Dartmouth Park Restoration

Earlier this year (2010) I published the first photograph above as the stairway seemed to be in imminent danger.

It wasn't clear to me whether this rather grand stairway (can I call it that?) was about to be 'restored' or just knocked down. Who knows what the original looked like that Sandwell are so keen to spend its £6.5 million on 'restoring.'

Well, it's abundantly clear now, 6 months on, which of those two it was.

I am glad that I have that photograph because I think there is something very dignified about the construction - somehow graceful and peaceful. Straight up and down -- no frills -- but the right width for its height and a proportionate size overall to its context.

Altogether a very pleasing stairway, and one which I should think has stood the test of quite a long time.

It certainly took some demolishing.

That photograph was taken in April, 2010, and it has taken 6 months on and off, for Sandwell to destroy it. I say 'on and off' because, days, sometimes weeks, passed by without anybody seemingly doing anything in the furtherence of its demolition.

It was made of strong stuff, by close descendants of the Romans I shouldn't wonder, but it eventually capitulated to a mechanical breaker which seemed to be the only way, short of an atom bomb, that its foundations were going to be removed.

So farewell to this splendid piece of architecture - such a pity that the 'restoration' doesn't call for a stairway there.

But wait!!!

What is that that I see barely 3 yards from the foot of this once great edifice?

Surely it can't be.

No. Not even Sandwell could do what I trying not to think. OK OK I know it's not Sandwell's money they're spending (good old lottery) but evenso, didn't they hear that the UK has been in the financial doldrums for a couple of years now? Didn't they hear that we all are having to tighten our belts? Don't they know that all government departments and local authorities are supposed to be cutting out wasteful activities and unnecessary expenditure?

Can it really be that Sandwell has destroyed a perfectly usable and entirely aesthetic stairway, at no doubt considerable expense, only to build another one THREE YARDS away from it???????????

I really hope that I am wrong.

I hope it turns out to be a waterfall or kiddies slide or something.

If it doesn't, and if Sandwell really have indulged themselves in a wicked and ridiculous orgy of expense by destroying one stairway and building another right next to it, then when Mr Cameron rewrites the parliamentary electoral boundaries, maybe he can wipe Sandwell MDC off the face of the map as well.

By the way, when I wrote earlier this year about the massive trees that Sandwell had felled as part of the Dartmouth Park 'restoration,' I was unable even to speculate on the reasoning behind such civic vandalism. However, during my summer recess I happened to engage in conversation with a 'well placed source' at Sandwell, and he said he was amazed when he saw the size of some of the trees that had been axed. He said that he asked the person in charge why such huge trees were being cut down and he was informed, much to his amusement (but not mine) that they were being cut down because 'they were in the wrong place.' !!

I ask you - how could trees, which had (note the tense) probably been there several times longer than the park itself, possibly be in the wrong place?

Could it not have been, as an alternative to cutting down trees which are hundreds of years old, that the Sandwell experts move their pencil line on the plan, of whatever it is, by half an inch?

No. Of course not.

Bear in mind that they have £6.5 million to spend on something, and there's precious little to show for it so far considering that they have been at it since early 2010.

They've knocked a wall down and rebuilt it a few feet away from where it was; they've repointed most of the rest; destroyed a fine stairway and nearly built something next to it, and chopped down a number of mature and very mature trees.

That's probably taken care of £0.5 million.

I wonder what Sandwell is going to spend the other £6 million on?

And when?

...........shades of The Public all over again............

Maybe this is Sandwell's contribution to the 2012 Olympic Games, although they'll have to get a move on if they are going to complete less than 2 years.