LETTERSFrom W. P. Elems, Ryde:
I WOULD like to comment on the demise of the Ryde Gateway Project as featured last week (CP, 05-03-10).
Distracted by the withdrawal of the £1.5m funding from our own pockets (ie council taxpayers), maybe we should be asking how this whole scheme was ever allowed to swallow so much of our money over the last seven years in consultants, surveys and the like in the first place.
What have we to show for the thousands of pounds already spent? An interchange looking a complete shambles, a disgrace. Who allowed this to happen?
Maybe we should forget a witch-hunt and wringing of hands and look forward and not back.
Firstly how much better to re-direct £1.5m towards helping the most vulnerable on our Island, the Supporting People budget.
Anyway this money was only ever a sprat to catch a mackerel in government funding that has now also gone.
So, what do we do now at the last minute and with the season upon us, yet again! Let’s be practical, this time, something quick and cheap. Ideas?
How about some large posters of the colourful Mardi-Gras dancers and others at last year’s carnival displayed along the abandoned platform at Ryde station, maybe an old handcart brightly painted and loaded with old trunks and leather suitcases?
Elsewhere, maybe evoke Edwardian/Victorian era feel with some replica olde-worlde enamel signs (Bournville Cocoa, Ahhh, Bisto etc.) and a 'period’ lick of paint all round. I understand Network Rail is willing to help.
Let’s involve voluntary groups, conservation agencies, job-seekers and students to help. A cheap, quick 'make-over’ is all we need, not £1.5 million.