. The Condor Moment stems from just before last Christmas. A chap called Jason West who had moved to the area spent time walking along the seafront and it hit him that the area between the sea and the harbour known as the Weymouth Pavilion Peninsular was a bit empty and bland and would make a great focal point, something Weymouth doesnt really have. Sure people meet in town or at the pub or even outdoors at a number of parks for the kids etc. By developing this area specifically and in a way the whole community could use it this would create a place where people could go and meet and say we will meet at the Peninsula for instance or Pen for short or whatever people call it. So he spoke to a sustainable developer from Kent Pete Halsall and an architect who has lectured at Harvard, Sean Griffiths to see what they thought. They liked the idea and Pete agreed that he could probably raise £200Million for people who invest in community projects as he had done in the past. So the 3 of them arranged for a meeting not unlike The Condor Moment. This was held at the Pavilion Piano Bar. Unfortunately only about 30 people turned up that time and no-one was really an influencer in the town. Plus there was a lot of negativity because a previous group had tried to develop there and it hadnt worked. The idea behind the Community getting involved and there are precedents for this is that you hold what is called a Charrette this is where everybody gives input into a project so that the best ideas may come out. Ie a community has their say in this case. Effectively a brainstorming session. The 3 went away from this meeting gaining momentum with Echo Publicity and a meeting with top councilmen who had agreed to listen to the proposal. At that meeting the Council said that they thought the charrette idea was a good one and did Mr West think that it could extend to other developments that they were looking at in the area and at this point The MasterPlan of the town and its redevelopment was discussed. The 3 then went away thinking they would be contacted to role it out but nothing really happened. So in the meantime Jason and a teacher from Budmouth started a website called #Weyforward which encourages anybody to put their ideas onto with regards Regenerating Weymouth which are then voted. These have been building for around a year. After hearing nothing for around 9 months and with the constant will they wont they saga of the Condor ongoing. Two things happened to reignite the campaign in very quick succession. The Council Announced that they wanted the Boroughs Consultation on the redevelopment of the town and they did this by putting up a pop up tent on the seafront for two days and in the centre of town for two days and by the train station for a day. As you have rightly said you need to engage people, this approach as you can imagine fell on deaf ears. On the first day on the seafront Jason filmed the tent and there was nothing to say what it was for, as far as anybody knew it was a Weldmar charity stall. Between Jason and I we got a local printer to make a sign up for the Council and he then handed it to them they were pleased to say the least as up until then the turnout had not been great. The next thing that happened was the announcement from Condor that they had decided to pull out. This is Ironic really as had the £200million Sustainable development project not been put on hold for 9 months,the £10million that they required would have been a drop in the ocean. This is as I say the catalyst that reignited The whole getting the community involved in redeveloping the town. We obviously called it The Condor Moment because this was the moment we realised losing the Condor was not a bad thing at all it was a massive opportunity to get the MasterPlan looked at by the whole community and get everybody to decide on how things should now look without The Condor being there. The Council are already trying to connect with the public but because of past situations the public think that deals have been done already. This is why we are trying to attract big influencers in the town and people in the know who when this event happens can speak with credibility and knowledge about the subject rather than rumours and hearsay. The reason we are so vague is because the subject we are talking about is a complete blank canvass A redevelopment of this magnitude could mean the reinstating of roundabouts. It could mean the re-routing of the Number 1, X31 and X53 bus for that matter. The whole point is the council have an area that they only half know what to do with. This is the biggest single project that they have ever embarked on so for once they are asking the public what they would like to happen to their town. I for one. Im going to make sure that at least I have my say. I would have thought every resident of Weymouth & Portland would want to give input to this project. To be specific and this is common knowledge the Council havent got a great deal of money in the pot. This is probably the last roll of the dice. The Masterplan(The Redevelopment of large swathes of Weymouth Centre) Weymouth Pavilion Peninsular, The Municipal Buildings and North Quay area, The Gas station on Westwey Road, The Bus and Train Station. Brewers Quay to a certain extent. The Council are speculating that if they change things radically the town will prosper. This is why the consultation with the community is so important. I appreciate this is a lot of information but you asked for specifics and I do not believe that any resident should be without the facts. We appreciate you are asking questions. Hopefully we can interest you and others in this extremely important subject.
Posted on: Sun, 07 Sep 2014 22:34:01 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015