From 'hideous' to 'a big improvement'

AN “attractive new public realm” for Yarm High Street may be promised, but residents have a uncanny knack for bringing grand visions down to earth.

- By GARETH LIGHTFOOT

“These are going to be somewhere for people to wee in and throw cans in when the pubs close,’ says Carole Jones, 70, gazing at computer-generated images of new greenery, plant-ets, paving and seating. “How are you going to get rid of the smell of urine?

“What is it that makes it in-keep-ing with a Georgian town?” she quizzes Stockton Council officers. “Why do you need change?”

Critical of the forthcoming “impressive new public spaces’, she goes further: “Most of the people T’ve spoken to don’t want it.”

Officers answer her questions and explain they are trying to strike a balance and give people what they said they wanted.

Itis the first of several drop-in sessions at Yarm Library, every Thursday from 10am to 2pm until late November. Carole is yet to be won over: “I’m just very upset and very sad that you've ruined Yarm’”

Outside she muses: “I really sounded very negative there. I’m just annoyed. Not enough consultation has been done.

“| think they're just spending money for the sake of they've got some money to spend,’ she says of the scheme, bankrolled with £20m levelling up funding from the government. “We need toilets in Yarm, we need to keep the parking spaces.

“The beauty of Yarm is its heritage. It’s just been made to look like Teesside Park and any other modern street. I don’t think it's going to enhance it in any way. It’s not going to help our problems?”

Fellow resident Margaret Robinson, 85, is more optimistic. She says: “T think it'll be quite a big improvement.

“Thaven’t got a car so it’s not going to affect me very much. There’s going to be a loss of a few car parking spaces,” she added. Nine parking spaces are to be removed out of 324 to make way for the revamp.