O/T Town Council

[Posh]

Exactly that is why the dome should stay open a bit longer until urban splash are ready to do the work on the prom

Are you saying Urban Splash should build apartments on the prom side now?

[Posh]

Do Lancaster City Council subsidise the Dukes Theatre? If they do has this been cut?

Maybe the Dukes could transfer to a re-vamped Winter Gardens which does have the advantage of a large car park.

Lancaster City Council provide a tiny amount to the Dukes and this, along with its core funding from the Arts Council, has been dramatically cut.

Geraldine Smith also made this argument about transferring The Dukes but was asked this question (and you might want to answer it too) is, have you actually been to The Dukes? Of course she hadn't been for donkeys years and new nothing about its functions.

Firstly Dukes is not one but three theatres with one used as a cinema. The larger theatre is used for travelling theatre and cinema; the smaller theatre is 'in the round' and is used for now smaller Dukes productions; and DT3 is for community groups, small theatre groups and childrens events. As a result it can hold events for different sizes and interests. The plans for the Winter Gardens currently makes no provision for any of this. Additionally the Dukes has masses of car parking and would be catered for if the Centros plans went ahead. Why would The Dukes move?

[maggy]

Lancaster City Council annually funds five arts organizations £250,000 in total. Ludus Dance, Dukes Theatre, More Music, Storey Gallery and Litfest

[maggy]

Exactly that is why the dome should stay open a bit longer until urban splash are ready to do the work on the prom

Are you saying Urban Splash should build apartments on the prom side now?

I have never wanted Urban Splash to Build apartments /flats in the prom but i have said I like some of their ideas

am not against all of the development it is the scale of the housing issue. There should be more leisure not everybody wants to sit in pubs and cafes all day and night. What about families with children.

500 flats /bedsits and a hotel are a bit too much for the prom

[USA Shrimp]

Maggy ! Maggy ! Maggy !


OUT ! OUT ! OUT !

















Sorry, Maggy. It's a Pavlovian reaction, and in no way a criticism of your posts.

[bigreddog]

Can I comment on two seperate issues here:

Firstly the Dome closure - I wrongly stated in another post that the thing was losing £500k a year. I apologise if that misled anyone. The figures are actually that it would cost £500k from the capital budget to get the venue fit for purpose. On top of that in the next three financial years the revenue loss from operating this revamped dome would be a little over £800K. That £1.3m of your money that's being lost. I appreciate the sentiment that we don't want to lose local attractions, and the worry that we wont recover from losing something. However, this is tax payers money being thrown into a large black hole when everyone else is worrying about their jobs and families. The plan from the cabinet was, I beleive, to close the dome and refurb the platform and look for other venues in the area (that would include the winter gardens in the longer term) And while we're on that subject the plans to revive the winter gardens are heavily dependent on a lottery bid getting matched funding from the North West Development Agency. Those who are trying to re-open the venue in good faith, I can only wish well with their efforts. The whole scheme being "called in" is the right of councillors, so the whole issue will hopefully receive proper consideration and public scrutiny via our local press? from my personal point of view I find it difficult to agree to keeping a loss making venture going when council workers are losing their jobs.

Now onto the Town council proposals:

Let's get one thing clear from the off - this "Parished" council will not being doing things instead of the city council but as well as them. So no fundamental change at all really. further to that even those that are in favour of it can't tell me two very important things: what will it do? and what will it cost?

so given that it can only do things mandated to it by the local government act I can only presume it will take on things like britain in bloom ( which is already done brilliantly by another body), maybe memorials maintenance and the odd festival ( cllr Archer's party not really got a great record on those though). so if people want this body, that's fine by me. I personaly would like to see single tier local government everywhere, but then I'd like to bump into Leona Lewis and have her fall madly in love with me ( I can dream can't I ). So we'll have a parish council that will have to fund more politicians, more elections, some indescript services and of course more tax. My worry is that those so called " champions of morecambe" who reckoned that this thing wouldn't cost anybody a penny are going to say they're the best people to spend the money they claimed wouldn't be needed. On top of that we'll have to fund a mayoral chain for Mrs Archer presumably

Anyway I understand the elections will be in June. So that will be fun, not.