The Goole Times has published news that funding from the football world has been obtained to help proceed with the Town Deal Board’s plans for the Victoria Pleasure Grounds. The announcement again takes the form of the publishing of what looks like a press release unedited, with no critical analysis or alternative points of view other than those of the Town Deal Board, Town Council and East Riding Council and their allies and supporters. The Goole Town Deal Board announced the news on “X” after the Goole Times hit shop shelves and door mats so there would seem to be some sort of agreement about the timings. The Goole Times had to have known earlier in the week to get it off to the printer, so why didn’t the Town Deal Board just make the X announcement then?
We are told that this is “great news for Goole”.
Not everybody is happy with these developments. Tuesday evening, well after 9pm, a school night, “fans” were banging the stands and screaming at the tops of their voices during a Goole Town match at the ground. The Victoria Pleasure Grounds is surrounded by housing. Young children, some of whom have disabilities exacerbated by noise, would have been unable to sleep after their usual bedtime. The Mayor says on social media people should report antisocial behaviour. Residents reported it last autumn, why should they have to go through it all again?
The Mayor is clearly euphoric over the plans for the VPG says the alternative would be to close the ground. Is that the only alternative? And if it were to close, would it really be such a bad thing?
When the VPG was first opened, there were hardly any private cars around, ditto lorries, buses etc. There was much less residential development round it. There were no public address systems for announcers to bawl down and badly reproduce music that not everyone wants to listen to. It was a very different world.
The VPG, given its site and the space available is not suited to the developments the Town Deal Board want to impose on residents. The streets are not suited to the traffic. The residential nature of the area makes a football ground with “hospitality venue” inappropriate for this area. How many places for people to get drunk in does one town need anyway?
The leisure centre site and the VPG site could be sold, and the money raised combined with Town Deal money to create a sporting village on the Junction 36 site where the behaviour of football fans will not disturb residents, especially schoolchildren after bed time, and with plenty of space and good road access. East Riding Council could afford its swanky RaiSe offices for photo opportunities and meetings. Why not add more land and turn it all into a sporting village to really make the town proud?
The VPG and Leisure Centre areas can then be turned over to housing, reinvigorating and renewing the centre of town. Bon Marche could become the Council Customer Services Centre (freeing up space in the library) and other empty buildings could take on the functions of Burlington House and the Job Centre, liberating those buildings to become housing, and reinvigorating the pedestrianised area.
There was a huge lost opportunity to consult the public about what their priorities are. Instead East Riding Council appointed Town Deal Board members who would do its bidding. The Town Deal money is being frittered away on projects that are not resolving, and will not resolve the core problems facing the established part of town. A jobs service in the library, a shuttle bus between Howden and Goole railway stations, getting a York Brewery in to run the Market Hall, and most absurd of all separating the library from the museum, taking it out of the “cultural quarter” and shoving it in with the leisure centre, away from the core town centre. The VPG scheme is at best trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.
The money is being wasted and there has been a lack of imagination and creative thinking in terms of putting the money to good use to tackle the town centre’s problems in a meaningful way and make it vibrant again.
The mean spiritedness of destroying the 400m running track, isolating and alienating the athletics people who raised £20k to repair it is particularly telling. It chimes with a culture which is willing to pay obscene amounts of money to a bunch of grown men to kick and air filled piece of plastic round a field, but begrudges paying doctors, nurses and carers pay rises to get them back on track with the cost of living rises of the past 16 years, when they are saving lives and looking after the vulnerable. A culture which talks of getting rid of red tape and having light touch self regulation to help enterprise, which directly to the loss of life and homes of the Grenfell fire. The official enquiry said exactly that. Is this the culture we want for Goole and its young people? It seems to be what we have now got.
Some people are of course pleased at the plans. By no means everybody though. Good, responsible, leaders build communities by creating consensus, taking people with them, rather than creating division and marginalising those that do not agree and think differently. The current mayor does not live close to VPG. Nor do any of the other councillors who have been forcing through these plans and attempting to silence anyone who disagrees with them. They clearly don’t care a fig about the quality of life of those who do live close to VPG. There has been no direct consultation with any residents close to the ground about the impact the plans will have.
Missed opportunities and a waste of money?