Arts centre or bowling alley?

Published on 27th September 2007 in Letters

Sir - For the last two years, I and others have been highly critical of the proposed Arts Centre project, and now it appears that Goole Town Council's chickens are coming home to roost. We are told that Yorkshire Forward will not even look at the bid until an environmental assessment has been completed and graded as 'excellent'.

This assessment has now been done and fallen short of the required standard. Goole Town Council says that, recently, it has discovered that it isn't possible to achieve an excellent status on a refurbished building. Having worked on similar projects I knew this - why didn't they say? Where does this leave the project now? Most importantly, how much have they spent so far?

Don't forget that the people of Goole were not asked whether they wanted an Arts Centre. Quite frankly, I'm sick of Goole Town Council pandering to a tiny minority of arty-farty Bamber Gascoigne types, whilst ignoring the wishes of the rest of us. Local surveys repeatedly show that the most popular additions to our town would be a skating rink, or a bowling alley.

As a pupil at Goole Grammar School, our motto was Alta Pete (Aim High) - and that's what we should be doing by bringing these types of facilities to Goole. Other towns have them, so why shouldn't we?

In contrast, by trying to turn a tin shed into a swanky arts venue, Goole Town Council have shown that their motto isn't Aim High - more like 'Aimless'!

Paul Thompson

Lime Tree Avenue,

Goole