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Amesbury needs a museum

by Simon at 22:30 26/06/08 (Blogs::Simon)

Salisbury and Devizes Museums are packed to bursting with artifacts and archives to the extent that curating new ones is becoming a problem.

Right on the edge of the Stonehenge World Heritage site sits the town of Amesbury, almost a ghost town where rival supermarkets compete to build megastores in sight of one another in some weird parody of "the competitive market"

Smack in the middle of Amesbury sits the old derelict Co-Op supermarket, a hideous eyesore of redbrick and chipboarded-up windows where the interior lights are left on all night 'for health and safety'.

This should be razed to the ground and the extensive area it occupies should be redeveloped into the Stonehenge World Heritage Centre Museum.

Amesbury needs to embrace its history as the last stopping-off point before embarking on the journey west across the bleak and forbidding (in Winter) or vibrant and welcoming (in Summer) Plain, and understand that its primary - if not sole - attraction to visitors is Stonehenge.

The Stonehenge Tour bus, which runs from Salisbury to Stonehenge doesn't even STOP in Amesbury - yet it drives up the main street en route. Look:

http://www.thestonehengetour.info/route.shtml

If Amesbury wants to halt its seemingly terminal decline it needs to reassess its priorities, stop hating Stonehenge for the traffic chaos it brings and decide to reinvent itself as a destination of choice for the almost 1m tourists who visit only a tiny fraction of the World Heritage Site each year.

--
simon

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Amesbury needs a museum	Simon - 22:30 26/06/08
-	Deleted User Account - 01:15 29/06/08
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-	Deleted User Account - 11:37 29/06/08
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Re: Amesbury needs a museum	Simon - 16:14 29/06/08
Tourists follow signposts, so a large car park on Solstice Park and a shuttle bus to the town centre for the Museum would sort that. As to chain stores and fast food joints - Glastonbury's High Street is peppered with small independent shops. Given Amesbury's twin heritage as both the nearest town to Stonehenge and the Arthurian connection (Guinevere supposedly came to the Abbey when she fled Camelot, didn't she?) then I think the same model could work here. -- simon
-	Deleted User Account - 18:55 29/06/08
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Re: Amesbury needs a museum	Bruce Ure - 18:56 29/06/08
It's only a model. --
-	Deleted User Account - 20:32 29/06/08
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Re: Amesbury needs a museum	Simon - 09:33 30/06/08
What, the swamp? -- simon
-	Deleted User Account - 09:37 30/06/08
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Re: Amesbury needs a museum	Simon - 09:52 30/06/08
Another good point - parts of Help! were filmed nearby (north of the Packway, opposite the 'prohibited place' to the west of Larkhill) -- simon
-	Deleted User Account - 10:08 30/06/08
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Re: Amesbury needs a museum	Simon - 11:06 30/06/08
Shhhhhhh!!!!! -- simon
-	Deleted User Account - 09:24 01/07/08
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Re: Amesbury needs a museum	Simon - 09:46 01/07/08
The distribution centres are separate to the megastores - ASDA (on Solstice Park) and Tesco (on London Road) - both of which have been given permission by Amesbury Town Council and are therefore referred to the Comedy Secretary Of State for decision. This absurd situation is because, although the town wants ASDA, it can't say "Yes" to ASDA without also saying "Yes" to Tesco (which it doesn't want). ie ATC is not allowed to express a preference, despite overwhelming local support for ASDA over Tesco. If all the plans go ahead, there'll be five different supermarkets in Amesbury - ASDA, Tesco, Lidl, Co-Op and Sainsbury (which has its eye on the old Co-Op site and wants to take over the central car park and turn it into a multi-storey Pay and Display against the terms of the original land bequest, which stipulated the car park and toilets were to be free of charge forever). Check out the planning application posted on the lamppost in the central car park. -- simon
-	Deleted User Account - 10:44 01/07/08
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Re: Amesbury needs a museum	Simon - 11:50 01/07/08
And one in Durrington (they've taken of the old Rangers garage, and plan to annex the filling station opposite), and don't forget the one in Tidworth. I have no particular objection to Tesco having lots of stores, but I do object to their "land bank" through which they buy up vacant lots and hang on to them to prevent competition setting up there. Others are probably just as guilty. They should be forced to relinquish any plots they haven't developed within 12 months of acquisition. -- simon
-	Deleted User Account - 16:55 08/07/08
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