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Town centre - work will be left half finished shock
(February 12, 2009)WARMINSTER is to be the laughing stock of the area as it will soon be left with a half-completed town centre improvement as the council appears to have run out of money.
When work on the southern section of the Market Place between Barclays and Serendipity is completed in four weeks that will be the end of ‘phase two’.
No date is set for the remainder of work to take place in the latest news sheet prepared by the county council’s contractors Mouchel Parkman.
All it says is that work on 'phase three' will start ‘later in the year’. No mention of any date or even whether they are talking about calendar or financial year.
When the scheme was first mooted by the council it was budgeted to cost £671,000 and traders were told it would be completed by December 2008.
“This scheme will probably not be finished until the summer of 2010 which means we will have had to endure three years’ worth of upheaval and that simply isn’t acceptable,” said former county councillor Steve Dancey.
“The cabinet member with responsibility for this area is Miss Fleur de Rhe Philipe who lives in Upton Scudamore - I think she owes us all an explanation.
“Town councillors should demand that she comes before them to explain why everything has gone so wrong, but they won’t do this as they won’t want to rock the party political boat.
“Yet another example of where party politics is getting in the way of what is best for the town.”
When work on the southern section of the Market Place between Barclays and Serendipity is completed in four weeks that will be the end of ‘phase two’.
No date is set for the remainder of work to take place in the latest news sheet prepared by the county council’s contractors Mouchel Parkman.All it says is that work on 'phase three' will start ‘later in the year’. No mention of any date or even whether they are talking about calendar or financial year.
When the scheme was first mooted by the council it was budgeted to cost £671,000 and traders were told it would be completed by December 2008.
“This scheme will probably not be finished until the summer of 2010 which means we will have had to endure three years’ worth of upheaval and that simply isn’t acceptable,” said former county councillor Steve Dancey.
“The cabinet member with responsibility for this area is Miss Fleur de Rhe Philipe who lives in Upton Scudamore - I think she owes us all an explanation.
“Town councillors should demand that she comes before them to explain why everything has gone so wrong, but they won’t do this as they won’t want to rock the party political boat.
“Yet another example of where party politics is getting in the way of what is best for the town.”
Town centre businesses have been badly hit by the lack of passing trade with one newcomer who set up his shop twelve months ago having moved from Devon describing completely different street activity to that which attracted him.
"I believe that the time has come for those councillors responsible to resign and put themselves forward on their record so that local people and those running small businesses can give their verdict," added former deputy mayor Paul Macdonald.