By Council blasted by national paper
North East Lincolnshire Council has been blasted by a national news paper after locals claimed a scheme has left Cleethorpes promenade worse than ever before.
An article published by The Sun this morning entitled “‘MASSIVE WASTE’ Our useless council wasted £3.8m ‘beautifying’ our town – but it’s still just as grim” focused on the councils plans to renovate Cleethorpes and boost tourism.
One part of the multi-million pound scheme that never materialised was the proposed 72 ft white palm tree that was supposed to be erected on Cleethorpes promenade.
A total of £38,000 of the £3.8m Coastal Communities Fund that was supposed to refresh the town was spent on the non-existent tree.
Announcing their U-turn, the council blamed project delays and escalating costs for the cancellation.
Local business owner Toni Buckleweavers told the Sun that she feels the “money was wasted” and that the tourism in the seaside town was “overlooked”.
She said: “All of the money was wasted and the tourism side of it was just overlooked so someone needs to be held accountable.
“This is a deprived area with no investments and that attraction has no ties to the area.
“It should have been about the RAF, or the RNLI or fishing instead – I just don’t get what it has to do with anything.”
Speaking to The Sun Council leader Philip Jackson said: “In the last few years, we’ve spent more than £7m of grant funding in the resort on a number of projects which are helping to improve the look and feel of the resort.
“More than 2,700 local people and businesses got involved in the Masterplan work over the last winter, which looks at how the resort should develop over the next 10 years.
“In the current financial climate, the council is doing everything it can to secure funding to bring forward projects to improve the area.
“We’ve had a £18.4m Levelling Up Fund bid into Government for the resort, which if it’s approved, will see the first few projects from that masterplan delivered on the ground.
“Like many other seaside resorts, the impact of the pandemic hit local businesses hard.
“We supported our local businesses through the pandemic, making sure that we did everything we could to get the money due to them from Government quickly so that they could weather the storm. And we’ve many schemes running throughout the year that support small businesses from start up to growth.
“Through our tourism team, we do everything we can to attract people to the resort, with the most recent figures showing that visitors spend an average of around £383 per trip.
“And we’ve an excellent programme of events already in the planning stage for 2023 which will see hundreds of thousands of people come and enjoy what Cleethorpes has to offer.”
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