There’s one at almost every ‘junction’ point down the high street, and near the new Victoria Circus development.
Not only do they pick out the stations, university, courts, bus stops and other points of interest, they have sprouted direction-pointers at the top with the estimated walking time to each of these.
It’s all part of the SSHAPE High Street Enhancement scheme apparently, as a plaque set up where the (non-working) Millennium Clock used to be tells us.
However, if Southend Council wanted to ‘enhance’ the high street, putting up street furniture like this (in an age of smartphones and voice-activated GPS mapping) seems a little pointless.
Surely a far better idea would be to stop issuing temporary occupation licenses for high street shops like Boots (moved into the vast over-half-empty white elephant of the Victoria Circus shopping mall) to be turned into purveyors of cheap tat?
Or preventing the opening of yet another 99p shop?
Or ensuring that the beggars, drunks and mentally ill from the nearby estates are kept away?
If you want the high street to welcome shoppers, they have to have a reason to go there and the fact that you can’t walk 50 yards without a bit of street furniture to tell you exactly where things are and how long it’ll take to get there just doesn’t cut the mustard…
7 comments:
Name me any town centre, any, and I can double the number of visitors within a month.
How....?
Remove all the onstreet parking restrictions and make the car parks free. You've got to wonder why no town is doing this. Surely, in these difficult times with shops/restaurants closing faster than they open, any town would kill for a little town centre traffic congestion right now?
Because of the stupid way councils get money car parking charges are one of the few ways that councils have total control over and so one of the few ways of making extra money.The fact that the councillors and officials can't see that it's counter productive is because the are stupid too. If councils knew anything about business they would realize that cutting waste kids the first thing to do - getting rid of wasteful management and diversity and climate change officials would be one of the first steps.
"getting rid of wasteful management and diversity and climate change officials would be one of the first steps."
"Name me any town centre, any, and I can double the number of visitors within a month."
Yes, the public execution of diversity officers and sundry useless council personnel would attract many curious visitors.
One of the offspring lives in a city liberally adorned with these signs, and reports that he is often asked for directions by tourists whose view of the landmark they have supposedly reached is effectively obscured by the signposts.
What's the point? Given that only old people, spastics and drug addicts use public transport these days.
What's the point? Given that only old people, spastics and drug addicts use public transport these days.
"Remove all the onstreet parking restrictions and make the car parks free."
Ah, but as SBML points out, while it generates revenue, they are unlikely to consider it.
"Yes, the public execution of diversity officers and sundry useless council personnel would attract many curious visitors."
I'd set up a popcorn concession!
"... and reports that he is often asked for directions by tourists whose view of the landmark they have supposedly reached is effectively obscured by the signposts."
Oddly enough, a day or two after I took those photos, I was stopped for directions on my way into work AND on the way home!
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