Landmarks

[Madhatter]

you could always put a giant yellow submarine or a giant yellow lamb with a banana up it's bottom on top of your hill outside that tumbling down bus shelter, liverpool think they are great

[WillowTheWhisp]

Originally Posted by Madhatter

have you not got tennis courts and bowling in your parks then?

Yes we've got some bowling greens but most of the parks which have/had tennis courts now have derelict sites which look like they've been bombed. The tarmac has holes, the nets don't exist, there is broken glass etc etc. Even the fencing around has been vandalised.

Originally Posted by Madhatter

so you would like something then, just that nobody seems to have said what is acceptable yet so they've given up on you.

We haven't been offered anything which any of us like. We've been offered a series of concentric circles of earth on top of the Coppice which would cause all manner of problems not least of all with drainage and possible danger from the flooded trenches not to mention vandalism and no plans to prevent or discourage it. The location is all wrong. Most people just want the Coppice to be left alone but wouldn't object to something more suitable in a better location. We were offered the spaceship up there on the Coppice but that seemed far too fanciful. Rossendale have got that now. At least Burnley and Blackburn have got theirs in parks. If Blackburn can have one in Corporation Park why can't we have one in Oakhill?

[Gayle]

Originally Posted by garinda

It would have fulfilled the brief better if they had built a great big towering phallus people could have climbed up to see the view even clearer.

So you're saying that if we'd have suggested that for the Coppice you'd have been happy? Rubbish! You'd have been objected to it like you've objected to everything else.

Originally Posted by garinda

The Victorians had more idea about publicly acceptable art/follies than we do today. Plus it would have been there for centuries rather than a few vandalised years.

Over 150 people signed a petition against Darwen Tower being built back in the Victorian times.

[garinda]

There are two replies after my last one I can't read in this thread.

ARRGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

[garinda]

Originally Posted by Gayle

So you're saying that if we'd have suggested that for the Coppice you'd have been happy? Rubbish! You'd have been objected to it like you've objected to everything else.



Over 150 people signed a petition against Darwen Tower being built back in the Victorian times.

Firstly I've always said the Coppice was the wrong location in Hyndburn. Doing anything upon such a naturally beautiful place would have been like gilding the lily in my opinion.

The population in Blackburn and Darwen at the end of the nineteenth century was 133,000. So 150 objectors isn't really that many. Besides I did say it should be challenging, as it obviously was to those one hundred and fifty souls.

[Gayle]

Originally Posted by WillowTheWhisp

We were offered the spaceship up there on the Coppice but that seemed far too fanciful.

I have spoken to the project manager about this and the Halo (spaceship) was NEVER actually an option for Hyndburn despite what people think. The competition was run and there were six designs in the running for Hyndburn (including the Halo and the Accrington Sign). It was realised at an early stage that the Halo would never be acceptable for Hyndburn and so was taken OFF the table before it was officially offered. As I wasn't involved in the project at that time I have to accept their word for it and by the time I had joined the project I know for a fact that the Halo was a Winner Without Site. From what I can understand someone leaked the designs to the press and they went off on one before anyone could stop them. Therefore the public of Hyndburn believe that they rejected the Halo when in fact they never actually got offered it in the first place. The huge shame with that is that the public got soured to the project before they had a chance to see any of the other more subtle designs.

When the steering group came back together in the second phase (remember the steering group was made up of Councillors and officers of the council and MPA did not have a vote in the decision making) they selected the least obtrusive design which did not impact on the skyline believing that would be most acceptable to people.

Originally Posted by WillowTheWhisp

At least Burnley and Blackburn have got theirs in parks. If Blackburn can have one in Corporation Park why can't we have one in Oakhill?

Blackburn is in Corporation park
Pendle is in Wycoller Country park - not a park in the sense that you're talking
Burnley is at Crown Point - not a park
Rossendale is at Top O'Slate - not a park

[Madhatter]

Doing anything upon such a naturally beautiful place would have been like gilding the lily in my opinion.

Am I imagining that great big bus shelter on the top of the coppice and that broken tumbleing down monument? You can't mean that your happy with those being just left there? You need something wow on there such as the spaceship, which I didn't like at first but i've come round to.
Gayle, does it have to be modern materials? doncaster had a great big full size train engine and tender built out of bricks, on the outskirts of the town. Could they design something with traditional materials on a local theme. Surely accy is famous for something? put that on the coppice.

The reason I think it's a good site is that it can be seen from the main road and it makes a statement to people passing, it would say look, this is accrington.

[garinda]

Originally Posted by Madhatter

Surely accy is famous for something?

Bloody Nori bricks.

We could build a stairway to paradise.

[Uncle Mick]

Originally Posted by Madhatter

Am I imagining that great big bus shelter on the top of the coppice and that broken tumbleing down monument? You can't mean that your happy with those being just left there? You need something wow on there such as the spaceship, which I didn't like at first but i've come round to.

Nope I`m not happy with the state of the shelter or monument, but the Coppice is the only piece of easily accessable moorland within walking distance of the town. You can easily find yourself on your own with only the wildlife and the breeze for company. Thats why I like it as it is and I suspect why other people feel the same.

[Madhatter]

Originally Posted by garinda

Bloody Nori bricks.

We could build a stairway to paradise.

well there you go then build a new shelter on the coppice out of bricks but design something into perhaps even using light like the spaceship one. you could do something then on the ground to link that across to the monument which would be refubished and perhaps raised on a new plinth. or encircle it with twelve monilith stones to represent time and have scenes of accy carved in to them. brick lines radiating out from the centre to each stone. or have chrome steel carved and outlined in black, each uplit at nite with colour changing lights.

or a stairway to heaven that leads up to a new shelter thats bricks and metals made to be gates to heaven clouds and cherubs with white light reflecting of the polished metals at night and shimering white lights on the statues.
I find it unbelievable that you've got this opportunity to make a statement from accy to every passing vehicle and don't want anything. That monument was origanally put on there to make a statement and that hasn't stopped it being a nice peacefull place. the train at doncaster isn't packed with crowds, its in parkland, locals don't really notice it much, its just there, lit up at night to passing cars on the bypass, and in the day nut nuts like me stop to take photogrpahs now and again.

[Madhatter]

oops no punctuation, sorry, I was typing from my heart again.

[Gayle]

Some of the schemes had plans included to dress up the shelter and restore the monument and paths but that's when people (mostly PB) started saying that we were blackmailing them into having a panopticon. This simply was not true, we were saying that we had the money for a panopticon and on the back of that we were looking to raise additional funding for all the rest of the stuff. If we (MPA) weren't building a panopticon then there was no reason for us to be involved otherwise but other bodies, including the council, could quite happily have pursued funding for the other stuff on their own - they haven't done to my knowledge.

I think that now it has got to a point where the name itself causes the problems. For instance, in Ribble Valley the nicest design was a wall - it was slightly subtly coloured and it had a featured window in it but essentially all it was was a wall. If we had gone to RV and said, we think this site is a bit dangerous because it's on the edge of a quarry so we'd like to build you a pretty viewing platform and wall and oh, by the way, it has a bit of a feature window in it would that be ok? I firmly believe they'd have said yes. But, we went to them with a design competition to build a sculpture and we got some other designs which the press had a field day with and which again got stuck in people's minds so the whole thing was never going to get off the ground.

[Madhatter]

Shame that is. So they've got nothing too?.
Well From the pics on here in the gallery of that shelter and graffiti'd monument, I would go around bragging that it's a nice place. but who am I to comment, I'm just an outsider with unbiased views that most outsiders will have.

could we have an explanation from peter britcliffe as to why they were trying to con them into having something. (blackmail is money with menaces)

I think maybe your right, and I think maybe the councils should get involved and just override the public. If the public were consulted on every little monument, viewing platform, bench, lamp post and path, you'd end up with nothing.
In runcorn, the local council has just gone ahead and built a park with wooden viewing platforms over the mersey, could be better but at least they are there, and sculptures, one is a living willow sculpture that you can walk through.
Your never going to please all the people alll the time and your never going to please the press. they will put a spanner in every time just to create another failure story. Shame that residents of accy couldn't see that.
You've lost out on something and you think you've won. I think you should all get back to the table and start to talk to each other.

[katex]

Originally Posted by yerself

I blame the why-aye men. They started it with their 'Angel of The North' and ever since the rest of the country has been trying to emulate them. The geordies' heap of rusting steel knocks any of these crackpot panopticon ideas into a cocked hat.

Love this or hate it, I always get a thrill from seeing it off the A1, can't ignore Gateshead now and that's what it's all about.

Think possibly we give artists too much choice here and should focus more on a theme. Maybe I am a little old-fashioned and look back too much instead of the future hopes of the town, but would like to see something that reflects our past textile industry; like a new Nori brick chimney that could be climbed and viewing platform on the top with images of the industry as you climb the stairs.

Shame about the parks though, isn't it ? Think they are improving again now and this is about parent power instead of pester power to take our children there on a day like today and NOT to Eureka, Camelot, etc.

[Madhatter]

very true kate, on all points.