Grange Hotel Burns !
At about 9.45 last night (Turesday 18th March) the Grange Hotel on Rhyl's East Parade was severely damaged by fire.
A 45-year-old man was rescued from the hotel by fire crews at about 11 PM, and is now critically ill in Glan Clwyd Hospital. The injured man indicated that there were three other people with him in the hotel when the fire broke out, but because of the dangerious state of the hotel, fire crews have had to wait for the building to be made safe before commencing a thorough search.
The hotel had been empty since last year when it was put up for sale.
The Warnings Were There
Fairly recently Rhyl's neighbourhood police team became aware that a number of the town's homeless population were being attracted to the empty hotel. There were reports that candles had been seen in the premises with the obvious danger of fire and, because of the state of the building, injuries or even worse could result. As a result a number of the neighbourhood team attended at the location with representatives of North Wales Fire and Rescue services and 'evicted' five persons. There was evidence that a good many more homeless had been staying there and it was clear that there had been extensive use of candles.
In it's time, the Grange was a well known and impressive building. It's sad to see the damage that is likely to result in its demolition.
With the conversion of the Marine and the Palace Hotels into apartments, there remains only one sizable hotel along the sea front.
Council Tax 40% Above the Norm - Value For Money?
Did you know that your Coucil Tax is 40% higher than the average council tax for the whole of Wales. To find out more go here.
Deja Vu
I recall that only four years ago, Denbighshire County Council's Cabinet cooked up an ill-conceved and severely restictive traffic management system for Rhyl. They sought to make all car-parking a "No-No" for all streets in Rhyl, right as far as the railway line. They made this a legal Order, but in the face of universal protestations from affected businesses and residents in the area, they shelved the scheme. Not generally known was that they did not remove the scheme from books, but decided to leave it in place with the intention of re-introducing it by stealth at some later time.
That time has now arrived.
What really galls is that they then asserted that they had carried out "consultations" when the scheme was originally formulated. Typical of our Council, their idea of "consultation" was nothing of the kind. It all started when two residents at the West End of Rhyl complained about visitors to the town parking in front of their houses. The Council duly circulated 80 houses in that area asking if they would support parking restictions in the area, with residents being issued with special resident's parking permits. What they didn't say was that the original intention was to charge £60 for each parking permit (this later being reduced to £30). And was to be for each car. Out of the 80 households circulated, only four people chose to respond - and since they weren't told of the charges for parking permits, all four said that they were in favour of the scheme.
Now, because the scheme was never taken off the books, the Denbighshire County Council are to re-introduce the scheme. So if you live in Rhyl, anywhere between the railway line and the sea-front, you, your family and your visitors may soon be prevented from parking outside your home - unless you pay up £30 for each car.
Our County Council seem to live in a little isolated cocoon. Where on-street car parking is introduced, there are Government Guidlines stating the conditions under which such schemes are introduced. The most significant conditon is that sufficient off-street car parking facilities are provided to balance that lost by on-street car-parking restrictions. These Guidelines are issued by both the Westmister govermnet and the Welsh Assembly.
But hold on... Our forward planning Council over the last four years, through plannnig department and general policy decisions, have lost MORE THAN 1,200 OFF-STREET CAR PARKING SLOTS in Rhyl. These being the large car-park at Splash Point and the larger car-park to the east of the old fairground. Worse there is now nowhere to park-up for the coaches of the coach operators who bring tourists to our town.
The real irony of all this is that the Council assert that the on-street car-parking restrictions are intended to reduce traffic congestion - WHAT PLANET DO THESE PEOPLE LIVE ON?
Worse - we Council Tax payers are paying these Councillors anything from £15,000 per year up to £28,000 per year, depending on what committees they vote themselves on.
It's transparently obvious to anyone with the mental powers better than a ten-year-old, that the imposition of their proposed on-street car-parking restrictions can only massively increase traffic congestion. Visitors cars will be circulating around the town looking for somewhere to park - on-street or off-street.
Then of course is the likely impact on the town's businesses who rely on tourists. Who's going to visit a town where they have to drive around and around looking for somewhere to park? When I raised this question with a Cabinet Member, I was told that the Council no longer viewed Rhyl as being a tourist resort.
BE WARNED - If you live in the area to the north of the railway line, you're likely soon to be charged for the privilege of parking in front or your home.
What can you do about it? Contact your County Council counsellor and raise hell. You can get their name, telephone number, address and email address here.
Flooding
After the flooding problems in our area in the early 1990s, we have been lucky in recent months to not have problems here. The promenade gives reasonable flood-protection for our town. But has anyone had a look at the state of the "sea-wall" side of our promenade (especially between the town center and Splash Point)? Large sections are crumbling - and with the much publicised effects of global warming thinge are sure to get worse.
What does beggar belief is the complete discregard our Rhyl's planning department has shown about the Government Guidlines relating to building residential housing on or near flood plains. The developments at Splash Point are right on an Environment Agency's designated flood plain. Worse, their approval of the Splash Point development by our Planning Department has lost the town more than 250 off-street car parking places.
The Pavilion Theatre
It's only two years ago that RhylOnyline warned about the way that the Pavilion Theatre was being uneconomically run. Deja Vu again?
The only way to run a profitable theatre (or even to reduce the strain on Council budgets) is to get bums on seats - not just on a couple on nights a week - but virtually every night.
So how do you get those elusive bums on seats? By engaging artists who will fill the theatre - not second-rate acts that seem to be the norm.
Not exactly rocket-science is it?
I'm surprised that theatre management (and of course their bosses the Council and the Executive) haven't caught on to the basic ecomomics of the entertainment inductry - but maybe I am not so surprised in view of other issues that our Council fail to address pro-actively.