Saturday 27 October 2007

KING STREET SAYS' "NO"







With good coverage this week for their Town Hall demonstration, the Save Our Seaside campaign road show visited Kings Street, South Shields. Critical of the Councils failure to conduct any comprehensive public consultation exercise, today was the turn of the “Peoples Ballot”, with a yes/no ballot paper exercise backed up by a public petition. You will be able to view that result here first.

Public support from the campaign was virtually unanimous, with from what I saw a 10 to 1 advantage in favour of the “no to any development” vote. One of the main concerns expressed by the public was the view that the whole process was underhand and that business was being favoured ahead of community and consultation.

Where people were in favour, the argument tended to stem from the fact that Gypsies Green Stadium had been deliberately allowed to fall into rack and ruin – something therefore needed to be done about it. However, when asked would they feel the same if the Stadium was redeveloped as a modern athletics facility, their decisions changed to being against the hotel development.

There is definitely a momentum gathering with this campaign, and with Tavistock’s planning application being submitted sometime in November, we can expect “fireworks” throughout the month, and not just on Guy Fawkes night!

No comments: