Bright future for Seafield
I had the privilege to attend an exhibition at Ayr Town Hall on the proposed development of Seafield House, formerly Seafield Children’s Hospital until 1991.
The exhibition was organised by E- design, a local architecture and planning firm under the director Mr Robin Ghosh. Mr Ghosh has a particular interest in the development of Seafield House as his father, the late Brian Ghosh, was a well known and respected surgeon at Seafield, Ayr County and Ballochmyle Hospitals.
I was most impressed by the scale and standard of the development, not only to re- roof and refurbish Seafield House itself but to build 27 small villas throughout the grounds and to improve the 6.5 acre site with removal and replanting of several trees.
Seafield stands in an ideal and excellent position on the edge of the town centre and it is encouraging to see some thought going in to the redevelopment of a site which has been standing vacant, and deteriorating, over the past 25 years.
Many will be aware that Seafield House was built by, and originally the home, of Sir William Arroll the builder of the Forth Rail Bridge, the Tower Bridge in London, and of many other major developments. Following a short period as a rehabilition centre during the Second World War it was converted to Seafield Hospital and continued as such for the next 50 years or so until its closure in 1991 with the transfer of the patients to our new Ayr Hospital.
Seafield Hospital was much loved by the nursing staff and many patients, and some children may remember being taken to the local cinema by courtesy of the local taxi drivers. The hospital was also well regarded by doctors.
In a town which is sadly deteriorating in its infrastructure in recent years, it is good to see the proposed redevelopment of an important and prominent site in a beautiful part of the town, and these proposals should receive the full co- operation and assistance of the community and of course South Ayrshire Council. I would like to point out to readers that the new parking system used in the Matalan/ Sports Direct car park does not appear to be fit for purpose.
On a recent visit I saw long queues of harassed people struggling with the machine and having consultations with other people in the queue.
When my turn came, I found that like many others, it failed to read the number plate. I then discovered that the machine will not accept 8 characters which are needed for Irish number plates.
The machine would not advance leaving me stuck and causing the queue to stretch across the park.
These machines clearly need a help button with a customer service agent to enable people avoid the fixed penalty charges.
This creates a very bad impression for visitors and is an abuse of technology to develop such a user- unfriendly system. Having read your story about the WASPI women ‘ Pension fight is taken to MP’ I would like to offer the women born in the 1950s my full support.
It is very disappointing to these women that their local Conservative MP, Bill Grant, is not willing to support his constituents in this campaign.
The WASPI women have been let down – with their State pension being raised three times from 60 to 66, being given no or insufficient notice of the changes which might have allowed time to plan and for the last two years being blocked by the Westminster government.
Mr Grant has refused to back the WASPI women by supporting a parliamentary motion that is currently making its way through Westminster.
His main argument against giving support is that there is no money available, despite these women having made a moral contract with governments and having paid, in many cases, over 40 years of contributions.
There is money available. The answer is more dispiriting for these women – the Conservative government does not believe that supporting the ‘ State Pension Inequality for 1950s women’ is one of their priorities.
I am sure like me your readers can make up their own list where the Conservative government has other priorities and found the money to support them.