Another last, and what a finale. The Market Forum, where any market trader can come along, and meet with Councillors and Council Officers. Somehow it has escaped the sanitising and dumbing down that happened to most things in local government under new labour. It is there in the raw, with robust exchanges, and people saying what they mean. And how. There is very understandably a lot of unrest from the market traders (and shoppers) about the proposal to move the market from most of the High Street to just the area between the Town Hall and the Shambles, with some overspill in front of the Castle Centre. There needs to be some change, as I spelt out at the last meeting, but we have to be realistic about the effects on the market. At last it came out that there would not be room for all of the present stalls in the proposed set up.
I have proposed that they have "planning for real". A simple model of the buildings as planned and pieces like you get in the monopoly game that represent present market stalls, and let people try out the different scenarios. Yes let the people try. It was said that the technical people could draw up different scenes with their software. that is no substitute for "planning for real" with real people having some hands on influence. I'll be seeing from the sidelines what happens - I'm not disappearing !
I won't embarrass anyone by repeating some of the real corkers in the meeting. But it started with a "declaration of interest" of "horse shit", and ended with a round of applause of thanks for myself and other retiring councillors.
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