Every so often, Swansea’s local paper feels obliged to take public bodies and politicians to task for being demonstrably out of touch with local priorities. So it will be interesting to see if anyone among the great & gobby actually has sufficient bottle to give the Beans on Toast a bit of grief over their bizarre suggestion on a future use for St Helen’s sports ground.
Bemoaning that the historical venue is no longer fit to host first class cricket, an editorial blithely comments that: “It could be a wonderful location for an aquarium — something Cardiff has not got — which would be a valuable addition to the city's tourist attractions”.
Considering the regularity with which the paper reports on economic gloom, treasury deficits and ever deepening public spending cuts that will affect every household in its circulation area, you have to wonder what the weather must be like on Planet Northcliffe – perhaps we should all go there for a break from day-to-day reality.
As it happens, the UK’s newest aquatic attraction, The Deep at Hull, was built at a cost of £53 million (nearly twice the amount spent on LC2) and is run by a charitable trust. It is already tipped to become the North East’s equivalent of Wales’ Botanical Gardens as visitor numbers fail to match original projections; despite an extensive marketing and PR campaign. Even the popular London Aquarium is only able to break even because of substantial public subsidies and corporate sponsorship – which may both dry up in the near future.
There is no doubt that St Helen’s is fast becoming an run-down eyesore which Swansea Council has failed to address because of persistent dithering at leadership level & vested interests within the ruling Lib Dem group. But even their half-baked development plans which were quickly dumped a while back in the face of local opposition had at least a tinge of credibility about them.
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