They are 'improving' the Burn Valley again............

[Lucy Lass-Tick]

On a slightly nostalgic note, does any other ex-folkie remember a tune called 'Salmon Tails up the Water' being renamed 'Kippers up Burn Valley Beck'?  Think that it might have been the late but much missed Graham Whitley who coined the phrase, but am not 100% certain...just as a reminder, here's a concertina player's version....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybkjZ0SEsy4

[AWB]

Please, can we see how this turns out first before slagging it off, the Council are getting in the neck before the first shovelful has been removed!

[steveL]

Most of these projects tend to be funded by the taxpayer one way or the other and I live in hope that some sort of long-term improvement will come from this. However, the record isn't good. The record is that once the one-off funding pot is exhausted, any improvement is left dependent on maintenance funded by the council's own revenue stream - it's then that things start to deteriorate.

The Linear Park in Thornton Street is the obvious example but you'll also see the same on Stranton Green, the Block Sands and other places. In Stranton Green there is a commemorative plaque to some similar forgotten scheme which revamped the green. Once completed, HBC essentially walked away and it was left to revert back to its unmaintained state. On the Block Sands, the sponge-like safety surface is now a patch-work of ugly concrete, many of the play units have been removed and the line of embedded blue lights to the Fish Sands are gradually being filled in one-by-one with ashphalt rather than replace the bulbs. Have a walk round the Winfield Castle, bought and restored as a tourist attraction at no small expense and, for want of a coat of paint/yacht varnish is quickly becoming something of a derelict embarassment.

New schemes like Burn Valley are all very well and I hope it leads to something sustainable but until we learn to look after what we already have then improvements in one area will always be matched by deterioration in others. I don't think any of these schemes should be pursued without the necessary funding to maintain them being identified first. If it's a case that HBC doesn't have the money to maintain them then what's the point?

[fred c]

Spot on steveL... The almost total lack of maintenance by many HBC departments is a major source of the delapilated look of much of the town, & it didn`t start in the last few years, succesive labour councils have put other "More Important" projects before the planned maintenance programs for the towns infrastructure.

Maintenance of public places & open spaces is one of the best ways to showcase a town & its amenities, what we get in Hartlepool is a series of lame excuses of why it can`t be done.

But still the Masterplans come & go on a regular basis.... only in Hartlepool.

[testing times]

I remember something similar happening to the Old Cemetery. They stopped cutting the grass and maintaining it and declared that what they were actually doing was making it a haven for butterflies and wild orchids....worked a treat as they saved thousands