According to a website called Isite
There will soon be a new, and by the looks of it totally useless, new development in Preston. This is going to be a zero carbon visitors center at the newly established Brockholes Wetland and Woodland Nature Reserve in Preston. This is meant to turn a former quarry site into a major tourist attraction.
This is going to be called “A Floating World” and is going to consist of zero-carbon floating buildings built on an island of floating pontoons.
According to the website: “The project is zero-carbon in both use and production, with materials of low embodied energy – thatch, willow, timber, with off-site prefabrication and on-site energy generation and waste treatment.”
Northwest Regional Development Agency claims that this site will become a tourist attraction because of its rich natural assets and impressive biodiversity.
The agency claims that “The chosen design will not only create an inspirational open space for the local community to enjoy but will also enhance a key gateway into Lancashire and attract further investment into the area.”
While the idea is a fairly good one, a sort of attempt to turn Preston in a tourist attraction, what is interesting is that no one at all appears to have blogged about this. This shows the total lack of interest in the project by the online community in Preston.
A 2nd year journalism student at Uclan has unearthed what sound like interesting regeneration plans for Preston. Apparently there is plan to redevelop Preston’s old waterways. This £800 million pound redevelopment is backed the Canal Trust, Preston council and British Waterways and is predicted to be completed as soon as 2012.
The plan would expand the canal from Shelley Road, in Ashton, under Fylde Road to a new marina within the Maudland area, next to the Maudland building of the University of Central Lancashire where a new Marina would be built.
According to the student the plan would see river taxis’ and boats floating above pedestrians in Preston city centre. They also say that:
“Such unique concepts such as floating boats or water taxis and buses would defiantly push Preston to the forefront within the Lancashire region, as well as help put the city on the map as an upcoming area in England as a whole. That in itself would be a great boost for the local economy just from a tourism and attraction standpoint.”
This is plan does sound like an interesting one but still fails to solve the fundamental problems of Preston, turning the city into a massive tourist attraction is hardly a long term solution for a city which was gutted by the departure of heavy industry to the developing world. How the canal and the marina, which will most likely prove to be catastrophically expensive, are going to translate into economic regeneration are questions which the blogger doesn’t attempt to answer. A look at the internet showed that no one else had any opinion of this at all.
This make the project sound like one of several of Preston’s City council’s high flown regeneration schemes which no one in Preston is the least bit interested in. They seem much more interested in blogging about Preston’s crime and assume that the council are out to waste their hard earned tax money.
Kaleigh, a journalism at student at ulcan comments on the large wages that Lancashire County Council receive. Apparently six council executives earn more than £100,000 a year, with the chief executive earning £188,677 in 2006/7.
She also says:
Council tax keeps rising. I had a quick look at the amounts in Preston, and for most areas in band A you have to pay £1009.89 a year in 2008/9. In 2007/8 it was £974.78. This is a massive increase, especially for lower income homes. And the council use this money to give free parking permits and to pay executives over £100,000 a year salaries? This is ridiculous.She contrasts this by commenting on the perceived levels of crime in Lancashire. She comments:
Surely the council should be spending the money they get from their residents on making the area they live safer instead of overpaying fat cat executives?
Her comments about crime levels rising are not entirely unjustified. According to the Lancashire County crime has risen 2,318 in 2001 to 3,419 in 2007.
This supports the general trend that people in Preston are worried about crime levels and assume the council is misspending money. This contrasts with tragically with the lack of interest people have in regeneration in Preston
May 15, 2008 at 12:35 am
Preston certainly needs to be more tourist-friendly, and the waterways are one of its best assets. Plus, former quarry sites are often ugly and dangerous, so it broadly seems a good idea. As for contrasting spending on tourism with rising crime levels, I think it’s important to take a holistic approach. Poverty is associated with crime, so improving an area’s economy is likely to help crime levels as well.