STABBED IN THE BACK

The County Council are proposing to build offices for 600 of its existing staff in the very centre of Colwyn Bay. They say that by using the Regeneration Grant to build these offices they will be creating jobs, bringing in trade and connected industry and supplying future employment for the people of Colwyn Bay.
When the WAG buildings were built in Princes Drive we were told the exact same story, we were told how great and good it would be for the town, how it would bring in trade and industry and supply us with future employment.
In reality the WAG building is a complete failure; no trade or industry has built up along side of it, no jobs were created, in fact it’s half empty, no local people or the town have benefited from its existence but what it did bring was traffic and parking chaos to its surrounding area.
The County Council offices will be exactly the same; they will not bring in any jobs, the Council are simply relocating their existing staff, trade and industry used by the Council is already here in whatever location it currently is. Any future employment due to staff leaving or retiring will not automatically go to Colwyn Bay people it will go to the best qualified candidate, wherever they are from. It will also create the same traffic problems but on a grander scale, 600 staff driving into and parking in Colwyn Bay will be sheer chaos. The Council are talking about knocking houses down to make car parks, how ridiculous; we need people to live in the centre of town to sustain it and the traders.
The headline “300 extra shoppers every day” in the Weekly News is also a fallacy; most people do their weekly shop at the week-end and they shop by habit, if they always used one store like Tesco’s then they will continue to do so. Nobody will nip-out at lunch time do the weekly shop and then carry it all the way to wherever they parked their car and leave it in the boot to defrost. Even the cafes and sandwich bars will miss out because they are planning a subsidised canteen for the staff.
All-in-all the Council is misleading us with falsehoods and inaccuracies. They have, at least, four committees, sub-committees or groups who have been working on this project since March of this year, they deny they have pushed this through in secrecy yet refused to answer, when questioned, what their intentions were. It was only after a report in the Pioneer and a meeting with the Town Council that they have come out publically and stated what those intentions are. They have now agreed to Public Consultation on the matter, shame they didn’t consider that avenue some 6 months ago. Will they also match the funding of these consultations to those that are opposed to these proposals, will they allow the democratic process of argument to be heard equally as loud? We will have to wait and see.
What I do know is that by using our Regeneration Grant to build their offices the County Council will make millions of pounds selling off the land and buildings that they currently occupy. This money is already ear-marked to go back into Council coffers to make-up the short-fall of WAG Council Funding that is expected over the next few years.
Other proposals on how to regenerate the town have been put forward, I myself have put forward two suggestions, but they have not been given an airing, in my opinion, the Council have already decided to use the Regeneration Grant to their benefit and not necessary that of the Town.
The people of Colwyn Bay and its communities have lost faith and pride in the Town, restoration of that pride is crucial. The Council need to tackle the issues of half-way houses, drug/alcohol rehabilitation centres and the problem of rogue-landlords. We need the town to be made clean and welcoming, an attraction that draws people and traders back into town would be a Godsend. This Regeneration Grant is the last chance this town has of making a come back, by their selfish and contemptible proposals the County Council are stabbing the people of Colwyn Bay in the back.