Peoples Republic of South Devon

Making waves

March 20th, 2007

Jeez, we hate all this Plymouth Life Centre to-ing and fro-ing (click here to read our latest rant) - not least because we find ourselves siding with the Tories.

Indeed, Monday’s issue of The Herald gathered chappies from the three main parties for their opinions on the newly-christened Sharron Davies Centre (finally confirming the suspicion that this is more about Olympic-sized swimming pools than worthy claims of youth clubbery and bowling).

As usual there was a fair amount of point scoring, with Karen Gillard from the Lib Dems twittering about how ‘the Conservative Party do not like the Liberal Democrats in Plymouth’, while Labour’s Tudor Evans said of the Tories: ‘It’s not a Life Centre they are trying to build, it’s a hokey-cokey centre: in, out, in, out, what are they all about?’. Ah, very clever, Tudor.

Evans went on to say: ‘We will be providing sports and leisure facilities of a quality that will be worthy of potential Olympic athletes that we have in the city.’

Which is all very well, but the vast majority of us aren’t potential Olympic athletes. In fact, we at PRSD aren’t even potential Olympic viewers.

After all this air punching and righteous anger, it was something of a surprise to find Vivian Pengelly, of the Tories, with such a cool head.

‘As far as I can tell, the sudden announcement at the last full council meeting was mostly wishful thinking by Cllr Evans,’ she said, ‘aiming to spend money we do not yet have, estimated without knowing what it is we are going to build.

‘The Sharron Davies Centre is not the same as the Life Centre, and even for the Life Centre there are no solid plans, only artist’s impressions and conceptual ideas which may have little influence on whatever the final design proves to be.

‘If we don’t know what we are building in any more detail than a wishlist waved around by Cllr Evans, how can the cost be stated so precisely? It seems to me there is a plan to raid the kitty, or engage in some sort of asset-stripping.

‘How do we know that playing fields, car parks, Citybus or other city assets will not have to be sold off? Whether we eventually get good value for money - indeed, whether this money will stretch to fit what has been promised by the controlling Labour group - remains an open question.’

See what we mean? We’ll be admiring Cameron’s new hair and reading the bloody Daily Mail next! Pih!

Posted by Thin White Duke

Entry Filed under: Comments, Environment, Society