Dreams of my husband

Meet Maxine and Peter Callow, two of our friendly Conservative councillors in Blackpool.

Maxine and Peter are dinosaurs of local politics. They have been on the council scene for a long time and as a result of the last local election, despite the fact only 1719 people voted for him as a councillor, Peter became the Council leader as the blue wave of Conservatism flushed out Roy Fisher and his Labour goons. Roy then went on to become the chairman of a NHS trust and is on a six figure salary, so he can now waste money on an even grander scale.

Anyway the Callows, particularly Peter, have become infamous for their statements in the local press: often complete fantasy, utter madness or a combination of both.

Peter Callow exploring the Foxhall revamp in 2025

You can be sure that every other week the local rag will have a council commissioned artist’s impression of one of Mr Callow’s “visions” for the town. Credit to the man – at least he comes up with ideas – it’s just a shame he announces them as if they’re going ahead when they have zero funding and zero prospect of funding in these financially tight times. Oh, and some of them are bonkers.

The latest vision to hit the local press is the revamp of the Foxhall area of Blackpool. For those that don’t know, in Blackpools heyday this area used to be a booming tourist area – well, most of Blackpool was – but now it contains a lot of derelict buildings and is generally in poor order. The proposal is to flatten many of the old hotels and boarding houses to create a somewhat Mediterranean looking visage complete with palm trees, and wide open pedestrianisation. It sounds like a superb proposal, but as ever there is a sorry downside: it’s not scheduled to be completed until 2025. Wait, two downsides: there’s no money behind it.

Verdict: Fantasy.

Is it a college, is it a uni, is it ever going to be built?

On to the next project which you will find on the ReBlackpool website: the new campus for Blackpool and Fylde College. Mr Callow’s visions were out in force again for this one, including multiple artists impressions of impressive looking glassy buildings. For this vision I was starting to think it might actually materialise when the demolition crew arrived at the old Mecca building on Central Drive. It is now rubble and surrounded by lots of ReBlackpool hoardings advertising this new campus.

Not a fantasy? This may have been the case, but  it now has less money behind it after the Learning and Skills Council pulled the plug. However, they still have some funding partners and the project is now due to be completed in 2015. Come 2015 what will the completion date be?

Verdict: Possibility.

A project that has been rumbling on since 2006 is the Talbot Gateway which comprises an area around Blackpool North railway station including the old Talbot Road bus station as well. The idea is to move a lot of local facilities there including the Police station, court, and town hall staff as well as create a new supermarket and hotel. Whether any of that is needed is up for discussion but it’s £220million of development which you can’t turn your nose up at. The completion date is 2021 which is enough to make me believe it’s fantasy already because usually such a distant completion date means they have no money; however in March they signed a deal with Muse Developments to build it.

According to a post on the ReBlackpool blog for this project, in 2007 they asserted that construction would begin in Autumn 2009 and then in a later post said late 2010. Now sadly the prospective start date is some time in 2011. This could go on and on as happens in so many projects until they find private investors and convince HM Court Service and the Police to cough up some money to fund their proposed new residences.

Verdict: Not in my lifetime.

Crystal Road - now including giant green ducks

Mr Callow has also expressed an interest in revamping Crystal Road: another unpleasant neglected area in South Shore. This scheme is all about gutting current guesthouses and bed and breakfast accommodation and turning them into private houses. I’m not against it, it seems a good idea to make the most of the space in these huge buildings. Looking at the prices of some of these places I’d consider it myself except I wouldn’t be able to get planning permission.

The Council has already purchased some properties on Crystal Road and has individual plans for each one. The renovation price per property is quoted as £130,000 and the resulting homes will be sold on a shared ownership basis. The risk is whether they’d end up as HMOs and some current occupants of Crystal Road believe this will happen.

Verdict: Likely, but what about the other 8000 roads of empty B&Bs?

The final project I’ll mention was unveiled only today by Maxine Callow and is the Yates’ artwork project, costing a whopping £20,000. Yates’ Wine Lodge opposite the Town Hall burned down on the 15th of February and since fancy hoardings seem to be the gimmick du jour for the Council a local artist was commissioned by the Council to come up with some to plonk around the rubble. According to Mrs Callow, “this is something we felt we had to do,” and that the hoardings, “will be a tourist attraction in their own right and people will come specially to have a look.”

A monumental waste of money, Mrs Callow. Sorry.