come back, despite the downpour it was good to see the town busy with shoppers and generally there seemed to be a good atmosphere in the air mixed with the smells of food wafting down the street.

Dunstable still has a lot to offer and I pray that more money will be injected into the local economy to save it from further degradation. Dunstable is a great town with more to offer and I enjoy being part of it’s heart beat whenever I patrol the area.

More importantly my wish is to assist in whatever way I can to help Dunstable in achieving it’s financial goals and I offer any services I can to achieve this. With the help of all those in my network, I believe this is more than possible.

Extracts and images supplied by: http://www.aboutdunstable.blogspot.co.uk/