Congratulations must go to Littlehampton Town Council for their imaginative view on how to treat vistors coming to Littlehampton for this half term.

The 3 step approach is as follows:

1. Woe your would-be visitor to Littlehampton by spending copious amounts of money in glossy brochures promsing all sorts.

2. Once the visitor is hooked, charge them excessive car parking fees. (Car Parking Fees in Littlehampton are more expensive than Chichester and Worthing)

3. Once they've paid the said fees (although to be fair to the Town Council the fees go to Arun District Council), then allow them to dump in the sand dunes, because the toilets will remain shut because it's council policy not to open them until April.

When I phoned the Town Council to voice my concern that the West Beach toilets remained closed during this half Term, I had expected to be told there was a problem with the water works, or the man who normally opens them had fallen ill and owing to health and safety no one else on the planet could possibly open them until they had served at least 35 years service, and attended courses and being fully risk assessed and so on...

But no, I was told - They're shut because it's not yet April.

Oh well, that answers that one then.

- But why are they shut given the sun is shining and the car park is full of cars and visitors to the beach are literally in their hundreds?

- We don't open the toilets during the winter as it's our policy. They'll open as they always do from April onwards.

- What about Easter? I said.

- What about it?

- Will the toilets be open for Easter bearing in mind Easter falls this year in March?

No answer to that one. Although since my telephone call and email to the council they have kindly agreed to meet with me early March so we can discuss my 'issues.'

My point is this - as a local business owner we spend a considerable amount of money marketing Littlehampton as the place to come to. Our spend is in excess of £800 per month. Not huge perhaps, but in my view large enough to get angry about.

Then when visitors do come to our town, they're faced with narrow-minded petty, cost-saving mechanisms that only demonsrate the lack of imagination and foresight of those in charge of the town.

Here's the message again - We need visitors.

We need them in big numbers if this town is to see any hope of a recovery.

If you want to save money, get rid of your fancy brochures and spin and start providing the basic facilities that any reasonable, normal person would expect when they visit the seaside - ie, a toilet.

Paul

Is volunteering always a good idea?

This week’s Littlehampton Gazette includes an appeal for volunteers to join an existing group who help clean and plant the gardens at Littlehampton’s Mewsbrook Park.

Good on them, I say.

But hey wait a minute, why if the park’s are being planted and cleaned by volunteers, ie, local residents, should we be paying council contractors to do the same job?

For example, one of the businesses I was involved in was surrounded by a public area, which the council’s contractors were contracted to clean.

During the busy summer months when we’d open up in the mornings, the public area wouldn’t have been cleaned.

So armed with litter-pickers and black bin liners, we’d clean the area.

When time allowed, I’d phone Arun District Council’s Parks Department to complain that the bins had not been emptied and the litter picking undertaken.

I’d get the same stock response apology and a promise the matter be looked into.

Next day would bring the same story. Nothing cleaned. So we’d step in again and do the cleaning ourselves.

On one occasion, we stacked the bin liners full of the rubbish we’d collected from the public area and sat them next to the council’s bin so that at least those paid to collect the rubbish would at least take it away.

How naive I was!

We received a rather irate telephone call from the Parks Department telling us that we in breach of our agreements with the council by leaving our rubbish stacked up in bin liners beside council bins.

When I pointed out that it wasn’t our rubbish, but ‘public rubbish,’ for want of a better word, it didn’t matter.

Rules were rules and if rubbish was to be left for council contractor’s to remove, it had to be in council-provided bin liners.

The fact that the council’s contractors were failing in their duties to collect the said rubbish, was neither here nor there.

So we stopped collecting rubbish. Soon after letters began to appear in the Littlehampton Gazette about the state of rubbish building up around our business.

As clearly this reflected badly on our operation, we re-instated our rubbish collecting service and in essence ended up operating a free rubbish collection service for the council.

We recently called it a day and gave back the facility to the council and I can only wish the new operators well and hope they get the support we never did.

But let’s return to my original question – is volunteering a good idea?

Whilst not wishing to take away the good work done by the volunteers at MewsBrook Park, why is it necessary they do so in the first place?

Is it, as in my experiences of running a public facility that the council-appointed, local rate-payer paid contractors are failing to do what they’re being paid to do?

Or is it that the volunteers are doing over and above what could be reasonably expected of the council and their contractors?

Why not simply hand the running of Mewsbrook Park over to local volunteers and dispense entirely with paid contractors.

Imagine the savings?

Imagine how more beautiful and imaginative the planting arrangements would become?

Why bother with Arun District Council at all then?

An unfortunate side-effect with well-meaning volunteering can be that you end up with a worse service than you should, because those paid to do the job rely increasingly on the goodwill of others.

Another example.

Take a charity that is close to my heart, MacMillan Cancer Support.

We have ongoing fund-raising campaigns for this much-needed, much-loved charity that brings practical support to so many who’d otherwise have no one to turn to.

But, and here’s the but!

MacMillan offer a number of small grants to those who need help with all sorts of practical things like purchasing food processors so patients can make food more digestible and so on.

All good stuff and I don’t think anyone would criticise Mac Millan for making these grants.

But how about car parking?

You see, if you’re unlucky enough to fall victim to cancer, expect to be fleeced by the National Health Service.

That’s right. Fleeced.

No other word for it. Either when you, or your family/carer/friend turn up for regular treatments you’ll have to pay to park at the hospital. And such parking fees don’t come cheap.

So on top of all the financial problems that illness bring about, there’s the nasty, unforeseen ones such as car parking charges at hospitals.

If you cannot pay them, or having difficulty paying them, do you think the Health Service could care less?

Of course they couldn’t. Their budgets are already busy at work paying for final salary packages for failed Health Chief bosses. If you don’t believe me, look no further to the Health Chief in Kent who despite running the most appallingly dirty services, still managed to get a golden handshake of somewhere near a million when being paid off to go.

Back to car parking fees – MacMillan will help you with your fees.

Again I’ve no objection to MacMillan helping people in this way, but why should they have to?

Consider for a moment, please that if like me you’ve sweated and laboured to raise funds for your favourite charity only to see those funds swallowed up to pay for something, which should be free in the first place.

To put it simply, MacMillan Cancer Support or other charities shouldn’t have to pay subsidies to patients who then have to pay this money to the very people, ie, The National Health Service who claim they are providing us with a free, state-funded service.

Why not simply allow patients free car parking in hospitals?

Imagine for a moment how much more money would then be available to MacMillan to provide more support for their patients?

The problem with all this volunteering for public services is there's a very real danger that our goodwill and efforts are being used to subsidise poorly run, inefficient public services.

So the day I would consider litter picking MewsBrook Park or anywhere other Arun District Council run park, is the day I’m joined by the Chief Executive of Arun District Council current salary circa £100,000 plus and his Head Of Parks and Landscape’s Officer who'd work on a similar voluntary basis.

Call me cycnical, but I'd imagine that day is somewhat far off. So in the meantime, I'll continue to pay what I believe to be over-priced Council Tax for less than satisfactory services.

While I wish all Mewsbrook Park Volunteers all the best in their endevours, I cannot help but think that they're undertaking work that we as local tax payers are already paying through the nose to have done.

Paul

In this week's Littlehampton Gazette (Last week in Feb 08 Issue), Labour Councillor Mike Northeast makes a bold statement claiming that despite millions of pounds being poured into Littlehampton, that none of it has made much a difference.

He refers to the much trumpeted Riverside Development as being 'all show', but not having done anything real to boost Littlehampton's local economy.

He also states that his own Ward is still relatively poor to the fortunes earned by the developers, who in his opinion have been the only real benefactors of the regeneration spend.

So, is he right?

Have Arun District Council squandered millions of tax payers money in an unsuccessful attempt to resuscitate a town's flagging fortunes?

Or is this simply a case of political sour grapes?

After all, it's only fair to point out that Arun is run by a Tory administration, Coun Northeast is a Labour councillor.

In many ways, I find myself agreeing with Mike Northeast viewpoint. Particularly when he talks about the vast sums of money that has been wasted on consultants fees for reports, which simply sit gathering dust.

With this view, I agree.

Consultants have had a mega-win fall from Arun District Council who now seemingly have to buy in outsie advice for everything on how to run a tombolla to how to manage the town's beaches.

Shameful amounts of money are being lavished on consultant fees, and for what.

I can remember having a number of meetings with consultants who were keen to canvas our advice on how the town could be improved.

Years on and none of this advice has been acted on. Littlehampton remains a dead duck in the water. A candy floss economy where the only winners are report writers and developers.

The new riverside development, which was opened with much triumph, today sits in shame as no one, either the local council, harbour board or residents of the new development seem to be able to get even the basics of weeding the footpaths and ensuring the street lights remain on.

Only 4% of the new development's residents are owner/residents.

Contrary to Councillor Northeast's claims, the bulk of the ownership of this development does lie with 'second home owners,' but with speculative 'buy-to-let'ers.' Who like a plague of locusts feed off new developments gobbing up family homes, which they then later rent back to the local community at vastly over-priced rents.

Therefore the greed train does not simply stop at the developer's door, but equal blame at the local estate agents (one in particular) who marketed this new development as ideal investment properties.

I should know, as I tried to buy one of these new properties and was beaten off at every opportunity by buy-to-let-ers, who are darlings of the property world as they come with no baggage, ready for the instant purchase.

What happens after than does not concern the developer and when the promised ideal investment fails to materialise, the estate agents are quick back in for another kill.

But for a moment, let's forget about developers, estate agents and buy-to-let-ers.

The feel good factor that the new Riverside development cannot be under estimated.

Prior to redevelopment this area was full of mostly derelict warehouses, which had been moved into the area circa World War 2 and were previously used as aircraft hangers.

A scattering of 'businesses' were included in this area at the time of redevelopment. None of these business were anything other than one-man bands and the whole area was an eyesore.

The new develoment changed this and ironically the development's biggest objectors, the homeowners in River/Pier Road were the first ones to benefit by instanly seeing the prices of their property's rise substantially.

Few of the original residents remain in Pier road and most have traded upwards on the property ladder.

One of the cafe owner's in River Road who displayed all the posters objecting to the new development changed her tune when the develoment work started and all the builders used her cafe for their 3 meals a day. Once the development finished, she sold up and has build a large extension to her home.

By far the greatest impact to the town has been the creation of the feel good factor.

Despite this, many business owners in Littlehampton have failed to grasp an opportunity, instead carrying on business as if their still trading in the war years.

You'd be hard pressed to find a shop in Littlehampton open on Sunday, despite this being the busiest day of the week for visitors and tourists.

The Town Council also has failed to change it's ways. This being the same Town Council that Councillor Northeast belongs to.

Penny-pinching toilet closures are the order of the day and the organisation is unable to demonstrate any sense or degree of imagination.

Littlehampton still remains stuck in the mud.

When the late Dame Anita Roddick offered the town money to construct the country's largest seafront bench, I have it on good authority that officers in Arun District Council said they were too busy to take on such a project and if would simply have to wait its turn.

It's this 'we-re -more- important- that- the- people- we- serve' attitude that has done the most damage.

Many of the councillors in this town have served now for a number of decades and it really is time for a change.

The old adage - if you aren't part of the solution, you're part of the problem - springs to mind.

Turning to Mike Northeast's Ham Ward and his claims that they are still poverty striken is a little rich.

Many of the residents of his ward sold up their council properties under the right to buy scheme and enjoyed all the benefits of increased property prices brought about by the new developments without themselves having to actually pay those prices themselves.

For example, council properties were purchased for £11,000 one year, and three years later exchanged for £150,000.

Not bad going for doing not a lot.

Then look at the shops in Wick, where Mike Northeast talks about.

The shop parades in Wick enjoy full occupancy and on the face of it, businesses are thriving.

Compare this to the town centre where businesses are failing, and doors close every month.

Wick has also enjoyed it's own regeneration in the form of new social housing. Beautiful flats, freshly painted give a new feel good factor that this area never had.

Unfortunately, Mike Northeast ward enjoys one of the highest rates of single mothers in the UK, which, lets face it creates a huge burden on the local ratepayer and on the demand for properties.

To blame these people's plight on regeneration is laughable. Why not accept that people have to take responsibility for their own lives both financially and otherwise.

In my view, one of the main reasons that Littlehampton remains stuck in the mud is that many refuse to embrace change.

Seeing anything new as suspicious and unwanted.

This includes new developments, 'outsiders', tourists  and indeed anyone who bothers to come here.

When entrepreneur Jane Wood opened her now world famous East Beach Cafe, it was met by waves of protest from residents/locals all complaining about the prices.

Others complained about the building itself, others about Jane Wood motives. Eventually the correspondence in the Gazette became so huge and tedious that the editor, Roger Green announced no more letters would be printed. Correspondence closed.

Of course far from falling on its feet, the East Beach Cafe thrives and is by far the busiest and most successful restaurant in the town.

It's impact in attracting out-of-town visitors again should not be underestimated.

If you visit this cafe on an evening for dinner - make sure you book, such is its popularity that you'd be hard pressed to even get in the door.

Yet, when it opened, and even prior to its opening, the Littlehampton doom-and-gloom machine was well oiled and greased up to forecast its closure.

Ironically, one local business owner who at the time of the cafe's opening told me he gave it 'six months', has himself fallen victim to Littlehampton's failing fortunes.

Much of this of course is down to his own inability to understand that we are now living in a global enconomy where people have choice.

If you fail to move with the times, you will eventually find as he did that things move on without you.

Another new business to come to Littlehampton is The Littlehampton Dutch Bike Shop. Now trading in its 4th year.

When this shop opened its doors way back in 2004 the same doom-and-gloom machines sprung into action predicting its downfall.

The business has seen enormous growth and pulls in visitors to the town from as far afield as Gurnsey, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Isle of Man.

So successful have sales been, that the business were recently awarded the UK Distribution rights for Batavus Dutch Bicycles. Batavus being Holland and Europe's largest manufacturer of Dutch Bikes.

All this achieved for by a business that many people said would never take off.

These are just two of the success stories that have been born in Littlehampton.

With a bit of imagination Littlehampton really could become the South Coast's top resort.

But, despite having the most wonderful sandy beaches in the area, Littlehampton is unable to attract the real spenders because its only real offering is Harbour Park - or as some call it - Candy Floss Hell.

Harbour Park dominate the seafront and its owner, Mr Gary Smart calls the shots as to what can, and what cannot be allowed on the seafront.

Any new proposal for Littlehampton's seafront can only go ahead with Harbour Park approval.

Can you name one other seaside town in the UK where any one person who is unelected can wield so much power?

Let's not forget that the owner of Harbour Park, Mr Gary Smart was in fact a Labour councillor colleague of councillor Northeast.

Interesting to note in Councillor's Northeast attack on the Tory adminstration that he fails to mention the unacceptable seafront monopoly that currently exists in this town.

So is Mike Northeast right?

In part, I'd say yes. 

But I'd say more No than yes.

Perhaps if we had less political bickering, and more imagination then we wouldn't be having this discussion at all.

Littlehampton has a bright future, if only someone in power would bother to turn on the lights..

Paul