Now it's been a long time since I have been to McArthur Glen, the just out of town, shopping, retail, eating and cinema complex named after a Scottish beauty spot, straddling the M4 like a colosus , up the road from my home town of Bridgend. I was there last Saturday, down town and I had a shock. I thought it was rough as a badger's arsehole. This was a Saturday and it was like a ghost town. The whole place reeked of poverty and austerity as I flounced around like a middle class fop with my nose in a handkerchief pomander and when I got back to dingy St Mary Street in Cardiff, I suddenly had an idea.>Perhaps, McArthurGlen has taken all the footfall away from the centre of Bridgend like St David's 2 on the Hayes has done to Heol Santes Fair.< Now the definition of Gentrification is as follows: the process of renewal and rebuilding accompanying the influx of middle-class or affluent people into deteriorating areas that often displaces poorer residents. Well in this case the poorer residents are still there in Bridgend Town Centre and in St Mary Street and the middle class affluence is going to St David's 2 and McArthur Glen. Now how can you stop this from happening? Perhaps they don't want to stop it. Perhaps the Councils, because I presume that is who is responsible, have planned this deterioration quite purposefully.For what reason? I would have thought it counterproductive to have your town centre and your main city thoroughfare looking like a blot of bleached concrete. Visitors and Tourists will be the first to write blogs and go on tripadvisor. The last time I remember down town deterioration like this was at the height of the 1983 recession/depression.I told a friend about Bridgend and he said he didn't like it because it reminded him of Rhyl and we both remember the Rhyl of 1983. I still get cold shivers down my back thinking about it. If you live it and breath it,perhaps you don't notice it so much but when you are an occasional visitor the starkness of our surroundings hit us. With Gideon George planning more belt tightening tomorrow perhaps there could be a little more thought into town planning so that our towns resemble thriving communities instead of ghost towns. A little re-greening here and there would not go amiss. Pull up the concrete and plant trees. Make somewhere look pretty, green and welcoming and who knows, perhaps it won't get trashed! It won't get trashed if there are plenty of things to do. This all takes money you idealist shark fisherperson. Well it does no harm to mention it I suppose.It's my Blog and my Hometown and I'll moan if I want to.
The United Reformed Chapel is now just another Pub.
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