Skip to main content

What Angers Me about SBC

What angers me most with Stockton Borough Council is its lack of ideas. 

Take for example the Stockton and Darlington Railway, back in 1825 Stockton made history by becoming the worlds first passenger railway. Yet how many people living in Stockton would actually know this fact?

Millions of people across the planet pay to visit a place with history, and one that tells the tales from yesteryear to the modern day. But Stockton struggles in its attempt to attract the numbers. There is of course a number of reasons for this and as always I will try and stay calm, collective and neutral.

Stockton Borough Council has for many years failed to tell the story of the area and by doing so has left the area with no infrastructure or culture that could be used to boost visitor numbers and increase the GDP locally. We look at the home of railways and what do we see, we see a ticket office, for some its the worlds first ticket office, to others its a shelter for those struggling in life. No where else in the world would let such an iconic building go to the dumps and be left in limbo as to what it should actually be.

We have a metal sculpture to replicate the most famous locomotion (Loco 1) on a grass verge close to where the rail tracks used to be, yet the connection, for me is not there. It doesn't stand out or attract people to take photos for Social media or family albums.

Yet, we have a National Railway Museum in York, over an hour away and the Steam ahead museum in Darlington, both visitor centres that attract people to spend money and stay the night. What has Stockton got ... the Stockton Flyer on the High Street, a replica of a loco, that is not suppose to be a loco or represent a loco ... yep I am confused too. 

We should be shouting from the rooftops about this vital part in the worlds heritage, but what we get is a A5 leaflet in the tourist information centre. The way I see the world is obviously very different from those in power as I see our heritage and this in-particular as the biggest marketing tool at our fingertips. 

But, off I go back to the dream works factory for thinking of such a crazy idea.






Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Darlington Library

So Darlington Council have to make huge savings and doing so it seems their first target is the Crown Street Library. The plan is to sell the building and relocate services to the Dolphin Centre on a much reduced scale. This is to come at the cost of 25 jobs within Library Services and I am appalled that when the going gets tough, the council's get cutting. Instead of reducing the costs to the upper hierarchy of said council, it is the front line staff that are being sent packing. In my opinion services such as libraries should be the last thing to be hit when making cuts. Libraries have an environment that encourages thinking, reading and writing and allows imagination to run wild. Darlington Council will make their decision this Wednesday in a Special Cabinet meeting and I hope for the sake of learning and culture, they see fit to save this building and better still save the creative environment that comes with libraries.
Post a Comment
Read more

Social Media

For those that don't know I have been blocked by Facebook, this has happened 3 times in as many days. Facebook says that is due to being reported and in my opinion I most probably know who by. But never the less, I will continue to inform people of what I do and what I think by other means. Twitter and Blogger are to become my main source of communication and to be truthful Facebook was beginning to get on my nerves anyway. Fake news at its finest. So from now on I will get family members and friends to post the links up to this blog and if you are on twitter you can follow me at @LukeJohnFrost where you can also send me private messages if you so wish to do so. I know there was a lot of people who relied on this on Facebook. But not to worry, if you are not on Twitter you can still request my email or catch me as some do in the Town Centre or Library.
Post a Comment
Read more

Putting The Record Straight

Just to make something clear, I am not against investment in our area, far from it. I have signed many support comments for developments such as Aldi, Parade of Shops on the Industrial Estate and even supported the Hotel proposal and the Student apartments on Mandale Triangle. Saying that I have also objected to a few, such as the Mcdonalds on the centre and recently the two takeaways that where planned for Lanehouse Road, along with the proposal for 150 homes at the Barrage. In fact I am still the only objector on the Stockton Council Planning portal. I believe investment is great, when it is in the right area and with the right amount of demand, access and need. Over the years we have had a bombardment of planning applications go through Stockton Borough Council for south of the Tees developments that has seen the population swell and the infrastructure buckle under the weight of bad management and developers who constantly cut corners to make a quick pound or two. In the pas...
Post a Comment
Read more