The Seaton Visitor Centre
Have a quick look at the sketch map - to scale - on the right (you can click to enlarge it - you may need to!) and refresh yourself about the size of the Seaton Visitor Centre (500 sq m ground footprint) compared to the supermarket and non-retail store (5,000 sq m + 2,600 sq m = 7,600 sq m).
There it is - that little thing which will be stuck next to the hypermarket if you can spot it (it is superimposed on it so you can see how much smaller it is than the supermarket). It will need to be at least three storeys high to be the size that consultants say must be the minimum for a visitor attraction (1,500 sq metres). If it's three storeys high it cannot have big "wow" rooms and the square metreage of each floor is reduced further by the need to have lifts for people with disabilities and stairs for fire exit.
They say that they anticipate some 230,000 visitors to this place. Well, tonight on "Spotlight" there was an item about declining visitor numbers to tourist attractions in the south west. Here are a couple of figures from that report:
Plymouth Aquarium
270,000 visitors last year
Size: 9,000 square metres
that is to say, about the same size as the Seaton Visitor Centre AND the supermarket AND the non-food store combined.
Living Coasts (Torquay)
124,000 visitors last year
Size: 5,666 sq m
that is to say, very, very slightly larger than the supermarket (excluding the delivery area at the back) on the Liatris planning application and nearly five times larger than the Seaton Visitor Centre.
So - do you think the Seaton Jurassic Coast Visitor Centre is programmed to fail and, if so, who do you think did the programming?
image m.greenyer
posted by Fighting for East Devon's future @ 10:33 pm
5 Comments:
For the visitors centre to be a success it needs several things. It needs a cafe to help cover its running costs (and without competition from a bigger supermarket cafe next door). It needs other tourist attractions nearby - so the Tramway location is important. It needs parking for people to visit it. It needs to have a large volume of tourists visiting Seaton - for example because they are staying in Seaton in the Holiday Village. The wetlands will at most provide 40,000 visitors and are not a substitute. The visitor numbers are based on looking at Norfolk, which is always likely to have far more rare birds and therefore attracts more visitors. They are optimistic. Seaton also needs to look at making more of its Roman remains.
A visitor's centre could be a real success in Seaton - if we retain the Holiday Village.
It is obvious that the Visitors centre was programmed to fail. We are in competition for it with Exmouth, and I think Karime Hassan wants it there too.
Unless you would like to refute that Karime???
The developers think we are stupid; they think we want the Vistors Centre at any cost. We don't. I'd rather not have it like this. It's no better than a Tourist Information Cetnre, and we have one of those alreay.
I have a DVD produced for the (failed) Heritage Lottery Bid where Karime Hassan says something on the lines of "We have a real opportunity here to have a top-quality world- class facility in Seaton".
Trouble is, he didn't say he was talking about the supermarket and not the Visitor Centre!
Always pays to check with Mr Hassan
apologies for the "Inmanesque" look to that piano player, but twas the only shot I had.
Anyway, if the plan is to make it fail, what would they do with the building then?
And who does/would it belong to, on whose land?
Just as important: if it fails, who will pick up the bill?
It would be eerily similar to the current situation with the youth centre. The Visitor Centre is supposed to have trustees and the freehold should remain with EDDC or with the trustees.
This is EXACTLY the same situation we have with the current Youth Centre. Trustees have all resigned, land belongs to EDDC, no youth centre, derelict building.
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