Your letters - October 24

Livelier wires

THANK goodness the DLWP is at last cutting the pile of amiable but dead wood from its Board of Directors and adding some live seeming wires and purpose to its sense of direction.

I am glad that the deed was apparently accomplished after a generous application of goodwill because I am sure the good people now jettisoned were trying their best, but it remains clear they were out of their depth.

It has long been obvious to me, and I think many others, that the original crew had no real idea of how to influence the running of a modern arts centre to the satisfaction firstly of its host district and, secondly, of its myriad funders. And as we can see all too clearly from recent City history, if a board performs no useful purpose other than to wave through whatever is put before its members, we can soon all end up in deep trouble.

Perhaps now the Pavilion can begin to be run as a commercially viable operation and for the benefit of the general public rather than itself.

MIRIAM STOCKLEY

Maple Walk

Seaside glory

IT is hopefully good news for our De La Warr Pavilion that some new appointments have been made to the Trust. How the outgoing chairman, Dr Richard Sykes, can say that he has felt "satisfaction" over his running of the Pavilion is beyond me as almost every week the Observer letters page has been full of disgruntled members of the public complaining of the way our Pavilion is run and operated!

The new head of the De La Warr Trust, lawyer Steve Williams, has a background working closely with the arts community and Tate Modern in London.

I can only hope that he will not be another board member who sees our Pavilion as an art gallery for him to 'play with' like a rich man's toy.

The De La Warr was built as a seaside pavilion to serve the day trippers, families and locals who wish to enjoy the coastal town.

Let's get our Pavilion back to how the tax paying public of Bexhill want it run, and not operated like some mini Tate Modern gallery!

It was not built to be run by a few for a few but built for pure fun and to represent Bexhill in all its seaside glory.

LEE DUNN

Church Street

Happy memory

AFTER reading the fascinating report on the annual Board of Trustees meeting at DLWP - and especially the resultant quotes - I can only assume that the "celebrations" mentioned in the report were liberally consumed before mouths were opened to the Press.

I couldn't understand more than a few words of what the outgoing chairman was reported to have said and had the greatest trouble following the trail of mangled metaphors enthusiastically pursued by his successor.

But I draw one great consolation from your article: we locals can now be assured beyond a smidgeon of reasonable doubt that at least some expenditure at the Pavilion is being put to good use. And the picture of the three principal players locked together in jovial support will linger long and happily in my memory

Virginia Bulmer

Pinewoods

The message?

They're changing the guard at De La Warr Palace - well, the Board of Trustees at least - and the Bexhill Observer presents us with two indicative quotes to mark the passing of the baton.

The retiring chairman says that his happiest memory of office is of people "morphing" (sic) together in the Pavilion, and the new man's first message to Bexhill is that he knows next to nothing about the town. Where on earth do they find these people? And what message are they trying to give to the town?

R T Dent

Collington Lane West

So pointless

What a totally unsatisfactory consultation on the new seafront proposals the council have just conducted. With vague references to former consultations (now I'm told lost to the shredder) they inform us that an Edwardian style for the seafront was rejected.

Therefore the council have already decided to go for the ultra modern look for the seafront and give us no choice.

Of course the final designs are not yet ready, but we are asked to fill in a questionnaire without full knowledge of what is to be foisted upon us. How on earth therefore are we supposed to tick their boxes?

In addition many of the questions are rather ambiguous. One asks if the seafront would be improved by "restoration and redevelopment". Well, which do they mean?

The two proposals are quite different. We might want to restore but not redevelop. Are the council officers intending to deceive us and trap us into answers we didn't mean to give?

Most obviously the one vital question they left out is "Do you want the seafront Edwardian style or modern?" Certainly it seems we poor ignorant rate payers are not considered important enough to make this basic decision although it is our 4 million they want to spend.

The worst defect in this whole pointless exercise is that no identification is required of the voter on these questionnaires - no name, no address, not even a postal code. This surely could lead to massive fraud. How can we possibly ever trust their final results?

Jackie Bialeska

Cantelupe Road

Bad example

AFTER the success of another busy weekend at the De La Warr Pavilion with thousands of visitors to the Ben Nicholson exhibition, The Big Draw, a fully-booked restaurant, The Neil Cowley Trio in the auditorium and a private wedding function, I would like to express my concern and disappointment at the behaviour of some of the visitors to the Next Wave exhibition in the studio.

Whilst we are familiar with local visitors expressing strong opinions to us, we were shocked at the anger and rudeness directed towards our staff.

Rother District Council (not the De La Warr Pavilion) were conducting a public consultation in the DLWP studio and, although we appreciate that feelings were riding high, there was no excuse for this unacceptable behaviour towards staff who were just doing their jobs.

Had such behaviour been demonstrated by younger members of this community, people would have deemed it thuggish. What example are we therefore setting to others and what image are we projecting to those visiting from outside our community?

Visitors should feel confident that DLWP reserves the right to remove anyone from the building whose behaviour we consider to be offensive to the staff and other visitors.

Alan Haydon

Director

De La Warr Pavilion

Town bias

BATTLE councillors, we are told, reacted with fury after learning Rother District Council had voted to spend 3.5m on a Bexhill Seafront Scheme.

That Bexhill did so in the current economic climate is baffling especially as they do not have detailed estimates of the capital and revenue costs. And 3.5m is a huge chunk out of a total capital reserve of 15m of which 9.4m is already committed.

But this is not the only example of bias towards Bexhill. Three very recent schemes received favourable treatment.

The Bexhill Museum Renaissance Project reported in June that the construction works now exceeded available funding. Bexhill Council acknowledged they had already provided "substantial funding" and advised the architect and contractor there was no additional funding. But come August the cabinet has a change of mind.

The architect has come up with an alternative cladding for the building and, hey presto, the cabinet agree another 100,000.

Then we have the Sidley Community Association. Their chief executive reported a serious financial crisis and requested financial assistance. There was a forecast deficit of 80,000 by March 2009. The cabinet agreed another 40,000. And there is always the De La Warr 500.000.

I have never understood the supine attitude of the councillors representing the rural areas. Do they never look at the capital and revenue programmes? Or do they simply vote on party lines?

J. E. Goldsworthy

Bexhill

School move

Have I got it wrong or has someone moved not only the goalposts but the whole damned school? I attended the present school in Gunter's Lane to see the proposed plans for the new 2000 pupil seat of learning.

I am sure the new building was to be added to the rear of existing one and the only contentious problem was access and traffic. Having called in to the local library to see the model now on show (put together rather quickly wasn't it?) I find the building has been moved to an area well away from the existing school.

I for one was not notified of this change and would ask the question why?

Would the authorities be happy if I got the ok to build a house on a plot of land and then decide to put it half a mile down the road? We all know what the outcome of that would be so how do they get away with it? I know I'm getting old and my eyesight isn't as good as it was 40 years ago but I was convinced they were going to extend the building already there so what changed?

P M ADAMS

Hornbeam Avenue

Teenage praise

ON Sunday October 19 six amazing teenagers raised money for cancer research. One teenage ran while the other five cycled from Bexhill to Brighton. They thought of the idea themselves, planned it and did it with NO adult input at all.

I am very proud to say one of the 17-year-olds was my son - the others were friends who wanted to take part. It was my son's friends' idea and they'd been planning this for a few months.

Isn't it wonderful to praise teenagers for their actions and positive spirit and to know they make a difference in such a modest way?

A public "thank you" to you all.

Hilary Cole

Bexhill

Party thanks

I WOULD like to thank The Rotary Club of Bexhill for the wonderful time I had last Friday afternoon at their tea party. The entertainment we had was very good, also the lovely tea of cakes and sandwiches. We were waited on by some of the pupils of St Richard's Catholic College, their friendly chatter and helpfulness cheered us. They also showed us some of their talent by singing and playing the violin. They were a credit to themselves and to their school. Thank you to everyone who made this lovely afternoon possible.

JENNY WOOD

Glovers Lane