Brian Dixon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
bob,in respect to your post about the two areas being unsuitable,st james church had a cematry now defunct,all so there was another cematry next to the grand shaft allso now defunct.if mr solly says the area is unsuitible why where those two put there in the first place.
Brian, thanks for your input but I think I'm going to give up on this one as I would hate to be held responsible for holding back employment prospects in the area! I must say I am impressed with the horticultural department and can only hope that it goes from strength to strength under the leadership of Mr Solley and have sent him an e-mail to thank him for his help.
'Darren,
Many thanks for taking the trouble and time to answer my queries, I hope it did not drag you away from overseeing the pollarding or any of the other tasks of the horticultural department.
My mother is a keen gardener and my wife has an allotment and both claim it is very calming although I must confess that I have never seen the attraction. I must admit that in neither case is their reverie disturbed by e-mails about cemetery provision which probably helps.
On the subject of cemeteries my father had a 'woodland burial' when he went and were I to be buried I quite like the idea of being recycled into tree nutrient!
Personally I've told the kids to put me on the municipal barbecue at Barham.
Best wishes to you and the rest of the horticulturists.'
Bob - respect! The reply you extracted from said Darren was worth the wait. Thank you
So, both sites cannot be used as they are protected and/or extremely important employment sites.
Bob, can you ask our Dazzer if he knows how many folks are actually employed on those sites or have been employed on those sites in the last 10 years please? Also, what is the DDC revised prediction of how many and when will there be employees on either site in the next 10 years. Second thoughts, that might just send the poor chap scurrying back to his hibisci (assume he has more than one)!
In fairness, DTIZ is already a graveyard. A graveyard of hopes and expectations.
Betteshanger is just about the stupidist idea since the Labour run DDC declined to have McArthur Glen in town and is ideally placed to be a burial site for the district. Just imagine how easy it will be to shove the bodies down a disused coal pit, no digging required. Ergo, low cost and no drain on staff numbers.
Poetic Sid - nice touch!
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
sid
i thought that mcarthur glen wanted to locate in whitfield?
McArthur Glen did indeed wish to locate in Whitfield but the massed ranks of the butchers, bakers and candlestick makers who either made up or influenced DDC, thought that they would be in direct competition (rather than bringing hordes of people into the area who might also wish to shop in town) which is why I and others go shopping in Ashford!
Whilst on the subject of slagging off the council let us not forget the White Cliffs Experience built with £24 million of our money. Now that turned out to be a nice little earner!
Looks like we are off again.
'Dear Mr Frost,
Thank you for your email.
It has been forwarded to the Head of Regeneration, Forward Planning Manager and our PR Manager for their attention.
If we can assist further please email
customerservices@dover.gov.uk.
Regards
Anna
Anna Cole
Senior Customer Services Officer'
Willl keep you all posted with developments!
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
bob
the white cliffs experience won awards for its excellence.
the problem as i see it(did not live here in those days) was the marketing.
Howard, as you say you did not live here in those days, I did and the WCE was rubbish, and a prime example of what you will find in Dover. i.e. Whatever the political complexion of the local council it makes little difference to the outcome if you vote for stupid people.
In essence in the late 70s the York Archaeological Trust decided to develop the Jorvik Viking Centre on a brownfield factory site, which after extensive excavations, had been discovered to be the site of a well preserved Viking city (the wet clay of the ground which contained little oxygen had preserved over 40,000 artefacts from the Viking time). The centre opened in 1984 and has had over 20 million visitors to date.
DDC (I believe Conservative at this time Mr Watkins?) decided that if they set up a history centre then they would no doubt have the same success, in spite of the fact that they were not sitting on a unique preserved archaeological site (which some might say was in fact one of the unique selling points of the Jorvik centre!)
Ignoring the excellent Roman Painted House, which really is worth a visit, they called in the consultants (latter day equivalents of the tailors in the Emperor's New Clothes) who convinced them that the WCE would generate 300,000 visitors a year, regenerating the entire economy of Dover, and all for the price of £24 million.
It was built and it was awful. It was patronising. It was embarrassing. It opened in 1991.
In a theatrical experience Sid the Seagull and Corporal Crab popped in and out of sight, slightly out of synch with the soundtrack, telling a dumbed down version of 2000 years of history in 10 excruciating minutes.
There was a section with bombed out and dilapidated houses and shops, which, if it wasn't for the soundtrack of sirens and bombing, made you think you had walked accidentally through the exit and were on the High Street again.
There was, however, a bit of Roman wall, so it wasn't all bad.
No-one came. The cutting edge (sic) animatronics and shows (laser discs, carousel slide projectors and 35mm film projectors, etc.) had quickly dated and were breaking down and by 1998 needed replacing. Meanwhile the Conservative group blamed anyone but themselves for the fiasco claiming people were 'talking Dover down'. Running costs continued rocketing.
In 1997 Labour took over the council. Totally different people but with remarkably similar level of general intelligence.
Their theory was that policies for regenerating Dover should rely on attracting industry and DDC should act as an 'enabler' rather than a provider of heritage and tourism facilities.
The tourism budget was slashed and before long they decided to cut their losses and close the WCE.
You will notice how much industry they have attracted with the change of policy!
Brian Dixon- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
actully i found the wce entertaining and informative.shame they [ddc] didnt market better along with better pricing.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
Bob - I totally disagree with virtually every word that you said in that last post.
This development started with the same old Dover story, repeated failure of schemes to develop this important site due to a lack of commercial viability as a result of Dover's demographics and the costs of the site.
Paul Watkins was Council leader at the time and I was the Chairman of the Technical Services Committee.
If it was not for the WCE then this site would remain derelict to this day.
The original concept was to include the Roman Painted House in a much bigger project that would have brought Dover's Roman and more recent past alive. Sadly we had a luddite acheaologist who was a purist and adamantly opposed to projects such as this and Yorvik and he did everything he could to scupper the development and any modern historical interpretation. In the end he fell foul of his professional body, partly because of the insults he threw at the very eminent top archeaologists that were brought in to advise and help with the site. Sadly though he did manage to prevent the much bigger and better scheme from progressing and we can see what a sorry state the Roman Painted House display presents today.
The White Cliffs Experience itself was to break the impass over the site and the building design brief was for a building that could be multi-purpose and used for something else once the experience past its sell-by-date.
The idea was to have a critical mass of visitor attractions in Dover to pull people into the town centre where they might spend money, whether down from the castle, people on the way to and from the ferries or 'weekenders'. With the WCE, museum and Old Town Goal we had a viable tourist strategy.
The WCE itself was designed by John Sunderland who designed Yorvik. You are very disparaging about the exhibition but it was designed for families including children with an activity centre, the Sid Seagull Show and other elements to appeal to the more serious minded, the chalk cliffs display on entrance for instance. Howard is right, it did win a lot of awards.
As I say if it was not for this development this site would be derelict, we would not have the museum, the Bronze Age Boat Gallery or the cinema (however small and inadequate its better than nothing).
When it opened in 1991 it was in the depth of a recession and it was badly hit but nevertheless did bring many visitors to Dover. (Someone I met in Maidstone recently asked me about it, saying how much they enjoyed it and expressed disappointment that it is closed)
The WCE was kept going long after a fresh use should have been found for the building by the 1995 (not 1997) Labour regime that took control. Incidentally, the Consevatives lost control over DCC in 1993 after losing a Whitfield by-election and a Lib/Lab pact took over.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
Interesting coincidence. Page 10 Dover Express, The Week column, 25 years ago - an article about the last of the shopping development schemes that failed to take off on this site. It was the failure of this development that sparked a complete re-think.
Barry, thanks for taking the time to make your points on the WCE.
When I wrote my piece last night I did not have access to my archive (without waking SWMBO!) and I was relying on memory for the dates.
I had forgotten that you were Chairman of the Technical Services Committee at the time.
In view if this a short apology would have sufficed!
Alec Sheldon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 18 Aug 2008
- Posts: 1,036
We got a decent library out of it anyway. The old Maison Dieu was rather cramped.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
quite right alec, a state of the art library, kindergarten, adult education rooms too.
interesting to read the posts from bob and barry, both having a different take on the subject.
There must be a cafe in there too. Everything in Dover is geared towards eating and I can't believe the WCE is an exception.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
there is an eatery that opens now and again.
no rhyme or reason to their actions.
Well, I promised you a reply when it came from DDC and here it is :-
Dear Mr Frost,
Thank you for your email of 31 May asking about DDC expenditure regarding the above. Whilst it was addressed to me, it actually touches on wider areas of the Council and so this is a comprehensive reply.
There are a number of issues here but it is worth pointing out that these are major challenges akin to those posed by the Channel Tunnel proposals and it is vital to protect the District's interests.
The Harbour Revision Order is a Parliamentary process concerning very major proposals (I am sure you will have seen the DHB submissions) running to a very short timetable and is something we have never had to address before. The same is true of the Voluntary Transfer including Community Trust which has never been done anywhere in the country and if it gets off the ground will be the first such trust formed against this statutory framework.
You will appreciate that DHB have engaged considerable help including eminent lawyers with specific expertise and we needed to ensure that we had corresponding expertise where necessary. As it does not make sense to have such expertise routinely available in DDC the only recourse was to buy it in judiciously.
I can confirm that in essence we only went out for legal advice and representation. My Planning team has done a great deal of work on the HRO and, we did not engage external planning consultants. The only money spent on external technical advice was fairly minor relating to air pollution and noise specifics to complement work carried out by my Environmental Health team.
Legal advice and representation was sought externally for two reasons. As explained we needed expertise in what is a very niche field and also to provide capacity as we were already fully committed when these processes came along. Our own lawyers have continued to work alongside the external team of course.
In addition it is not just a simple case of whether questions were "too hard" for officers to answer. A deal of understanding of the processes at work is necessary to know what the questions are in the first place. Effective representations also involve matters of tactics and presentation and the lawyers we engaged are highly conversant with Parliamentary process amongst other strengths.
I believe the submissions that DDC made do demonstrate that money has been spent wisely to protect the interests of the people of our District and would venture to suggest that we would otherwise have been open to a charge of failing to do so. Even so the expenditure pales into insignificance in comparison with the amounts being spent in promoting the HRO and Transfer.
Yours sincerely
Michael Dawson
Head of Development and Public Protection
I have, of course thanked Mr Dawson:-
Dear Mr Dawson,
Many thanks for you reply to my queries and covering all the points I raised.
Personally I would wish my council to concentrate on clearing my bins and de-icing my pavements and leave development to free market economics!
I suspect that if we had had council planning departments In Brunel's time the GWR would terminate at Slough instead of Paddington, and we would still be awaiting the result of a public enquiry, where every council on the line of the projected railway was employing legal advice and representation to protect the supposed interests of local inhabitants!
I see that you are also head of 'public protection' which I presume is the people who come round and demonstrate condoms in PHSE at local Secondary Schools?
Best wishes
Bob Frost