SKIPP Press release (18-10-17) Wasting millions again
So the cat’s out of the bag, Southend Council are to waste millions more of tax payer’s money in a vain attempt to rehash their long dead plan to devastate our sea front with a huge carbuncle that no one wants or will visit.
They have announced that they have employed yet another architect to design the dead donkey £80m plus cliff museum. Why the redesign? Well that’s simple, the planning permission for the original plan that cost our town millions in the first place, has now run out because no one in power or with money can be found to fund it despite all the council’s efforts
So here we go again, our social services are being cut, our roads are devolving into potholed farm tracks, our schools are crying out for money, but the Council has found millions to try an prop up their favourite vanity project. Well if we look at it from their point of view, it’s better to waste huge wads of cash rather than admit to the people they were wrong.
For 14 years our town’s greatest historic asset, the burial treasures of King Saebert has remained buried under council stupidity and arrogance, hidden away from the public and the millions of visitors that could already be coming to see them. For ten years the same stupidity has prevented them from even considering any other proposal, let alone SKIPP’s cost effective and highly popular proposal for a Saxon Great Hall Museum and educational experience on the brown field land in Priory Park just a few hundred feet from the burial site on Priory Crescent. This could have been earning the town serious money for all these years.
Let us hope that when the planning application comes up for consideration next year those councillors who sit on the Development and Control Committee have the guts to listen to the people and stand up to the Cabinet by refusing the planning permission and finally dropping the dead donkey.
The SKIPP Committee
Patsy Link
Sheena Walker
Mark Sharp
Would it not be sensible to find out what is still retrievable from the London Wreck, and how much space it will need before committing money to design and building something which may turn out to be unsuitable?
SKIPP press release (30-03-21) Come on Southend Council
It is with dismay that we read about Ron Woodley’s idea of the Saxon King treasures being housed in the Royals Shopping Centre as the conventional display as it is now in Southend Museum. It has not attracted great crowds or much enthusiasm from the public there and neither will it in the Royals.
The days of conventional glass cabinets are over. Now more than ever we need an enterprise which will make money for the town. We have met with members of the council and given them a business case over a year ago that shows without question that interactive experiences do bring in crowds and make by far the most money. The Jorvic Viking Centre in York is a prime example and we could have that too!
It is vitally important to have the link to the place of the burial itself. Sutton Hoo is the prime example of this. Coupled with an "authentic" Saxon Hall and village, people could step back in time like at Kentwell Hall and experience the lives of Saxon people and take part in activities while seeing the treasures in the secure Saxon Great Hall. We even have the perfect place in Priory Park which is a brownfield site and would take no parkland.
Come on Southend Council. We can have the Jorvic Centre, Sutton Hoo and Kentwell Hall rolled into one! If you're going to spend money then do it with a project which will make money not a complete loss which another dreary museum will certainly be.
The SKIPP Committee
Patsy Link
Sheena Walker
Mark Sharp
2 we have been in lockdown and the museum closed so how can there be much interest at present.
A vital and much loved...
