Looked in on Ben’s Records. Something I have not done since last year.
To reach Ben’s from the High Street, meant I had to walk through Tunsgate as Ben’s Records is at the end.
I was shocked by the state of Tunsgate. Work started then halted when it was discovered gas and water pipes too close to the surface. In the meantime small businesses in Tunsgate see a loss of trade. And did the street require work, er no.
Did no one conduct a survey before work commenced? Seemingly not.
The Tunsgate Shopping Centre is an eyesore, derelict now for years. It should be demolished.
Like all local councils, Guildford likes to indulge in vanity projects, whilst at the same time denying vital services money.
Resurfacing the High Street last year cost £1 million. Yes, the work was necessary, and the contractors carried out an excellent job, but why then allow traffic through after four o’clock, in what is a pedestrianised street?
The Village, at £1 million, plus a further £90,000 for summer relaunch, is an appalling waste of public money, badly managed, and that is only the costs we know about. The concept good, but ill-thought through, badly managed and the wrong location. It was known the location was wrong, as the farmers market collapsed when it was moved to this location last year when the High Street was dug up.
The Village is always deserted. Only the last couple of weeks has it been busy, and busy a relative term, with activities for kids during the school holidays
Dumping sand outside the Electric Theatre is another example of waste of money. And that is likely to empty The Village of kids.
Too many local councils have no idea of what constitutes good town centre planning or how local economies function. It was on that basis that In Business last night was a breath of fresh air, local communities rebuilding their local economies. Bottom up works, top down does not, and yet local councils are still in bed with big business and greedy developers who are destroying our town centres. One only has to look at Aldershot or Lincoln to see how bad town planning and greed is destroying once viable town centres.
In Lincoln they are to repave part of the High Street which has been recently pedestrianised at a cost of £800,000 which means it will probably cost £1 million. But it fails to address the problem of motorised vehicles allowed through a pedestrianised town centre before 10 am and after 4 pm and any times between time due too lack of of enforcement, or more accurately the lack of will to enforce.
A pedestrianised area should be just that, exclusive for pedestrians, emergency vehicles only. Deliveries via hand cart or trolley from lorry bays on the outskirts. The norm in Europe.
It does not get much worse than Aldershot. Decades of bad town centre planning, net result, empty boarded up shops. When even the pound shops pull out, you know the end is nigh.
