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Heartlands? Horrorlands more like – a huge waste of Big Lottery money

Thursday, February 27, 2014

West Briton

HEARTLANDS should have been called Horrorlands: the £37 million, 19-acre cultural site looks as if it was designed by the same group of laymen who later designed Chiverton, Avers and Trafalgar roundabouts.

This 'free' misaligned assortment of allurements including an adventure playground, World Heritage exhibition centre, art and craft studios, gardens and café attracted 285,000 visitors in its inaugural year, a magnificent 50,000 more than its initial target but how many of these wanted to return?

How many of the thousands of families visiting its outstanding playground bother to trek over to the café or shops? In fact, after being tricked into having to pay for the car park, how many can afford to pay the prices in these shops?

Heartlands is already a ghost town yet, as with any attraction partly EU funded, continues to win prestigious awards including best family attraction; café and tearoom of the year and sustainable tourism.

We now have Linden Homes building houses whose front doors open onto the A3047's kerb stones, how much of the Lottery grant did they receive?

It is an absolute disgrace that a £22 million Big Lottery grant and £15 million of other grants should have been allowed to be wasted like this when a well-thought-out playground, free car park and toilets could probably have been built for £5 million leaving the other £30 million to entice manufacturing jobs for local people.

Derek Elliott

Angarrack