Objective One, Won, Why? (Readers Letter)
Objective One, Won, Why? (Readers Letter) |
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It seems a long time ago now when all those photos appeared in the papers and on the TV showing councillors and officials jumping in the air, cracking open bottles of bubbly and holding a banner proclaiming Objective WON. What difference has it made to the poorest parts of Cornwall and Hayle in particular? Well not much it seems.
There was a lot of waffle in the papers this week about how almost £2m had been spent on converting Harvey’s Foundry and it is now a ‘flagship archive, research and training centre’! Are they looking in the same place as me. What we have is a tarted up empty shop with a storeroom where the Hayle Archive has been crammed in after being thrown of North Quay by the harbour owners who so desperately wanted the old Ocatal building back (still empty and unused I notice). There is no training going on except perhaps lessons in how you can best erect a modernist wooden shed on an historic site on the pretext that Hayle is desperate for office space and then explain why its still empty 18 months on. I don’t see how anyone can hold up what has been done so far as a good example and it is certainly never going to be the flagship archive and research centre that we were promised if they press on with their current plans to rent the building out as even more offices despite the fact that their must-have wooden shed is still empty.
The only research that’s going on seems to be by the guy from the council who seems to sit in their on occasions twiddling his thumbs and inventing ways in which he can fill his time and look busy. Where’s the steam engine and heritage centre that was promised?
There’s also mention in the papers of yet another survey asking Hayle people what they would like to see in Hayle. God not another one. We keep getting asked for our ideas and then bugger all happens until we all get asked again. And I’m not talking about the Harbour here as, important as that is, I’m talking about the rest of it, the bits that the council does have full control over.
Its got to be six years since I went to a meeting at the community
centre where we all split into little groups and then came together to
thrash out some modest scheme which we could get done. Some of the
things on that list I seem to remember included a streetscape scheme,
the replenishment of the beach and improved beach access,
under-grounding of the powerlines on the Towans, the renovation of
Loggans Mill, covering the swimming pool and making a junction onto the
A30 at Tolroy etc, etc.
We were told more than a year ago (after yet another expensive ‘consultation’ exercise) that the Hayle streetscape has been agreed and money set aside to make it happen. Foundry square would be the first to benefit blah blah… so why are we still waiting.
What has been done in Hayle – nothing, but to give the impression that something is being done we keep getting asked the same questions every few months by some new officials or some new consultants – we give them the same answers and then they go away again. If all the money that has been wasted on these needlessly repeated, duplicated meaningless sessions had actually been spent on providing some of the stuff that we want then it would have all been done by now.
No wonder those officials and councillors were jumping for joy. From where I'm looking Objective one has been nothing but a job creation exercise for them and their like.
This letter was contributed to Hayle Eye via our 'Contribute' Link. The author wished to remain anonymous,. Hayle Eye welcomes contributions on any topic and any viewpoint.
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