It’s funny (or rather it isn’t funny) that this summary you have given is a mirror image (obviously on a smaller scale) of the Moston Rag Socks having their stadium built.
I recall at the time some Splitter knocking on the door with a clipboard canvasing for support. When I said I wasn’t for it his stock reply (and that to any other dissenting Mostonian at the time) was “don’t you want a £5 million investment in Moston?”
“I don’t want a football stadium built on green land that was gifted to the local people for leisure time.” came my reply that stumped them everytime with no comeback.
In their presentations they never once mentioned building a stadium. It was always this “£5 million investment we are bringing to Moston”.
To me a £5 million investment in Moston would be rebuilding the youth centre, improving street lights etc etc. You know, things that are for the actual benefit for the people of Moston, instead of it being used solely for the Rags Socks who were parachuted into the area with no history or connection to the area.
And yes they used sound bites too. “This will be good for Moston”, they proclaimed, never allowing anyone to question that.
No. It will be good for the Moston Rag Socks and only the Moston Rag Socks.
They added nothing to the area but took services away from other agencies that were providing and had been providing those services for years. For example Moston Methodist Church held councillor surgeries every week and relied on that extra funding for hosting the surgeries. Pallet Park opened and the church was fucked off and the surgeries held at PP.
They displaced services. Yet apparently that was good for Moston……
@petrusha. you are bang on about it not being a blue and red issue, yet every point raised like those I’ve highlighted above was always met with “you’re just a bitter blue” and laughed off. They didn’t want to engage in our concerns and had the perfect get out clause of being able to dismiss concerns because some of us were blues
10 years on the protesters been proved right - but it’s too late now. The local councillors have moved on (or passed away in Cllr Murphy’s case) and their legacy is Pallet Park and a £900,000 council debt.
We can’t let this happen again. Public money being squandered on politicians wet dreams and fantasies as they climb the political ladder high on their own ego, feathering their nest and then retire with a great pension as the realisation that the whole thing should never have been approved sinks in.