Late Night Opening?

Recently, over the last couple of weeks we have had a couple of emails criticising us for not participating in ‘Late Night in Lyme’. It is utterly untrue! We really did our very best to participate! We sent someone down with a camera in the first week, but our cameraman called us at 5.15pm saying, ‘It’s freezing cold, raining , I’m soaked to the skin, there’s nobody here, and I’m going home!’. The next week, we came down ourselves, looked around a couple of shops, and again, found only emptiness and despair, the only sound being a disco, paid for by the council, churning out Christmas hits to an empty street.

It’s interesting because, way way back in 2008, we filmed a Late Night opening, as far as I remember it was organised by the Carnival Committtee, and the word filtered back to us afterwards was that it wasn’t a great success. I remember it, a lot of shops were open, and providing their own entertainment, at no cost to the town! You don’t believe me? Here is the short video we made:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIyqmVMucIY
My question is: The above event  was organised by the traders themselves, with the help of the Carnival Committee, at no cost to the council. So why is the council spending £2,000 of public money on supporting ‘Late Night in Lyme 2011’?.

I’m very happy to see the council supporting events that involve and benefit the whole town, including traders, but I think it’s positively nefarious that ‘Late Night Opening’ is supported by the council. It is a gross misappropriation of public funds,

And ok, I know you’re going to tell me that the shops in Lyme draw people here, and are vital to the economic success of Lyme Regis, but how true is this in Broad Street at Christmas? It isn’t true at all! Was this money given to a Traders organisation? If not, who sanctioned the money spent on advertising, on a logo design, and on a disco in Broad St? How many traders were likely to gain any benefit from this, because as far as I can see, the Cobb, and the lower end of Broad St, the top of Broad Street, and Silver Street, were in darkness. Seems clear that the only people likely to benefit were a handful of traders in the middle of Broad St!

These are difficult times, for everyone, not just Broad Street shops. Quite a lot of folks in Lyme could do with a small cash input at the moment, many people, young and old are hard at work trying to make ends meet at a time when jobs are scarce. How many local people are employed by this handful of Broad Street shops? How many of these shopkeepers actually live in Lyme?

Giving public funds to them is entirely nefarious and needs to be questioned.

Ask yourself this: How many shops are there in Lyme who can seriously and honestly say that they can promote Lyme by the selling of Christmas oriented products? I counted 9, and one of those is a owned by a councillor, interestingly enough, a councillor who is on the Tourism & Advertising Committee. I didn’t see any evidence that any of these shops were attempting to bring custom from outside the town boundaries, that is to say, the council is supporting them to bring local residents into the shops on 4 consecutive Friday nights. Or to put it another way, you, the ratepayer, is paying twice. You’re paying your council tax, and your council is giving your money to traders, to bring you into town on a Friday night to do what you can easily do in the day, which is, go shopping.

So here, is a short video of Late Night in Lyme 2011, supported by the council to the tune of 2 grand, it’s the best we could do, and while you’re viewing it, ponder on the idea that your money paid for it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRcejTTbqME

It’s also a fantasy, peddled by ‘Late Night in Lyme’, that only one shop didn’t stay open. Ask me, and I’ll give you a list of shops that didn’t stay open, plus the reasons they didn’t.

If you like, you can put this into the context of last weeks Full Council meeting, where the council refused to reduce your council tax against the advice of a long term experienced councillor. They would rather waste your money on shopkeepers.