Remember Bridgend Council. Hiding Behind Christmas Will Not Stop January

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

It had been my intention to visit Bridgend and Maesteg town centres this past week. If only because a lot of this blog was originally about the state of these towns and how (particularly Bridgend) was being disastrously mishandled by the arrogant incompetence of the local Labour council and I wanted to see if anything had changed. I might not live in the area any more but I still work there. And I still care.

But a combination of things, work, the weather, dentistry, not wanting to drive my courtesy car anywhere outside of the barest minimum meant that I had to put it off, certainly for this week at least

Nonetheless I wanted to put in a short post about these town centres and Christmas. Because I've noticed on Twitter that Bridgend Labour Council have been going full throttle on advertising Christmas activities.

In Bridgend it appears that Santa himself is around with a purpose built grotto. Well far be it for me to criticise the arrival of the great man himself to the town. But when he's gone (and we all know he needs a rest after Xmas has finished) the problems of the town centre with its vast swathes of empty shops will still be there. Let me tell you that should Santa be able to deal with that well then that's truly a Christmas miracle.

Let's though get on to Maesteg. Yesterday the council tweeted that there was a £50 Maesteg Market gift voucher to be won in a competition there. All very well, except that there is less of a market than there was last year because the indoor market was closed down. and who closed down the indoor market? Well none other than the council. Because they wanted to renovate the town hall (the market was in the basement in case you're new to this but I've written about the background previously) and turn it to a cultural hub which, at the time of writing they still don't have the finance for.

So to advertise the market when they have shrunken it is an act of such bare faced cheek not only does it leave the mouth open but it stays there for a long while.

But remember Bridgend Council no amount of tinsel can hide the fact that the reality of January is just around the corner......and it bites.

Until the next time