A few things come out of the Beans on Toast’s fixing-the-city ‘campaign’. The first is an admission that the place is broken – which means that we will (hopefully) no longer have to read the ridiculous ‘We’re going places’ crap attibuted to spinners and stooges and which is so blatantly at odds with the reality.
We can also hope that if attention is paid to actually fixing the problem instead of papering over the cracks then it might dawn on our civic leaders that the answer doess not lie with pie-in-the-sky retail promises but investment in what we already have to make the city centre a commercial success where people work and spend their money.
What it does not need is the tired old excuses from Lib Dem council leader Chris Holley who still thinks that blaming the Assembly is a viable policy. The same can be said of his lame-brain suggestion that a car-parking charge should be levied on punters who visit out-of-town retail parks with the proceeds used to “subsidise the city centre”, whatever the hell that means. Probably more cobbles and bollards.
Someone should quietly take him aside and explain that the only real beneficiaries of car-parking charges in Swansea's retail parks would be Parc Trostre, Llanelli & McAuthurGlen in Bridgend. Then they should shoot him.
5 Comments:
What really ticks me off is that the article describes the people as experts when what they know in practice about city centre regeneration can be written on the back of a poxy postage stamp. Rene Kinzett is a PR bod who simply talks a good fight while David Phillips is a non-entity positioned just one step up from Chris Holley in the lower divisions of the competency league. The others asked to comment run businesses but they naturally want the investment to happen in their part of the town which is hardly big picture stuff. As for the Evening Post, are we actually supposed meant to be taken in by the hand-wringing when their business plan is to move out of their city centre offices and relocate to SA1 or possibly Fabian Way?
I am disgusted to read of a possible move by the South Wales Evening Post out of the city centre. It is hardly what I would call leading my example.
Arthur, do you expect anything else than hypocrisy from the press? They seldom practice what they preach to others and they can relied on to dump their principles at the first sight of a juicy headline.
Did you hear the slagging off on Swansea Council for Holley's idea about car parking charges in Morfa and Fforestfach? The man is a tosser but the really frightening thing is that the others make him look halfway capable.
Did you mean Swansea Sound and not Swansea Council - or do they now have their won radio station? As regards Holley's capabilities we have to agree. Sad thing is that it seems to be across the parties at Calamity Hall with much of the so-called new blood just happy to fit in rather then move things forward.
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