Another Example

[fred c]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tees-24147800

Does anyone else wonder how other councills in the area, who are sufffering similar economic difficulties to Hartlepool can afford innovative projects like the example in the link above ?

What Major Projects have our Council come up with in the last 2 or 3 years ?  A £4 Million Pound "Unused" Transport Interchange & The Cafe In The Crem.

[norfolkngoode]

That question has been asked in another thread Fred.........

It amazes me how other local towns always seem to be doing some major enhancement/improvement work, but we seem to do very little/nothing.

Do we not bother to chase any of these improvement grants, or are we just ignored by whoever is in power, because of the way the town votes?

Or is it as Lucy Lastic stated, we look at these things and just think, No, thats not for us.

Whatever it is, we must be doing something wrong

[DRiddle]

Like I said before on the other thread regarding education, there is MAJOR re-development going on in 'Boro.

If anyone happens to go down to the area around the transporter bridge and the riverside stadium, and you haven't been over that way for a while, you'll barely recognise the place.

There's already been multi million pound re-generation and although the recession biting has slowed it down a little, the area around the dock lands near the football ground has changed enormously and continues to do so.

There is tens of millions of pounds worth of work going ahead now, and in the next couple of years.

Hartlepool and Boro largely have the same demography. Very similar percentages of none working households, similar issues with the closure of traditional industries etc.

I genuinely believe that, put to better use, the 50-60 million quid a year that runs through the fingers of some of our current crop of councillors is enough to turn it around.

However, whilst the people currently calling the shots are allowed to continue to do so, our town is doomed.

[Inspector Knacker]

We are governed by pygmies absorbed in their own parish pump politics ....that's all that concerns them, the fact the outside world is striding past them is indicitave of their obsession with their own little world...sadly al our local politicians, with a few exceptions are bland to the point of irrelevance.
Nothing wil ever change when those representing us appear to content to play second fiddle to neighbouring  authorities, remaining ambition free and apparently happy to be the nodding dogs who know their place.

[tankerville]

You are quite right about the recent development around riverside in Middlesbrough a large area has been identified for the prospective site to relocate Cleveland Police H/Q from Ladgate Lane.

'If' this comes to frutition then the potential sale of Ladgate could be worth millions, not that we the folks in the back waters of Hartlepool will not see any of it.

Middlesbrough is booming with new development going ahead at a rate of knots that has to be seen to be believed.

Hartlepool is at a virtual standstill without any real development taking place in fact many shops are still  boarded up and have been closed down for years.

HARTLEPOOL; Not Fit for Purpose funding unavailable. 

[Inspector Knacker]

Hartlepool is being 'Billinghamised'.... in other words, an independent town turned into little more than a dormitory suburb and slowly stripped of its assets. We are stuck at the outer reaches of the the Teesside conurbation and they have their grappling irons well and truly secured to us.... the regrettable future is thst the  place where things will happen will be on the Boro / Stockton axis ......like the hospital, it crept up on us........... and then it was all too late.

[steveL]

The main motivation behind the Cafe in the Crem/Garden Centre idea was to retain the jobs of workers after HBC realised that the existing horticultural facilities weren't viable. I'm not saying if this was right or wrong but I would say that the business case for the £400,000 revamp was always secondary and that never did bode well for the future. As someone else said, a Bank would be unlikely to have ever agreed to finance the venture on the basis of such a 'wing and a prayer' idea.