Albert Tatlock Posted August 16, 2009 Share Posted August 16, 2009 One already made they could use... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
triskelion Posted August 16, 2009 Share Posted August 16, 2009 Time we reclaimed the promenade and planning control and coordinated planning, put the trams on a single track and maybe even route them to a pedestrianised quayside, repaired the promenade road, and geared a large section of land on the south end of the promenade for redevelopment as an expanded town centre (perhaps with government supported compulsory purchase), and all with adeqate parking. Douglas (and Douglas Town Council) gets relatively little new money in (it's all from rates) and can only now prosper and develop the town and desired facilities from monies raised from new businesses and town commerce. People don't want new businesses and town commerce; they want to get everything at Tesco or off the internet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bellyup Posted August 16, 2009 Share Posted August 16, 2009 http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/Commentary-...m-of.5552613.jp Really do these committee's sit round and just have to have ideas for ideas sake. Can you imagine it? "Ladies and gentlemen if you care to breathe in now you will benefit from the wonderful shit smell from Douglas beach. This smell of shit has been carefully cultivated despite the £100m or so the Manx taxpayers have stumped up for IRIS. A little bit later we recommend that your kids might like to play with the turds on the beach. On your left you will find yet another faceless empty apartment block, followed by another faceless empty apartment block, just before we get to another faceless empty apartment block. If you look to your right now you will see a couple of Polish builders knocking seven bells out of each other in a bus stop, just before we get to the gaggle of drunken teenagers. At the end of your journey please don't forget to spend time looking at the post modernist bombsite that was once Summerland. Thank you please come again" I am surprised you all have the will to live........................... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Hedgehog Posted August 16, 2009 Share Posted August 16, 2009 They should get some talking horses like that one used to advertise the home of rest for old horses on energy fm. They would pack out the trams then Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Addie Posted August 16, 2009 Share Posted August 16, 2009 They should get some talking horses like that one used to advertise the home of rest for old horses on energy fm. They would pack out the trams then Or even get Mister Ed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VinnieK Posted August 16, 2009 Share Posted August 16, 2009 geared a large section of land on the south end of the promenade for redevelopment as an expanded town centre (perhaps with government supported compulsory purchase), and all with adeqate parking. Douglas (and Douglas Town Council) gets relatively little new money in (it's all from rates) and can only now prosper and develop the town and desired facilities from monies raised from new businesses and town commerce. It'd be nice to see Douglas' town centre expand out of the ravine like environment of Strand/Castle/Duke's street, and I especially like the idea of making more of the quay, but we have to be realistic and ask if there's the demand for it, and whether the existing properties in the area are suitable for for such development. An expansion of retail properties with some kind of rent control might lure in a few more small business, as some of the commercial leases in Douglas seem a bit expensive (anywhere between £40,000 to £60,000 for properties in the mall or Tower House, compared with £50,000 for a similar property over here in an historic Victorian arcade in a town with a vastly larger catchment area - one million county wide and roughly five million tourists annually), but is there the market for them? As for the properties themselves, unfortunately the old guesthouses on Loch promenade don't look like they're really suitable for any use but as guest houses or apartments. Some of the properties surrounding the quayside are better suited for expansion, but the majority of Douglas' town centre is hemmed in by town houses and faded relics of our former status as a seaside resort, limiting a lot of the possibilities for expansion and development. I do sometimes wonder if, in a sense, the tourist trade hasn't proven to be something of an albatross around our neck. Ignoring the benefits at the time, we have now found ourselves lumped with a run down sea front of redundant and generic sea side Victoriana (which, in my opinion, is actually a bit ugly) that we don't know what to do with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert Tatlock Posted August 16, 2009 Share Posted August 16, 2009 I do sometimes wonder if, in a sense, the tourist trade hasn't proven to be something of an albatross around our neck. Ignoring the benefits at the time, we have now found ourselves lumped with a run down sea front of redundant and generic sea side Victoriana (which, in my opinion, is actually a bit ugly) that we don't know what to do with. Well put. There is room for an enforced expansion towards the quay area (and on the other side of the quay) if we so wish. Much could have also been done around the old bus station site (and opposite) too. Facilities like a water park, cinema etc. (e.g. on the 'industrial' side of the quay), plus quite a few more shops and businesses etc. If we had more shops at less than the exorbitant rates restricted in Strand Street, and more facilities, as well as decent parking - I firmly believe people would use them. At present we seem to just be 'filling in any gaps' with apartments, and letting the rest get run down, and not supporting businesses in the town by making it as difficult to get there, and park conveniently, as we possibly can. We even employ an army of traffic wardens to make things even more difficult. It doesn't actually take rocket science to realise that there should be little need for many traffic wardens in a properly thought out town centre design (think about it!). I deeply suspect Douglas will be as run down as Ramsey is getting in 20 years. With the credit crunch, the impact of TIA's and placing too many of our eggs in one basket - I don't believe people are seeing that we are creating nothing much more than a mess for ourselves at the moment - which is especially sad considering the money that has up to now been available on the island. People like myself notice the downward spiral changes far more I suspect, i.e. those that have been away for prolonged periods, and frequently returned for short periods - all over a period of nearly 30 years. Few decision makers here even recognise it as a problem IMO, choosing to focus on dog poo and horse trams. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thesultanofsheight Posted August 16, 2009 Share Posted August 16, 2009 I deeply suspect Douglas will be as run down as Ramsey is getting in 20 years. With the credit crunch, the impact of TIA's and placing too many of our eggs in one basket - I don't believe people are seeing that we are creating nothing much more than a mess for ourselves at the moment - which is especially sad considering the money that has up to now been available on the island. I've long suspected that this is the corporations masterplan for Douglas (operation Ramsey). The truth is that they are not actually incompetent at all but part way through a 10 year plan to run Douglas into the ground so that their rich buddies and developer mates can buy even more distressed sites at ever lower prices so that they can stick up apartment blocks that they can rent or sell back to the DHSS or poor Manx workers so desperate for roofs over their heads that they will mortgage their lives away. You never guessed they were really that clever did you?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hagar the horrible Posted August 16, 2009 Share Posted August 16, 2009 Why don't the corpy instigate an inititive to provide some sort of entertainment en route for the horses to relieve their boredom? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VinnieK Posted August 16, 2009 Share Posted August 16, 2009 There is room for an enforced expansion towards the quay area (and on the other side of the quay) if we so wish. Much could have also been done around the old bus station site (and opposite) too. Facilities like a water park, cinema etc. (e.g. on the 'industrial' side of the quay), plus quite a few more shops and businesses etc. If we had more shops at less than the exorbitant rates restricted in Strand Street, and more facilities, as well as decent parking - I firmly believe people would use them. I'd welcome a reinvigorated Quayside and surrounding area (I'm loathe to use the word redeveloped, since this typically means gutting every last building and filling it with brand name tat), not least because it'd mean we finally had something approaching a town centre, lending Douglas a much needed focal point to replace the glorified backstreet that passes for one now. The only problem is that any such plan would be steered by the government, and I don't have much faith in their ability or will to steer such a project in a way that stands a chance of success or is sympathetic to small business and the surrounding area. I vaguely remember seeing some grand development plan being marketed when I was in my teens, with scale models and whatnot (Douglas 2000?), but so far all that seems to have happened is that we've built a wasteland on the old bus station site, a police station that looks like a balsa wood doll's house, some kind of public space on Loch promenade that looks like it desperately wants to be a car park, and the main shopping areas and promenade still looks like a run down dive filled with crap. Were such a plan to be commissioned, I suspect it would work out pretty much like this: Government: We want to reinvigorate the Quayside. Y'know, do something more than stick in some tacky railings and lighting that makes it look like a provincial nightclub, something to make it look right nice, like. Behemoth Retail & Development Incorporated: Can we have it? I mean, we have so much money that we must know what we're doing. It really is a phenomenal amount of cash, and you don't want to be handing the responsibility of making such a project a success to some penniless amateurs, do you? Government: Well, that's quite a convincing argument. I'm not sure though. We were kind of thinking of some heritagy, small businessy thing. And... and... it kind of makes my soul ache whenever you speak. Behemoth Retail & Development Incorporated: Oh! Oh, ok. That's cool. Small businesses are fine, if you're into that kind of thing. Stiiiiillll, we were kind of hoping on getting that development so we could expand our business, and the thing is, and by complete coincidence, they'd be in direct competition with us at the precise moment we were re-evaluating the future of our operations on the Island - what with the credit being crunched and the pennies being pinched. Government: Wait, what? You just said you had lots of money! Behemoth Retail & Development Incorporated: Everyone knows that money is relative. It's a subjective term, like love, dignity, or self respect. Anyway, to cut a long story short, if we were to miss out on such a juicy opportunity, we might have to drastically scale back our operations here. {Behemoth Retail & Development Incorporated Slaps the head of one of its lackeys who just burst out sniggering} Government: Oh noes! Don't do that! Oh god! Have it, have it all! I'm sorry! Just... I kind of already promised the proles that it would be something in keeping with the area and the Island's heritage. Behemoth Retail & Development Incorporated: Excellent. And don't you worry your pretty little head about the proles. We'll stick some fake half timber facade up, a legs of Mann motif here and there. Those uncouth dogs wont know the difference. Government: {quiet sobbing}. Three years later and the Quayside has been turned into a monstrosity of glass and steel, albeit with the odd decorative flourish in manx stone, selling exactly the same lines of shit every other shop in Douglas is filled with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheeky boy Posted August 16, 2009 Share Posted August 16, 2009 That's the best example of borough council mentality busy work I've seen in ages. The thing is it's self perpetuating: they impose naff recorded commentaries on the horse trams and then have to schedule an emergency committee meeting on why people now look bored and annoyed. A few more numbskull solutions to problems which never existed later, and they're looking into how to entice more people onto the horse trams after everyone, including the horses, refuses to go anywhere near them. And so on. Hand any town council a Rubick's cube, and they'd spend nine months discussing how to approach the problem, conclude that the best solution to the eponymous three-dimensional riddle is to paint every surface the same colour, and then triumphantly announce that they plan to launch the same strategy Island wide in an effort to combat conundrum induced fatigue (CIF) amongst children. Then, just for good measure, they'd commission a seven page pamphlet advising parents that such toys have corners and that children should only play with them whilst under constant parental supervision and wearing saftey goggles and thick mittens, the latter of which having been soaked in an antibacterial solution. All at great expense of time and money and to the benefit of no one except grumpy old bastards like me who like to moan about these things. God bless them. Well put, I am sick to death of being fleeced by way of rates to keep this bunch of clowns in business. Get all these local councils commisioners etc abolished and run their activities from central government Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluemonday Posted August 16, 2009 Share Posted August 16, 2009 Perhaps any commentary might include some artistic licence. 'And on your left is the gap where Muad'Dib, using the Family atomics at the height of a great coriolis storm, blew a hole in the Shield Wall that had protected Arrakeen since the dawn of time. This cleared the way into the city for the Fremen riding sandworms to defeat House Harkonnen and House Corrino forces, thus giving Paul Atreides victory and ascent to the Golden Lion Throne.' Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
La_Dolce_Vita Posted August 16, 2009 Share Posted August 16, 2009 How's about encouraging the passengers into a good old singalong?Cost nothing at all and would provide much entertainment (to us watching and listening that is). Here's a list of good old Sing-a-long options... Haha, that's hilarious. I can imagine the air filled with the singing by some old fogeys giving 'We'll Meet Again' a go. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vulgarian Posted August 17, 2009 Share Posted August 17, 2009 I don't know what people really expect from a horse drawn tram, or how people's faces supposed to look when riding them along Douglas promenade. Transfixed with wonder and excitement? There is plenty of history on the prom for those who are interested in it (not many), so an optional headphone guide or something is actually a very good idea. There's the tower of refuge and William Hillary and all that, internment, gaiety theatre, tourism history... thinking about it it would be difficult not to concentrate too heavily on the high period of tourism as most of the buildings and things of interest date from that time. Interesting but perhaps not what visitors want to hear. Anyway, it could be done so as not to lean too heavily toward that theme. Whoever suggested actual tour guides on the trams must be visiting us from the land where money grows on trees. The trams are already operating a heavy loss, and knowledgable and good guides are expensive. I agree with the comments about the uncoordinated planning and hideous architecture of Douglas seafront. It is especially apparent where a new building has been raised in place of an older twin, making a vain attempt to match it but ending up looking like thery ran out of money on the second one before they could put in any ornamentation or features and had to make do with concrete and steel. Of course, they've really been put up on the cheap. Say what you like about Victorian and Edwardian architecture, but they knew about things like proportion and ornamentation. I'm afraid some of the suggestions about 'reinvigoration' are not very firmly anchored in economic reality. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
La_Dolce_Vita Posted August 17, 2009 Share Posted August 17, 2009 Perhaps any commentary might include some artistic licence. 'And on your left is the gap where Muad'Dib, using the Family atomics at the height of a great coriolis storm, blew a hole in the Shield Wall that had protected Arrakeen since the dawn of time. This cleared the way into the city for the Fremen riding sandworms to defeat House Harkonnen and House Corrino forces, thus giving Paul Atreides victory and ascent to the Golden Lion Throne.' I'm not really up on my Manx history, where is Arrakeen? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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