Quite a showing in the public gallery tonight, most there to listen to the debate which was due to be brought up by James Airey (conservative SLDC, UTC.)
Geoff Dellow led the charge at the public for 15 minutes, brandishing a double sided sheet of A4 with various proposals of how we could save our TIC.
Phil Lister, our leader,mayor, had to inform Mr Dellow on a few points, especially the idea of raising money by an increase in the precept, which for you and me is the rates we all pay which is levied by the council. Anyway once we got into the agenda proper our leader brought forward the item to be introduced by Mr Airey on the TIC.
He was all in favour of us retaining the TIC and this was supported by a few councillors who decided to chip in. We suspended standing orders so that Paul Jarvis could speak on behalf of the Ulverston Community Partnership,he's the chairman of this town council quango. He laid out the progress that his committee had made, which seemed to suggest that it wasn't going to be easy to continue with the present provision but they were still exploring options. This is a euphemism for it's not going to happen, I thought.
I was the voice in the wilderness that asked the dumb question, what is the TIC for, what does it do. In the age of the internet, when people can find out where to stay and what to see via the net why do we need a building with staff to tell us stuff we can find out online. Nobody seemed to back me on this, and the debate wound up with some fluffy proposal that we would go with whatever the Ulverston community Partnership came up with, or their plan B. whatever that may be.
After the meeting finished I was approached by Janet Jenkinson who agreed with me that the TIC was all but redundant. Why she never joined me in the debate I don't know.
The thing is that I had a conversation with Colin Hodgeson about an entirely different matter, and in that conversation he said that he only used the net for email, he never used it for finding things out. So that's the problem in a nutshell, all the unconnected want the TIC, but the now generation recognise that it's much easier to get information on line, and as our councillors are a pretty out of touch bunch they were bound to side with the need for a physical TIC office. I don't know why Geoff Dellow wants a TIC, I think he is right about the website, that's the way to go, let's concentrate on that, it would be much more cost effective.
I myself think a Tourist Information Centre, in whatever form, is useful in any town that receives many visitors.
ReplyDeleteWe had visitors here from Australia two years ago. We offered to find accommodation in advance, especially as it would be the Lantern Procession weekend. But no, they said that everywhere they travelled over the UK they always went to the TIC to sort out what they required. When we go on our holidays we always go to the TIC to see what's on in the area, as well as to buy maps. There we often find people queuing to get accommodation fixed up. We also use the local TIC to look for info of various kinds.
Of course, the local B&Bs hotels, pubs and businesses generally could find a central place (table in the Market Hall?) and take turns to man it — that is, if it needed manning. After all, information on boards or in leaflets can list what's available etc. and give web sites to search.