Dear Sir,
Isn’t it wonderful to see the powers-that-be arranging a plethora of events for the summertime, in lieu of the demise of the much lamented Great Aycliffe Show? Something for everyone it seems. Two very notable examples of their powers of arrangement spring to mind – Saturday 11 July was a brilliant day at the Leisure Centre, on Greenwell Road.
Yet another huge dancing competition had been organised at this venue, attended by hundreds of strangely dressed young (and some not so young) hopefuls, dutifully attended by grannies, grandads and aunties, in cars loaded to the gunnels with cases full of make-up and dresses.
So much so that by 7.30 a.m. there was not a single car parking space to be had in any of the car parks along Greenwell Road, or behind the Leisure Centre!
The memory of various locals (including staff members of shops due to open later in the morning) trawling up and down the road, hopelessly looking for a place to leave their car, before getting to work; or the early residents, trying to find somewhere to park, so that they could pop into Young’s for their papers, or Herons for bread, for their breakfast, will stay with me for a long time. The residents of Aycliffe are a stoic lot you know. Simultaneously, summertime entertainments in the Beveridge Way Shopping Centre, on the day in question, were absolutely mobbed by at least ten spectators, who had managed to find a parking space, or come on foot, to avail themselves of the cacophony on offer.
But wait, there’s more!
Sunday 19 July was even better. Not only was there not a single parking space along Greenwell Road, the main car park, behind the Shopping Centre, had become something akin to a shoreline with a pod of beached whales, since it was cluttered with 5 or 6 stranded coaches that had disgorged their load of Jazz Band Competition participants, headed for – yes you’ve guessed it – the Leisure Centre! Some coaches were even parked on the pavement – tough on anyone with a baby in a pram, or someone using a mobility scooter.
This, together with the innumerable people carriers offloading their bass drums and symbols, meant that once again any unsuspecting local resident who dared to try to park and go to the shops was met with a barrage of verbal abuse, liberally sprinkled with expletives and one invader was heard to utter – “the Council have told us that this is our cark, so get lost!” – to one poor soul, who had asked that the drums be moved back off the service road, so that he could squeeze past the abandoned buses and be on his way home, without the shopping he had come for (never mind that this car park is on private land and belongs to the Town Centre owners).
Marching Bands arranged along the middle of Greenwell Road (a public highway), outside of Homeplan, blocking the road to passing traffic, hurling abuse at people passing by, no marshals in sight and no local traffic order, closing the road for this event. Oh! organisation, consideration – they really worked well that day!
Ah! Yes the wonders of organisation – I suppose funding cutbacks mean that this can no longer be afforded and why worry – the people of Newton Aycliffe should be accustomed to this kind of treatment by now – ignored, trodden on, taken for granted.
After all, they are only the ones who pay a large part of the cost of running the Leisure Centre, via their Council Tax payments from the biggest new town in the County. Many of them are even members of the gym there but wo betide them if they want to use the gym on one of these festive days, they can’t even get close to avail themselves of their one hour of self-inflicted torture.
Shopkeepers on the Town Centre? Why worry about them, if they cannot afford the ridiculous rents and exorbitant service charges and are silly enough to open their premises in the vain expectation that people will actually be able to get to them, to do some shopping, then they’ll just have to close down. Won’t they?
The big question is – do the Town Centre Manager or the Leisure Centre Manager ever stop to consider the implications of the decisions that they may make on behalf of visitors to the Town, who contribute nothing to the local economy, or for the long suffering residents and businesses, who could at least be alerted to what’s afoot?
Dr. James Parkin
