A load of balls or what?

[Confused]

Tom Harris complaining about Staffordshire Place and in particular the spheres surrounding it:

http://www.staffordshirenewsletter.co.uk/News/Kick-40K-ram-raid-balls-into-touch-29092011.htm

I was walking down Tipping Street on my lunch break and I saw some old gent take a look at the spheres, shake his head and then said "£40 grand they cost" to me a complete stranger. I'm presuming he'd read the Newsletter.

My thoughts are they look good and make the town look much more attractive, what does everyone else think?

 

[tek-monkey]

Unless they've moved in the last week or so, they are not evenly spaced. For £40k I'd want them exact damnit!

 

[gon2seed]

With feckin' gold knobs on!

 

[Withnail]

My thoughts are they look good and make the town look much more attractive

I like them too.

I quite like the building itself - it has a touch of the 'Walsall Art Gallery' s about it - it's probably the best development that has appeared in Stafford this century by my reckoning.

 

[anomalyaos]

Something to sit on

 

[gon2seed]

With feckin' gold knobs on!

To remove the impression I might have given I am a heathen, I like them & the building, and if you have to have somat to stop the ram raders? (do we realy?) then much rather them, than a a metal crash barrier affair. Tom could be right, and a greener alternative may have been available, and we are still in a recession, last time I looked.

 

[grumpystaffordguy]

I think they look OK. Not sure if they are worth £40k in the current climate though - that could be another person to be made redundant to pay for that!

 

[Miss Red]

I dont like them, look like concrete peas lol. They do go with the nice new paving slabs they have though, i was nice to walk down there last week, very steady in my heels and nice underfoot...then i crossed over to the car park opposite and twisted my ankle on the uneven pavement! Pity they didnt even up the slabs opposite (just to tie it all in) or even around the whole of stafford!

 

[speak65]

I think they look OK. Not sure if they are worth £40k in the current climate though - that could be another person to be made redundant to pay for that!

Just one??

Like others, I like them and the building, but agree that in today's world, a greener and cheaper alternative could have been found - £40k is ridiculous

 

[Withnail]

To remove the impression I might have given I am a heathen, I like them & the building, and if you have to have somat to stop the ram raders? (do we realy?) then much rather them, than a a metal crash barrier affair. Tom could be right, and a greener alternative may have been available, and we are still in a recession, last time I looked.

It's a fair point - i kind of look at it in a 'given that they were going to build it anyway, they've done a good job' kind of way - whether it was necessary or desirable i see as a separate issue, and one that i don't really have an opinion either way.

There is a letter from Cllr Mark Winnington in the Newsletter, saying that they are "part of an essential security package", so we may have to take his word for it. He goes on to say "Some of the options we were given were more expensive than the ones we decided upon while others were less expensive".

If we accept that such security measures were an inescapable part of the design brief, it would be interesting to see what the other options were and how they would have looked. I suspect that what they went for may well have been the best of a not particularly attractive bunch - perhaps they should show us the alternatives?

 

[Neon Jay]

Shoot me for this, but would a fibreglass or poly-ceramic alternative not have been both cheaper and easier to clean / maintain / de-vandalise? With the kind of surfaces you can create from essentially sand and glue, you often can't tell the difference unless up close or in contact (since when did stone echo when you knock it...?) - ?

 

[shoes]

Meh they do nothing for me. Apart from wince at the cost slightly.....

 

[tek-monkey]

Shoot me for this, but would a fibreglass or poly-ceramic alternative not have been both cheaper and easier to clean / maintain / de-vandalise? With the kind of surfaces you can create from essentially sand and glue, you often can't tell the difference unless up close or in contact (since when did stone echo when you knock it...?) - ?

I believe they are to stop disgruntled members of the public from ramraiding the place?

 

[Goldilox]

£40k is ridiculous

Depends really, if the cheapest alternative was £38k and these really do look a lot better it would seem like a reasonable choice...

 

[Glam]

Meh they do nothing for me. Apart from wince at the cost slightly.....

Same here,walked past them other night with the youngest and all I could think was, how much of our council tax money have they wasted on those dough balls?!

 

[shoes]

I'd love to fly on the wall at some of the council spending meetings. I want to see just how convoluted the public sector can get

 

[The Stafford Beast]

When was the last time the council offices got ram-raided?

 

[stoofer34]

security posts from £35.00

http://www.ultrasecuredirect.com/acatalog/Parking_Security_Posts_Bollards.html


HQ Built with eastern by-pass money!

S

 

[henryscat]

security posts from £35.00

http://www.ultrasecuredirect.com/acatalog/Parking_Security_Posts_Bollards.html

Yes, but they're horrible.

HQ Built with eastern by-pass money!

S

The money that's been spent wouldn't buy even a quarter of an eastern by-pass...

 

[MarkyD]

Just think how dirty they'll get from people standing on them taking pictures on a night out, wont be so white and bright a couple months down the line.