Ian Jelf Public Walks: Bournville

Do you fancy joining me for a walking tour of the fascinating Birmingham suburb of Bournville this Saturday (24 March 2012)?

There's a lot more to the area than a visit to the Cadbury World attraction, you know.   This was probably the world's first planned "Garden Village", established in the 1890s to liberate workers from slum housing and allowing them to live in green landscaped with fresh air, quality housing and excellent social facilities.

The walk shows us how the village has experimented with housing styles, relieved unemployment, dealt with heritage, religion and the problems of alcohol and much more besides.

The walk starts in front of Lloyds TSB which is on Sycamore Road, very close to Bournville Village Green.   Bournville Station is about a 10 minute walk away and Outer Circle 11 buses stop nearby.   It lasts about two hours and ends back nearby.   The cost is £8 per person and you can pay on the day.   You do need to book in advance, though;  just send me an e-mail to ian@bluebadge.co.uk .

It's a great walk and at a lovely time of year to see the place.   I hope you can join me.

Tropicana: Decision Day

While out today, I learned of the decision of North Somerset Council to press ahead with the demolition of the Weston-super-Mare’s old Open Air Swimming Pool, latterly the Tropicana.

This is a subject I’ve been writing and blogging about quite intensely recently, in the apparently vain hope that the structure would have a last-minute reprieve. Well, that hasn’t happened and now it looks as though the place will be demolished.

This is very sad, although today’s events in Liege have rather put subjects like built heritage into perspective. It’s sad and regrettable. It’s not a tragedy.

Even now – eternal optimist that I am – I hope that it won’t happen and that sense will prevail. This is undoubtedly not likely but I won’t give up hope until the demolition gangs move in and the concrete ball swings.

Weston Tropicana Website

A minor development on the Weston-super-Mare Tropicana story. All is not (yet) lost and there is a glimmer of hope.

Perhaps you'd do me the service of just taking s look at this site (and even of signing the petition, although I'm of the view that it will require a lot more than that to make a difference)?

http://www.tropicanawestonsupermare.co.uk/default.aspx

Many thanks.

Help: Structural Engineer Needed!

An odd request but using all avenues open to us.......

I need to help find a structural engineer, preferably in the West of England but not essential if there's one elsewhere. (This is tied up with efforts to save the former Open Air Pool - "The Tropicana" - in Weston-s-Mare.)

If you can help or know anyone who can, e-mail me at ian@bluebadge.co.uk and I'll pass on details as necessary.

Thank you.

Mixed News in Weston

Nothing like ups and downs, is there?

I began today reading this article:

http://www.thewestonmercury.co.uk/news/town_s_seafront_works_pick_up_award_1_1138720

explaining that the new sea front works in Weston-s-Mare had been given an award. Good. Much needed work and a much deserved award. Makes the town appear to be on the up. All very positive.

Then, this afternoon comes this:

http://www.thewestonmercury.co.uk/news/breaking_news_tropicana_set_for_demolition_1_1139246

For those of you that don't know, the Tropicana was for a few years the name for what had for years been called simply "the bathing pool". This was Weston's vast open air swimming pool (able to accommodate 1,500 bathers at a time), venue for diving displays, beauty pageants (a young Diana Dors came third in a beauty contest here!) and a valuable swimming resource in a resort where the sea can sometimes be a bit far off.

In the eighties it was redeveloped, losing the iconic art deco diving board but gaining a wave machine and some giant fruits down which one could slide into the pool. (It was better than I'm making it sound, honestly!)

Then.......it was closed down. We were told that it was too expensive to run, that it wasn't suited to the British climate (only being able to open for part of the year), although how that differed from the previous sixty years seemed to be a moot point.

Schemes to redevelop the pool came and went but always seemed to involve Something Else: an hotel, a bowling alley, a car park encroaching on the Beach Lawns opposite.

And since the last of those schemes fell through, the place has effectively lain derelict, used to store materials for the seafront enhancement, an ignominious fate for so fine a structure.

All the time, anyone with any sense sense (and there are plenty of those, believe me) has been saying that the answer is a remarkably simple one. Restore it as a pool, with a retractable roof, so that it could be used all year. It's in a good, accessible location and the town's only other swimming pool is well inland, on the edge of a suburban housing estate at Hutton Moor. The Tropicana site is ideal as a pool. To use modern parlance it's a no-brainer.

I've become steadily more concerned by the apparent inability of the local council to understand that any pool scheme here needs to be simple to be affordable. But somehow, I always thought that the pool would, eventually come back. So today's news that demolition is likely has come as something of a bombshell.

If these people allow (nay, cause) the loss of this facility, this monument, they will earn the enmity of all who truly love Weston-s-Mare. I for one will not forgive them. And I shall not be alone.

Ever Forward

On 28 July 2008 the historic pavilion of the Grand Pier at Weston-super-Mare was destroyed in a spectacular fire that made headlines around the world.

The following day on Facebook I wrote:

“If……. they do a good restoration job, it could be in the long run a good thing, raising the profile of [Weston] and allowing it to be better than ever.”

Well, skip forward just over 800 days…….and here we are. After a remarkably quick rebuild (and despite some delays), on Saturday 23 October 2010 Louise and I were lucky enough to be present for the re-opening of the new Grand Pier.

With a new pavilion designed by the Bristol architectural practice of Angus Meek, the Pier is back bigger and arguably better than ever. Yes, I miss the design of the original and part of me wishes that it had been rebuilt as a replica, a la St Kilda, Victoria. However, the new building is considerably larger (same footprint but taller), so there’s more inside, not just rides but bars, restaurants, conference facilities, even marriage rooms! This all makes the Pier a bigger attraction. And – significantly – that makes Weston itself a bigger attraction.

The English seaside has been through some difficult years but is not-so-slowly reinventing itself these days. Even before the era of recession, staycations (ugh!) and carbon footprints, people were re-discovering their “home” seaside. Weston in some ways was poorly-placed to attract “specialist” tourism (as the Isle of Man does with transport and motorcycle racing, Padstow with gastronomy or Southwold with simplicity and nostalgia). But Weston does have some significant things going for it.

• It has a splendid beach with firm sands. The famously receding tide frankly means there’s lots of space for everyone! And it’s a lot nicer than Bondi, believe me.

• It’s not that far away from major centres of population (day trips from Bristol, the West Midlands and South Wales are easy).

• Lying in the shadow of wooded Worlebury Hill, with sublime stone terraces tumbling down towards the bay Weston has a truly magnificent setting. Its only real rival in that department is Torquay (and that’s spoiled a little by too many post-war apartment blocks nowadays).

• And the Grand Pier rebuild is just one of a series of improvements. The need for flood defences (that sea does come in!) has been seized to create a much improved new Promenade which is almost finished. The traffic-choked junction opposite the Grand Pier itself is also being transformed, into a new “Pier Square” which will improve the setting no end.

There is a “buzz” in the town at the moment caused by the amount of inward investment.

Yes, there are some “bits” to deal with. The buildings of the central sea front aren’t yet a credit to the town. The Northern end of the Promenade needs some tidying up, especially now that the Royal Pier Hotel is no more and that could go hand-in-hand with the restoration of the “other” Pier, at Birnbeck. And don’t get me started on the Tropicana (the former Open Air Swimming Pool whose fate is easily Weston’s biggest shame).

But the town is on the up. The motto on its coat of arms (borrowed from Birmingham!) is “Ever Forward”. Seldom has it been more appropriate.