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Managing a disastrous mistake
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The latest misfortune to befall the development has involved not a new building of spectacular ugliness or marina gates of questionable efficiency.
It concerns three of the attractions in the leisure complex that includes the multiplex cinema, the Aquasplash pool and the gym. Bar Rock and two nightclubs, Liquid and Envy, have shut up shop because the company holding the lease on the building housing these establishments has gone into liquidation.
Legal wrangling now means that there appears to be no prospect of these businesses reopening before the end of the tourist season.
Because the Waterfront is such a familiar place, it is easy enough to pass it or view it from a distance without really taking stock of exactly what we have after so many years of effort and so much expenditure.
It is also easy to lose sight of the massively disappointing contrast between what is there and what was initially promised.
The long-term closure of key elements of the leisure area can be regarded as a final straw.
It can take its place alongside a hotel voted the ugliest building in Britain, a leisure pool that falls far short of the standards set by similar facilities in a multitude of other tourist destinations, residential developments which, with the exception of the apartments overlooking the older of the two marinas, lack any flair or distinction, and a cinema complex that has all the appeal and atmosphere of an empty barn.
Oh, and in case you have forgotten, we also have a steam clock, one of the most incongruous and pointless structures ever to have been bought with taxpayers’ hard cash.
The first mystery, of course, is how we collectively managed to sleepwalk into this depressing state of affairs.
Political ineptitude has no doubt played its part, but the successive incarnations of the Waterfront Enterprise Board must also shoulder their share of blame for singularly failing to deliver the goods.
The second mystery – and one which must be solved – is how we can make the most of what we have and manage to turn this archetypal sow’s ear into something at least vaguely reminiscent of a silk purse.
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