Friday, December 30, 2005

2006 Swanage Looking Forward (only, no retrospectives please)

So how should Swanage proceed? Do we really have any influence or must we just wait for economic or climatic cycles to change?
Posted by at

25 comments:

Anonymous said...

How about making the seafront closed all year round between the mowlem and victoria avenue to encourage more visitors to use the beach and surrounding area in safety and reverse the traffic up Church Hill to allow easier access to the south side of town

30/12/05 5:28 pm
Anonymous said...

I think the idea of closing the sea front would be a good one if they paved the road over and did away with those ugly looking gates.

They could but bollards there but still allow a through way for the odd delivery lorry.

They should also do away with those really ugly wooden huts and replace the lot with retail unti and cafes for the tourist !
Beach huts are so 60's & crap !

The Church Hill reversel would be a good idea IF they carry it out correctly ! It would need to mad a little wider at the bottom of the hill which would mean reworking the bridge.. as a Fire Engine would find it hard flying up there..
Also at the top of the hill you would have to exit on the right side as there would be a horrible blind spot at the butchers...
It would also pump more chemicals into the air as old people driving up it would labour there cars !

30/12/05 5:38 pm
Anonymous said...

How about this as a proposal for 2006:

Lets not moan about things in Swanage that we cannot control as "they" are in control, but lets make a diffrence in ways that we all can:
1. Pick up the litter
2. Greet all and sundry in a pleasant, friendly manner
3. Welcome visitors and second homers and help them have a pleasant stay so that they will want to come back
4. Help all and sundry find the unusual elements of Swanage and the surrounding area that makes it a unique place to visit.

Each member of the community can make a diffrence, even if it's only painting the front of your house or shop, cutting your hedge(which I must do! it's on my list)

Then, come the next parish elections, work out how the "they" who currently control the public assets of the town can become people like "us" and then some of the bigger issues such as which way to go up church hill and closing the seafront can be addressed in public debate which appears to be quashed in meetings currently.

Happy new year to all!!

30/12/05 7:14 pm
Anonymous said...

Why stop at Church Hill? There would be a benefit in reversing the traffic flow in the whole one way section of the High Street down to the Square as this is a far more attractive route into the town for visiters than coming down Victoria Avenue, especially on summer evenings when the coloured lights are on. A weight limit would keep HGVs and coaches out.

30/12/05 8:25 pm
Anonymous said...

"Beach huts are so 60s and crap"

Can someone enlighten me. What have they got to do with the 1960s, a decade when cars sprouted rocket fins and dresses got shorter and shorter? The decade of Concorde when for a moment we believed that "the white heat of the technological revolution" would sweep all before it.

I don't suppose Charles Saatchi thought they were crap when he paid £75,000 for Tracy Emin's and judging by the amount they sell for at the north end of Swanage beach not many other people think they are for that matter.

If we want to apply taste judgements like this why not say shops, pubs, cafes, restaurants and hotels are equally execrable and should be swept away. I'm sure all of them can be given an imaginary link to some past decade.

Perhaps the person who posted this ridiculous comment could give us a brief guide about which decades they think are to be regarded as good and which are bad and more importantly, why.

The reality is there is a huge amount of money to be made by offering a trip into the past to the millions of people who live in the foul modern suburbs around our towns and cities, work in equally dreadful office blocks, do their shopping in cloned shopping malls and eat pap in junk food outlets.

How many buildings in Swanage erected since 1914 can you look at and enjoy? A tiny handful, the library, the Pierhead (sorry Nick) a couple of modern movement houses from the 30s.

The future for Swanage lies in marketing the past. Its a simple concept but one with a future.

30/12/05 9:53 pm
Postman2 said...

I think marketing the past is a great idea. However someone needs to get general agreement on this so everyone is pulling in the same direction. Then we should remember that it is an image that we would be marketing, not a reality. So, for example, our accommodation must be of a very high standard, not that of yesteryear. If there are to be beach huts lets have serviced beach huts, fruit etc sellers on a beach raked over every morning. A leisure, conference and arts centre. (I'm talking about the chocolate box Alpine resorts which at first resisted then saw the benefit of investing in cable cars and the like so tourists could easily access their mountains). It’s all about customer orientation. Give the potential visitors to our charming town the facilitates they will be attracted to. You needn’t spoil anything be doing that, and it certainly doesn’t mean all new buildings need to be Georgian pastiche.

31/12/05 9:18 am
Anonymous said...

Let's be honest. I love my old town, but no one can get away from the fact that it is a tatty old place.

But for some odd reason, that is the charm of the place, for no one can deny, it is very popular.

It seem to me then the best thing is to leave the place alone, any attempt to change it will succeed in making it like a million other seaside towns.
Over the years many have come to settle here, and enjoyed the town as much as those born here. But unfortunately, many when they arrive, want to change it to look the same as where they came from.

Leave it alone, or it may become what we are all trying to escape from.

31/12/05 9:34 am
Anonymous said...

Mr. Ostrich, that is exactly the attitude which drives away our talented youth and attracts batty old middle class duffers who can't afford Canford Cliffs. We should distinguish between traditional and plain old fashioned. Why do we do a Victorian Street Market every year so badly? How about a steel band instead of a brass one?

31/12/05 10:42 am
Anonymous said...

Putting up anything that is not a georgian/victorian/edwardian pastiche here is a nightmare. As soon as anything else is proposed the neighbours all write to the planners complaining that it will look different from their drab and boring buildings.

A conference and arts centre is a splendid idea and the best place for it would be where the Pierhead is. It would revitalise this end of the town. How about having a serious investigation into funding and finding an architect who can do better than the airport terminal/supermarket style? The way to avoid having to go to pastiche is to offer a design good and original enough to stand on its own merits.

31/12/05 11:59 am
Anonymous said...

Why not sandpit field, it’s only used a couple of times a year otherwise, and has the potential for sufficient car parking and elevated views, hotel accommodation even a theatre/cinema.

31/12/05 12:36 pm
Anonymous said...

There is also a large unused area of seawater close to Sandpit Field. If we are making absurd suggestions why not fill the bay in and build a lifetime supply of holiday flats where it used to be?

31/12/05 1:41 pm
Anonymous said...

Why is it that when something is written here that anonymous disagrees with. He/She has to resort to insulting terms like Luddites, Idiots, ostriches?

Is your argument so poor that you have only a recourse to insults?
I repeat what I posted earlier, There is a charm about Swanage that is all of its own. It is difficult to lay a finger precisely where to identify that charm? But there is no doubt that it spreads its influence on those that visit and in many cases settle here.

It maybe a bit of a backwater in lacking the stainless steel and plastic that so many seaside towns are known for. One thing is certain, we do not want a Blackpoole here, or anything like it.

Can anyone that loves this old town imagine the clatter of a steel band?

"Old Bill"said; if you know a better hole then go to it.

Sure! let us have improvements by all means, but nothing that will make it the brassy place that so many here wish to see.

31/12/05 3:20 pm
Anonymous said...

[quote]Anonymous said...
There is also a large unused area of seawater close to Sandpit Field. If we are making absurd suggestions why not fill the bay in and build a lifetime supply of holiday flats where it used to be?[/quote]
If anyone did want to build on the seafront, i hope they did a better job with the foundations than the new beach work. After the storms of the last few days it looks like a lot has vanished !

31/12/05 5:18 pm
Anonymous said...

That big stone pier has a lot to answer for. Certainly the loss of the beach. That is plain for all to see. But as usual, no one would ever think about using local knowledge before starting these projects.

The one blessing was that the marina never materialised. For that would have created a stagnant open sewer area. Why? Simple, there would be no tide to remove effluence from the marina enclosure. Tides do not go in and out, they swirl and eddy round the bay in the process. To illustrate this, sometimes when fishing off Phippards ledge the line would be going with the tide in the opposite direction to the main tidal flow.

Being there are eddies that run along the beach that would push the water back in towards the marina enclosure. OK If you put a huge sign up…telling the yachtsmen not to use the toilets while in the marina.

31/12/05 6:01 pm
Anonymous said...

So no marina for the lack of one sign:-( ?

31/12/05 7:29 pm
Anonymous said...

Happy New Year Everyone, with much happiness
Dancing Ledge.

1/1/06 10:15 am
Anonymous said...

Much rhetoric could be obviated, if it were generally conceded that it is all a matter of art and good design.If Calatrava designed a marina for Swanage, it would make us a Bilbao overnight, and draw millions. Conservative diehards would hate its very uniqueness and success, would label it an eyesore.
Of course they should close off the esplanade, but when the final arbiters of taste are the Purbeck Planning Department, one fears for the effect! Beach Huts are usually ugly shacks invading the public space for private (or at best, council) profit. They may appeal to the sentimentalist, but note the tendency to develop them into mod-con beach-houses usurping the beachfront and virtually privatising the beach. Next step will be the overnight beach-hut in mock-tudor! Any sensible designer would sweep the lot away and create a few structures of public benefit, restoring the land- and sea -scape at the same time.
Swanage jealously counts its blessings, basks in its mediocrity, celebrates its illusory golden past, and stubbornly resists innovation This seems unlikely to change until a new gneration takes charge of the government of the town and region.

4/1/06 4:48 pm
Anonymous said...

What is it about beachhuts that brings the taste police running to the scene? If there are still folk who want to rent them why should they not continue with their innocuous enjoyment of these peculiar little structures? I can think of far worse things. If we are in banning mode why not start with jetskis? They make an appalling racket and annoy thousands so one person can have what they regard as a good time. Amusement arcades could follow. They give entirely the wrong message about the nature of the place.

Grumbling about mock-tudor is a well established tradition. Osbert Lancaster ranted against it in the 1930s. Hearing it used as a term of derision is very much a blast from the past. Personally, I'd rather have mock-tudor beach-huts than the ghastly steel shutered brick and block ones which have gone up in the last few years at the north end of the beach. The more I think about it the better the idea gets. Why not have several rows of huts with each row done in the style of earlier ages and places. Victorian Queen Anne, or Second Empire perhaps. Post modernism does really compare.

5/1/06 6:03 pm
Anonymous said...

Please can someone tell me why Phippards ledge is so called? who is it named after? How long has it been called this? Thankyou.

8/1/06 7:14 pm
Anonymous said...

My family have been renting beach huts from STC for 50 years or more but that does not mean we are "stick in the muds" or would resist change for the benefit of the town. I believe a marina would have increased tourism and inevitably the number of second home owners but there are locals who would not see these as advantages.

I cannot understand why the Council accepts it is satisfactory to close the seafront between Victoria Avenue and the Mowlem for various periods but not the entire year. The only advantage derived from keeping it open is that it serves as a car park for much of the time but that is outweighed by the danger to pedestrians particularly children. I do, however, understand why the Council have resisted reversing the flow of traffic in Church Hill. Those who live nearby or use the route regularly know that it can be hazardous travelling down the hill but it would become positively dangerous if the flow was up the hill especially if the level of traffic increased. The closure of the seafront is not dependent on the reversal of the traffic flow in Church Hill which remains down hill when the seafront is closed. It should also be remembered that heavy goods vehicles and the like find it impossible to navigate Church Hill which ever way they travel.

9/1/06 7:15 pm
Anonymous said...

I would have thought it less dangerous to have cars going up hill than down. The exit from Church Hill is at present blind both ways, but the exit onto the High Street is clear. I understand the residents don't want more traffic, but HGV's are unlikely to use this "local's shortcut" because they need to visit the Town Centre. The only feasible alternative for this much need improvement would be making the High Street two way between Court Hill and the Black Swan.

9/1/06 7:50 pm
Anonymous said...

Re 7.50pm's comments.
The only reason the current exit from Church Hill is difficult is that a drivers view is blocked by parked cars and the same would apply if the exit was reversed (i.e.on to High Street)due to vehicles parked (sometimes double parked) at the butchers and general store. The problem would, of course, be compounded by the heavier flow of traffic and drivers impatience at having to wait on a steep incline to exit onto High Street.

My view is that it would be far more dangerous to travel up the hill and if you disagree may I suggest you walk the route and imagine you are in a car or worse still a large vehicle.

The alternative which has been suggested namely 2 way traffic between Court Hill and the Black Swan is likely to be rejected by the Highway Authority as the road is too narrow for modern vehicles especially as there is only a narrow pavement on one side by the Black Swan. It would also be necessary to undertake major improvements at the Court Hill junction.

Just close the road between Victoria Road and the Mowlem as they do in the summer and leave it at that. If it works in the height of the tourist season so why should it not work during the rest of the year.

9/1/06 10:20 pm
Anonymous said...

I totally agree with Tony's comments. To elaborate re Children - try explaining to a 2 year old that its safe to walk on Shore road in the summer months and not the winter ones; impossible. This is potentially a deadly situation which the Council / Highways Authority is condoning by not closing the road throughout the year.

What would it cost to permanently close Shore Road - NOTHING! What could it cost if they don't - perhaps a child’s life.

Mark

10/1/06 3:25 pm
Anonymous said...

Phipards ledge? I have no idea where that came from. Though I have spent many a happy hour fishing over it. I would like to know what the fishing is like in the bay now?

10/1/06 4:38 pm
Anonymous said...

Mark's comment about what to tell children to keep them safe crossing the road reminded me of another seaside nuisance - the Amusements Arcades.

I dislike them for a range of reasons. I first realised they were a problem when a friend confided that her 10 year old son had stolen £60 from her purse to fund his trips to these establishments. Its an unpalatable fact that we need to do more to protect a suseptible minority from the problems of gambling and allowing them an easy childhood introduction in the way we do here is not helpful. Its not a problem for most children but it is for some.

Secondly, how can anyone grumble about what beach huts look like when you have these monstrosities a few yards away.

Lastly, what do they tell the world about Swanage and the people who come here? Simply that its a town run by half-wits for half-wits mesmerised by flashing lights and not much more.

Jane

10/1/06 9:30 pm

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)