Development/Destruction?

Yes, it’s me again, back for another vicious grumble after a prolonged silence, a silence sadly not attributable to the sudden rightness of everything in our delightful town but due entirely to the feebleness of the puny string of internet cable/cotton that connects these far-flung parts to the outside world: it broke. Or something. I hear things work better in Sodom. It’s warmer, too, and easier to fix.

So anyway … what’s wrong now?

I’ll tell you what: the South West Quadrant development / destruction, that’s what.

Some ideas hang around because they’re good … I can’t think of an example right now apart from battered Mars bars, but you know what I mean. Hopefully. Other ideas are not good but they hang around anyway because someone somewhere doesn’t want to give them up. I’m getting the feeling that the South West Quadrant idea might fall into the second category. Despite vehement protest against this lunacy, the notion that one of the more interesting and useful areas of Bridport would be better after a savage and totally unnecessary make-over is with us still. Er … why?

Bridport University

Another thing I heard: Bridport could become a University town. Yes! We could be an annexe to Bournemouth or Bristol or anywhere really … Bratislava, maybe … with lots of keen, clean-living students staying studiously in purpose built accommodation, busily availing themselves of all the wonderful courses on offer at … um …

So it kind of smells like the people responsible for the SW Quadrant idea might be the same people who thought up the University idea. They smack of the same brain to me, the same logic: if it ain’t broke, fix it anyway. And what motivates them, I wonder … altruism? Civic pride? Money, by any chance?

Quadrant or Parallelarhomboid?

The last time I had a little rant on this subject I was soundly chastised by a fellow citizen because I’d omitted to check out the proposed plans (which could be inspired, he said) currently buried under the floor in the basement of an annexe to the Bridport town council buildings at an undisclosed location in Bratislava. I was supposed to see how good/bad the plans were before passing judgement. Well, I never do any research so poo to that idea but this very same citizen was to be found in the pub recently, complaining about … yes, the rubbish plans for the South West Quadrant. He’d been to have a look, presumably spurred on by my sloppy attitude. And who thought that one up anyway? I’ve lived in this town for years and I’ve never encountered any quadrants. I think it’s just another evil ploy to throw the rebellious populace off the development scent. It makes it all sound like it’s happening somewhere else, a square place, for example.

Bridport is not square. It’s messy and funny and full of lunatics and if it needs re-launching, let’s market it as an interesting study venue for anthropologists hoping to complete their convoluted theses on bizarre human behaviour. We’d excel at that, and we wouldn’t need to change a thing.

Arlo Flinn, Writer of Wrongs