The community web site for
Glossop
in the High Peak
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The community web site for
Glossop
in the High Peak
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Councillor
Ivan Bell's
response
to Councillor Tony Kemp's
press release on the future of Glossop Tourist Information Centre:High Peak Borough Council's Conservative executive members (only one of which comes from Glossop) have again kicked Glossop in the teeth at the expense of our ratepayers' money supporting Buxton.  The Tourist Information Centre
was run from The Gatehouse in Victoria Street, Glossop, in council
premises at a peppercorn rent until the council sold it to get
more money off the now defunct developers at Howard Town Mill.The then TIC committee who had done a good job running it for the council for several years had no option but to find new premises or it would have been disbanded then and there.  The one-off grant for fitting out the ground floor
of Glossop Heritage Centre as a TIC was a pittance in
comparison with what was spent on relocating the Buxton TIC from the
Crescent to its present home in the council-owned Pavilion Gardens. (A
freedom of information request is going in for the exact cost.)The insubstantial annual service payment of £17,600 was to help pay the wages of three part-time staff and one full-time member of staff. With the downturn in all retailing outlets the TIC and Heritage Centre could not raise enough money to pay for the premises' upkeep and rent. (Again a freedom of information request will be going in to find out what the equivalent rent and running costs of the Buxton TIC are. I believe this may be in the order of £120,000 per annum.) If our Buxton Conservative executive member Tony Kemp was at all concerned he would have pressed for a level playing field between Buxton and its larger neighbour Glossop. Why did he not recommend paying the rent and employing full time council staff at Glossop or franchising out Buxton's TIC to volunteers similar to Glossop and split the resulting savings between the volunteer TICs to help them provide a High Peak service? I agree with him that information services are much more web based but the High Peak council continues to pump money into the Visit Peak District outfit, whose website has 68 coding errors and 39 warning errors on its front page and only ranks 5 on Goggle's ranking. While Glossop's Heritage Centre website written by volunteers has no coding errors and is ranked 4. It would and it is still is possible to continue services this summer if he would agree to temporarily pay the rent until the committee or the council finds new, less expensive premises. No doubt any money saved by not having a Tourist and Heritage Centre in Glossop will be pumped into Buxton's floral arrangements for its EU contest and say it is beneficial to all of the High Peak. (A further FOI request as to how much the council has spent on this will be going in.) Buxton has also got a museum, paid for by ratepayers from Glossop and Derbyshire, which is fully supported by Derbyshire County Council. (A FOI request will be going in for this.) They used to help with Glossop Heritage Centre but decided that the Buxton one was more important and give no help now. And finally - yes, the businesses and the people of Glossop would welcome more visitors to Glossop and I think he will find most of us disgusted that a recent planning committee refused holiday homes on the High Peak planning officers' recommendation. I will be happy to debate with Councillor Kemp if he dares to do so. Councillor Ivan
(I am sending this release out as a very concerned Glossop Independent Councillor in reply to High Peak Borough's press release. I am not sending it out as a director of the Heritage Centre.) |
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