|
|
TOURISTS GUIDE TO BRITAIN
 The new Rough Guide
to England travel guide says that Derby is unexciting and
has little going for it apart from the cathedral. The
guide says, "The proximity of the Peak District
might lead you to think that Derby, 25 miles north-east
of Lichfield, could prove to be an interesting stopping-
off point. "Sadly, the city, a status conferred as
recently as 1977 - is an unexciting place, though its
workaday centre is partly redeemed by several long and
handsome 19th-century stone terraces and its
cathedral."
John Forkin, director of Derby Marketing, which is behind
the Derby Does It campaign to raise the city's profile,
said he believed the guide's view was out-of-date.
"I will probably write to them and invite them to
come and see how the city is moving on," he said.
"What they're saying is probably what people think
about the area and that is why we've launched the
marketing strategy." Derby City Council leader Chris
Williamson said, "I don't think that Derby is an
unexciting place. Many people have come to the city,
perhaps through work, with some trepidation and then have
never left." (Source: Derby Evening Telegraph, Apr/06)
The Lonely Planet tourist guide claims
London is a city full of yobs, bigots, dirt, homeless
people and pigeons. On the Metropolitan Police, the guide
says they are "not always as colour-blind as people
would like to believe". Some of London's most famous
landmarks receive less than glowing reviews with
Buckingham Palace described as "overpriced and
disappointing." The Trafalgar Square pigeons are
called "dirty, flying rats," while visitors to
Oxford Street have to "run the gauntlet of permanent
'closing-down' sales."
The guide continues saying: "When a yob in a car,
radio on full blast, mobile glued to the ear, indicator
controls untouched, nearly runs you over at a pedestrian
crossing and you protest, he dissolves into road rage as
only Londoners know how." Visitors to Britain can
expect high prices, sub-standard service and rainy
weather. And British hotels are in such a state that
guests soon realise "Fawlty Towers was really a
documentary," the book says.
The Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace is said to
be barely worth the effort and Land's End is dubbed a
"Thatcherite monument to the triumph of crass
commerce and over culture". Other areas like the
Shambles in York, Matthew Street in Liverpool and
London's Oxford Street are labelled too over-crowded for
proper sight-seeing. And last year's opening and
immediate closing of the swaying Millennium Bridge over
the Thames was said to be the "cock-up of all
cock-ups".
The guide describes Edinburgh as a beautiful and lively
city marred by "a thriving drug scene, prostitution
and a distressing Aids problem". And although it
concedes that Blackpool is worth a look, the seaside town
is said to be "well past its use-by-date."
But restaurants across the country are said to be
unfriendly to children, food prices are said to be too
high and the quality of service too low. The much loved
British fry-up, which is popular with tourists, is dubbed
death on a plate in the guide. "Tourists tend to
enjoy the traditional English breakfasts because they
don't eat such things often at home. If they did, they
would die." A trip to the pub is likely to bring
tourists into contact with "foul-mouthed lager
louts" indulging in drunken brawls. And our public
toilets are said to be "pretty grim".
On the streets, litter is dropped at the rate of around a
ton a minute across the city. London has been officially
named as the second worst capital city in Europe for air
quality and street cleanliness.
Lack of innovation, inadequate transport links and a poor
quality of life are stifling British cities and keeping
them out of the premier league of European centres,
according to a report. In almost every aspect of economic
performance, Manchester, Leeds or Nottingham lag behind
equivalent cities such as Frankfurt, Lyon and Barcelona.
According to the report, European cities are more
successful because they are given more autonomy by
central government, are better connected both physically
and electronically and are more bound into the
"European project". The report for the Core
Cities Group of the eight big English provincial cities,
backed by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, will
make sobering reading because of its implicit criticisms
of Government policy on transport and the euro. Greater
investment in the regions is vital, it says, for the
economic performance of the country as a whole.
The study compared the eight cities - Birmingham,
Manchester, Bristol, Sheffield, Liverpool, Nottingham,
Leeds and Newcastle with leading European ones. Although
it acknowledges that some cities, such as Birmingham and
Leeds, have had an economic renaissance, the report says
the big picture is clear: "Many lag behind their
competitors in terms of GDP, innovation, education,
connectivity, social cohesion, quality of life, political
capacity and connections with their wider territories.
Crucially, they lag in the eyes of international
investors". In a table of 61 top cities in Europe
rated in accordance to the number of euros per head,
Bristol is the highest rated British provincial city with
29,437, behind Hanover, Vienna, Antwerp and Helsinki.
Birmingham, Manchester, Newcastle and Liverpool are in
the bottom six. Frankfurt is top, with 74,465. The study
also compared 50 cities and regions on innovation.
It shows that northern European cities - particularly
German ones - perform better than southern European ones.
Only London and the South-east make the top 10 and all
the core cities except Bristol fall in the bottom 25.
Many of the European cities succeeded because they had
developed foreign policies and spent time and effort on
international networking to raise their profiles. They
had also improved cultural facilities in order to improve
their quality of life. The report concludes:
"English cities do not punch their economic weight
in a European context. They lag significantly behind many
of their European counterparts.'' Professor Michael
Parkinson, the principal author of the report and
director of the European Institute for urban affairs at
Liverpool John Moores University said that, of the
factors influencing success, transport and innovation
were the most crucial. "The two driving forces of
the modern urban economy are airports and universities,''
he said.
He added, " When you ask the private sector in the
north what is the single most important thing to assist
their growth it is better transport, not skills
shortages.'' Professor Parkinson said he believed the
Government had taken the message on board. "Most of
their energy has been on managing growth in the
South-east and managing decline in the north. They now
realise it is about managing growth in the north.'' The
report will be welcomed by regional local authorities
anxious for more money and devolved powers from the
Government. Sir Albert Bore, leader of Birmingham City
Council said the research confirmed what many local
authority leaders had been saying for years. "The
core cities in the United Kingdom and their regions could
be a real driving force for economy, but the relative
competitiveness in mainland Europe is evidently
higher."
A TALE OF TWO VERY DIFFERENT CITIES
MUNICH
Considered by many Britons as being the home of beer and
lederhosen, Munich is the most prosperous city in
Germany. Its economic strengthstems from traditional
industries such as brewing, agriculture and car
manufacture and modern sectors such as biotechnology.
Munich is also the centre of German information
technology expertise, and home to electronics giant
Siemens. The city's 1.3 million population, including
270,000 non-Germans, enjoy arguably the best public
transport system in Europe. Bus, cycle and tram routes
complement a reliable underground system built for the
1972 Olympic Games. Travel times have been slashed since
the introduction of the high-speed ICE trains and the
city boasts one of the most sophisticated airports in
Europe.
BIRMINGHAM
After suffering from the decline in car making and
manufacturing in the Seventies and Eighties, Birmingham
has been reinventing itself, led by a city authority with
a tradition of enterprise dating back to the Victorian
era. The centre has been largely rebuilt and has
attracted upmarket stores such as Selfridges and Harvey
Nichols. It has promoted its exhibition and conference
facilities, hosting the G8 summit in 1998. It is
investing heavily in rail links and is expanding the
airport but suffers from congestion on nearby motorways.
The city of just under one million suffers from a
service-based economy, lack of cultural sights and decent
restaurants. It was criticised for its over-ambitious
attempts to stage a Grand Prix and the Olympics.
Next >>>
|
|
|
