This was first published on the Old Man Stan’s Bazzo Stick Gang Facebook page – https://www.facebook.com/official.oldmanstan

“Our Towns” aka Basildon Creative People and Places.. aka the consultants currently milking Basildon for all its worth “Things Made Public”.. They are not from Basildon.

WHAT THEY DO?

What they do.. They lay on events that the Council doesn’t have the imagination to lay on themselves and prefer to pay outsiders to do the job – which they could easily ask some of our homegrown talent and businesses to help out with instead.

What they are very good at doing is blocking people from commenting with the truth about their bullshit enterprise . They block what they don’t want people to see.

WHAT THEY ARE ACTUALLY DOING..

They are ArtWashing Basildon with taxpayers money. But worse than that, the money from Arts Council England (which like it or not is taxpayers money) is apparently granted to Basildon for the encouragement of engagement with art and culture for sections of the community who have low engagement with art and culture.

They haven’t been able to explain how they are achieving that by plastering the town centre in murals, on buildings most of which will be removed or demolished prior to re-development. And worst still offering no opportunity for local artists to benefit. These artists have been bought in. The work hardly relates to the community. Its cost a whole chunk of money from that pot.

THE WORST EXAMPLE YET?

We wouldn’t normally criticise an artists work in a non constructive way, but exception and special mention must be given to this monstrosity, where we are left asking.. How does this benefit us and how is it better than what was there,

The site – the main exterior wall of the old Raquels nightclub building in Market Square.

The work.. God knows what it is supposed to represent. It’s badly cropped, wonky. The application is shaky and runny and not in a good and intended way. The perspective is botched. and it looks unfinished. If you are going to tackle photorealism, it really has to be spot on.

All in all.. not a great result for a building that’s one of the first that greets people when entering our town.

WHO IS RESPONSIBLE?

We have asked who is responsible for allowing this. We’ve asked the Council and we have asked Councillor Rimmer, conservative member for Leisure and Culture apparently. Apparently, he has joint responsibility for this with Cllr Terri Sargent. They are very slow in answering several points of concern put to them.

There will be Officers at the Council – high ranking, highly paid Officers who have responsibility here.. again, they have had concerns put to them, but have yet to offer a decent response.

Things Made Public have taken over £140,000 in Council money and that figure is now well out of date and will soon need to be revised. Meanwhile, they have been bailed out at least once by the Arts Council.. as mentioned, also money from taxpayers.

Why doesn’t Basildon Council offer these lucrative opportunities to people who actually live in the town?