Tunbridge Wells Regeneration Company hits the buffers.

It comes as no surprise that the regeneration company is to be dissolved.

See: http://www2.tunbridgewells.gov.uk/default.aspx?page=4998

The writing was on the wall from the moment Roy Bullock was ousted as Leader of Tunbridge Wells Borough Council and  re-development of the civic centre put into deep freeze.

The Aspic Brigade will be delighted no doubt  by the news, but in the future where will the impetus for re-development come from?  One can have little confidence that the politicians running the borough  will be up to the task ahead. A recent press report quoted one retailer as stating that the town was dying.  Many town centres are facing retail problems with the expansion of out-of-town and Internet shopping. What is being done to bring other attractions to the town?

There has been talk of Royal Tunbridge Wells becoming the cultural centre for West Kent and part of East Sussex .  However, that is all it is: talk.   Where are the plans for a new theatre/ concert/conference venue along the lines of the new Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury?  The Aspic Brigade believes modifications to the Assembly Hall will do. They won't.  The museum needs a larger building and should seek to become the Museum of Kent to attract visitors.

It is no use the Council developing a 'cultural vision' without something to back it up.

Meanwhile, the Odeon cinema site, slap bang in the middle of the town, has been an eyesore for 12 years, a monument to inaction.

Major opportunities have been lost.  The former railway goods yard has been given over to blocks of flats whilst the former hospital site is to be developed for housing.  Each site could have been developed in a much more imaginative way, but then, if you elect dullards do not expect vision and action.

Royal Tunbridge Wells is becoming a monument to political mediocrity.