COUN Jeff Watson, ward member for Amble West with Warkworth: I am tremendously impressed by your enthusiasm and belief in Alnwick. The reason people come to Alnwick is for Northumberland, the castle, the Garden. They don't come for the town of Alnwick, it is not a place that people would particularly want to come to.
What Alnwick town has to do is work with you to make it an attractive tourism spot itself, that people want to come. It is encouraging that you want to work with everybody. Hopefully people will work with you to make it this tourism spot that is broa
der than the castle and Garden.
Christian Perdrier (CP): I am not looking for 100 per cent of people saying it is great. I want to have positive people but sometimes people are negative also. The people I have spoken to are very positive and I think for the first time, for a long time, I see some energy. I want to use my past experience and put it into place in Alnwick. I want to make sure the castle and the Garden are not part of the problem, but part of the solution. It is about convincing people that they have to move, that everybody is part of the solution.
If Alnwick doesn't move, then too bad for you guys. You're dead. Your investment is zero. You have the chance, but we have to get this moving.
John Hope, owner of Penny Black, Fenkle Street, Alnwick: There is a massive cynicism towards the prosperity of the Garden compared to the town itself.
The biggest problem I think the traders have got here is a lot of people come to the town in the high season but in the shoulder months it is becoming really, really difficult for the town itself. The town itself doesn't compete very well with surrounding attractions like the MetroCentre.
How can the Garden improve the prosperity of the town which is quite simply in the doldrums?
CP: If the people of the town don't move, I won't be able to move the people of the town. Disneyland Paris was built from a common field.
It went from a field to a place where 13 million people now come. But are the people going to move? Will they do it? I am not owning the town, but something needs to happen, and I will fight for that. But we can't have the town closing on a Sunday. We can't have the town closing at 5pm.
John Hope: There is a general feeling the Garden plays lip service with the town (about encouraging people to visit the town after a trip to the Garden). Visitors park in the Garden's car parks, look around the Garden, get back into their cars and get back onto the A1.
The percentage of visitors that are coming out of the Garden and into the town centre is far too small. There is not enough people coming into the town centre.
CP: Don't think we are keeping the people in the Garden, because we are not. It is not because we are forcing the people to spend money with us. Because we are not.
It is something deeper than that. It is the people's choice whether they go to the town centre, or not.
If people don't go to the town centre, it is not because the castle and the Garden is telling them not to. It's because the people don't want to. It is because the product is not what they want.
People won't go to the town if it's not interesting. And it is not interesting, and we know that it is not.
