They were certainly planning on doing so - “If Hull’s City of Culture bid for 2017 is successful, the airport will also play its part in bringing business and tourist travellers into the region”. - Paul Litten(Commercial Director - Humberside Airport). They're also opening a new Hilton Hotel at Humberside airport during 2016... please log in to view this image
Less than a quarter of the funding for the City Of Culture events comes from Hull City Council, over three quarters comes from Arts Council England, National Lottery and private company sponsorship. It's not the Council wasting money they'd have spent elsewhere, it's a way of bringing in £12-14m of new funding to the city, that we simply wouldn't have had otherwise.
So how much is being taken from essential services - poor people - to pay for a year of middle calss people's arts events in total then? And lets remember that the 40% cut in council budgets is the result of austerity which actually is happening in order to protect middle class people (the electorates) housing and credit bubble. No doubt about it. A bubble these poorest people have not only not benefitted from personally, but have suffered more social exclusion as a result of it - all while being villified in the media since 08. We will reap what we sow - what is the value of investment if it is harming the city? There are plenty of peple now going without meals, going without decent education, going without heating while their essential services have been cut to pay for some arts events. There were those eight people served with asbos the other day, not doing the basics means there will only be more.
There's actually a 100 room hotel at the airport already and it's the same people that own it that are opening this Hilton franchise hotel(the existing hotel has 100 single rooms and caters for the off-shore industry).
Mostly for use by renewable industry workers, and company staff ( the hotel that is) I know Paul, but I'm not sure what the tourist plans are, most of the business seems to be related to offshore industries
i can't wait to skip down the revamped street past the dilapidated buildings either side . One thing i do hope for is the removal of all the ugly street furniture from daft signposts , bollards and safety barriers to lighting . we have to declutter the streets so we can see the buildings that havnt been bombed , demolished or razed to the ground by arseholes
The City of Culture looks likely to be something that gives back more than we put in. It should plant the seed, if not create a new, positive mind set about the City. With that environment, the return on the financial investment can be used on the very issues you raise, but in a more sustainable way.
Try and stick to the merits (or lack of in your eyes), of the City of Culture year, rather than getting too political, we have a no politics/no religion rule on here. Ta.
Decluttering is an on going process, that they're ramping up as it gets nearer the date. City centre managers already check to see if street furniture can be removed or made more more fitting.
I am happy to elaborate further. I hope anyone gets what I am on about with A game v. B v. C game. The other thing I think is that new fountains should be the result of economic activity, not the cause. What makes economic activity? All sorts of stuff, but at the foundation should be education, investment in people and the eradication of poverty - poverty always comes with socially excluding factors. It is crippling for this city. I know the idea of 'fake it until you make it' is common in our society these days (so give the city a facelift in the hope it will boost economic activity (it might to a degree, for some small period of time)), but that is focusing on the results rather than the process. Anyone that knows poker on anything like a serious level will know the danger of results orientated thinking - in simpler vernacular building fountains -a facelift - is putting the cart before the horse. It doesn't really matter except when the focus is on that, rather than the hard stuff that is being ignored, then that is a problem that will bite the city on it's arse. Good, relatively easy, headline grabbing stuff for councilors though.
I think the City of Culture bid is a bit more than a few fountains and a face lift. The money is fresh money for a variety of initiatives. None of those are specifically the ones you list. They're existing problems, being addressed in parallel, but that should benefit from the aditional income and exposure from the City of Culture. It really should create opportunities that people should embrace.
Sometimes you just have to enjoy something positive rather than looking past it to the negatives. The sun is shining, get some shorts on and have a bevvy, don't complain about the lack of appropriate shade areas.
City of culture or no city of culture, this revamp of the city centre is long overdue. Anyone who's walked through and around Vicky square must have noticed what a terrible state of repair it's in. It's knackered and not to mention horribly dated. So this isn't money being taken away from essential services. It's money that absolutely needs spending.
Spot on. If we didn't get this money, someone else would, and that would only increase the gap between us and them, but we'd still have to sort the same problems.
have asked various people repeatedly what it is actually costing the council - money that IS being taken from essential services. The addiction centre on spring bank closed for want of £40k - the only service doing anything to address amongst other things the ticking time bomb of alcoholism in the Polish community here. The same thing has happened all over the city. So I ask how much money it has cost, when the council's budget has been cut the way it has, but no one answers.
So what do you see as the benefit in turning down free cash and positive exposure and giving it to some other City?
Edited my previous post while you were writing your last post... Is it free cash? Like I say I ask how much it costs but no one answers. Also I think there is a huge cost if essentially incompetent councillors - they have had a long time (generations in fact) and failed when it comes to poverty, education etc (and it very much appears as thought he council is a closed shop) - are able to distract the public with a city of culture blag when they aren't doing the basics, the opportunity cost is huge. As I said though, nothing wrong with a few fountains!
