Nick Bye won't be Dave R's MP

That usually means he`s gunna break out his big one, literature i`m talking about, obviously!

Barton, on Wednesday I drove straight on the lower ferry and went across with only two other cars, this in the first week in August, and it’s a clear indication there are not that many visitors around in Devon. The fact is Torbay year on year has seen the number of visitors drop and there are many reasons why that has happened.

One has been a big change in the way people take holidays these days, long gone are the days when people did come here on trains. Long gone are the days when the Bay was full of holiday camps, how many are left now? Do we still even have a scotch fortnight?

I’m not some educated chap, just a normal working man, but I do believe I have good common sense and can see so many of the problems we have in the Bay. While I fully support a new bypass, I do not believe it will bring the jobs that are claimed it will to the Bay. As I said the days of Nortel are over and while you talk about office type jobs being created instead, why would the Bay be a first choice for any company?

Merse reminded us about how Newton Abbot was once such an industrial town, but that’s all gone as well. So many Newton people along with so many from Torbay, now work at Heathfield, Exeter and even Plymouth, it’s the only place the jobs are these
Days.

Over the last few years, hundreds of thousands of pounds have been spent here in the Bay on consultants, hundreds of thousands spend on Byes vision and reports on how to turn the fortunes of the Bay around. Most people here on the street could have given the answers for free.

The thing is we do all know the answers, we know we need better paid jobs, so as merse has said we will have more money to support the shops etc. But the problem in the town centres is not just a lack of spending power by the residents, its places like the Willows and all out of town shopping centres that are killing nearly every town centre in England.

So at the end of the day and all this vast sums of money wasted in my view to come up with answers we already knew, what happens? Nothing at all because these people who spent all this money can’t do anything to make the changes they said need to happen.


So why waste all that money, just think what it could have been spent on in the Bay, Those high paid jobs are not coming, its time to look at what is good about Torbay and work to make that even better. Walk around near the theatre and see the banjo all fenced off, we are told there is no money to repair it. What does this say to anyone who sees it? It says the place is run down; no one has any pride in the place any more.

I said Torbay needs to be a place of welcome, that it most certainly is not, I have lost count of all the people I have met on my travels, who say they went to Torbay, but never again. For some it was the rip off feeling, for so many others it was being stung by the NCP. Yes I know in London wardens etc are ever worse, but we are meant to be a holiday resort

I have no problems with people getting tickets that park on lines etc, but so many tickets issued in the Bay to our visitors has come about due to very misleading parking signs.

Just go on the seafront at 4pm any day and watch the crew of four ticket as many as 30 cars in one go. All because the signs are not clear, if it stated that between 4pm and 6pm it was a clearway and no parking was permitted, then people wouldn’t be parked there and getting tickets. From 4000 a year to over 32000 a year tells its own story and I have said from day one, you will sting them once, but they won’t ever come back here again.

Merse goes on about the grey-haired brigade and yes Barton most do come down from up north, I should know I spent far too many nights trying to make them laugh. The coach firms worked out that this group of people not only had the time, but money to come on coach holidays in the Bay. Most are off season and yes they do get good deals.

Tinsel and turkey starts in September in most hotels and it’s these grey-haired people who keep most hotels from going bust during the winter. Having them means that many hotels stay open 52 weeks of the year and keep their staff in year long jobs.

Is the harbour area really that bad? We at Toolfix often dine at a restaurant there on Saturday nights; I have never seen any real problems there. Yes I know there has been on many occasions, but I see that happen in those police programs I watch on TV, in nearly every town and city at the weekends. Torbay is no better or worse for trouble than anywhere else; it’s just the real problem with today’s younger people who drink far too much.

Its time to stop dreaming about what we might have one day, its time to look at what we have now and spend money on addressing all the things that need to be repaired and restored to give the Bay a look that it is loved and the people are proud of. Its time to show people we want them here and they can have a nice carefree holiday here in Torbay.

There are things that might need to be built, high rise flats that would only be second homes on the harbour are not one of them, There are things that could be built so our visitors will have more to do in the Bay and it does not matter if they are rich middle class, or just the poorer working class, we should not need to target one or the other in my view.


We do have a beautiful Bay and all it needs is a bit of love and tender care to put the shine back on it, nothing is so baldy broken that it can’t be fixed, but doing nothing and spending the money on dreams, will only see the Bay get to a point it could be never be restore or got back to its former glory.

Yes, holiday camps, what happened to them? A fifty-year wonder perhaps....

I too was recently wondering about Glasgow Fair fortnight (Hun shirts, gang fights, travelling Glasgae polis and all). Last two weeks of July, wasn't it? All those Scottish pound notes are a definite memory of my time spent working in William Hill during the summer of 1976....

Gone, Dave, by Easyjet and Ryanair from Glasgow and Prestwick.

What about Lancashire Wakes Weeks which probably accounted for those Yelloways coaches and direct trains from Burnley? When I lived in East Lancs - as late as the 1980s - I remember the schools closing earlier than elsewhere to accommodate the "town holidays" and places such as Nelson and Accrington becoming ghost towns overnight. Gone too as these articles indicate:

www.cravenherald.co.uk/news/813544.final_wakes_week_marks_end_of_an_era/

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wakes_week



Pretty much my view as well. I can't see the by-pass will make much of a difference on its own and I'm very sceptical about some of the job-creation models being presented. That, of course, is not an argument for not building the road.

Companies do relocate to unlikely places if they're given encouragement by a local authority and/or the conditions are right at the time. The Met Office move to Exeter (from Berkshire) - a real one-off admittedly - was extremely unlikely in many people's eyes (and a definite coup for the city). Yes, it's near the motorway - and 25 miles "up country" to boot - but, if the Met was prepared to move that distance, mightn't it have come just a few miles further?

But - and here's the rub - Exeter was able to offer a suitably-skilled workforce as well as the land in that belt of the city which grew once the M5 redefined the city's limits. Furthermore, the economic benefits of having a university can't under-estimated. Torbay, on the other hand, appears snookered for land unless there's scope for something behind Paignton. You make the point about the Willows damaging the town centre. Perhaps that area represents a missed opportunity?



That was true for a long-time - in pretty depressing fashion I might add - but town centres are fighting back (witness Plymouth, Exeter and Bristol). That's partly because plenty of imagination is now being used to reinvigorate town and city centres. However, as we've said before, Torquay is stuck with that poxhole which is Union Street and Fleet Street. Blame the Victorians for that.



I'm sure your act left them begging for more and caused a rush of repeat bookings (for Scarborough!).* And let's not forget the heroic part played by the South Wales coach companies in all this. Judging by all the Welsh shirts I see around Torquay on Six Nations Days, do they now do weekends in Torquay in front of the Big Screen so you can cheer on the boys in like-minded company? There's innovation for you...(perhaps that's the slogan for the future? Torquay - it's not Porthcawl!).

* Only joking! Too good an opportunity to miss...

I think it's time for me to stop debating Torbay on this site because - to be brutally honest - I'm probably three posts away from making the sorts of comments that got somebody banned recently!! (and dear old Jon made a lovely post about the site yesterday).

But, yes, you can bring me back to the old place in a box and a memorial bench on Walls Hill would be rather nice if you want to start the collection now....

I was rather hoping my comments would be taken in jest....hence the exclamation marks and the remark about the memorial bench!

After hearing the newly elected Mayor of Doncaster on the J.Vine show today, I'll swap him for Bye any day.

OK not to sure about some things he is doing, but he cut his own wage from £73.000 to just £30.000. got rid of the mayors car and is planning to reduce the councilors by two thirds. Its clear he is going to stop all the waste and get money spent where it should be being spent.

I wonder if he would like to live by the seaside