The scheme to plant 94 trees in wheelie bins placed on Smalltown Promenade has been cancelled with organiser Gloria Truchbull blaming the All-New-Yet-Unimproved Somerset Cuonty Council for the demise of the project.
Mrs Trunchbull, who successfully managed to secure a grant of £5000 from the Chernobyl-by-Sea Slush Fund earlier this year, has issued a strongly-worded statement which evokes memories of strongly-worded statements issued by Smalltown and Dullbridge (SaD) Town Council in years gone by.
“The Smalltown Imaginary Events Group has had a long history of organising events in Smalltown, although I haven’t organised any for a while, but when I did organise them they were the best events in Smalltown.
So when I came up with this idea to plant trees in bins and place them along the Promenade, I was fully confident that nothing could go wrong. Initially the All-New-Yet-Unimproved Somerset Cuonty Council and SaD Town Council thought the idea was great and granted permission.
However, once the local people heard about the idea they reacted negatively to the plan, saying the trees wouldn’t survive the strong winds and salt air. Word of this criticism soon spread with both Councils getting the blame for the idea. Especially galling since it wasn’t their idea in the first place.
I have done an awful lot for the residents of Smalltown over the years, and I think it’s very ungrateful of everyone to put a dampener on my latest scheme. So much so that I am now throwing all my toys out of my pram.
This should have been a simple project and the trees have been sat on my driveway since May whilst I waited for ANYUSCC and SaDTC to finish thinking and talking about the idea and to agree to my idea.
I wanted to have the trees up and flowering to coincide with Dictator Dullard’s Climate Rescue Action Plan Festival at the end of the month, and as a fellow former-Headmistress herself felt certain she would see the value of this project and promote it as her idea and would see the benefits of all the possible photo opportunities, so I would imagine that she is as disappointed as I am that the trees aren’t going to come to fruition.
I had hoped that these trees which, in a sheltered position, flower profusely from September to March, would spark conversation amongst residents and be the first of many ideas to improve the appearance of Smalltown Seafront. Although that conversation has been sparked it didn’t go the way I wanted it to as practically everyone had said its a stupid idea.
“For over ninety four years Smalltown has been left with nothing but miles and miles of dark, dingy, dreary, drab, dull, desolate, dank, depressing, doleful, dirty, discoloured tarmac, none of which is attracts tourists to our town. The only thing that actually brings people to Smalltown is the cut price holidays available at Hellhole Holiday Park and they are exactly the sort of people we don’t want here. Whoever granted permission for them to increase the facilities on site needs their head examined.
Smalltown has been neglected and starved of funding and resourcing for decades and neither ANYUSCC or SaDTC have any intention of doing anything about it themselves or allowing the community to do so themselves.
Over the years I have put in a tremendous effort to replace the lack of an attraction with a programme of events throughout the year. Since the Corvid pandemic organising an event has become a nightmare. The insurance costs have almost trebled, partly because ANYUSCC now demand £10 million in public liability cover. The paperwork required now extends to 94 pages of questions, and it’s become impossible for event organisers to get permission.
All of this means that quite simply I’ve had enough of the ungrateful attitude of residents and Councillors.
Even though the Smalltown Imaginary Events Group was dissolved in May 2018, as a result of all this criticism I’m now going to stop organising events in Smalltown, and leave the place to fester as it has done for so many years.
It’s quite ridiculous that the Council has bowed to the many critical voices and…”
SomersetClive apologises, but we are unable to reproduce the rest of the 94 page statement as we don’t have the bandwidth capacity.
Mrs Trunchbull is open to offers from anyone who would like one of the 94 trees, as they are currently preventing her from getting her car out of her garage.