What a Circus!

It comes as no surprise that Taylor Wimpey, armed with their planning approved Sergeant's Mess and Roman Circus starting gates, they want to sell it on for somebody else to develop. They are clearly strapped for cash, as are many others in the house building industry at the moment, so they will settle for £800,000. How much did they buy the site for I wonder? Something like £80,000 I am led to believe, so it will not be a bad return on their investment. The problem is, they have managed to get Colchester Borough Council to allow them to section off the starting gates so that they can never be turned into a tourist attraction. CBC positively rolled over on their backs and asked for a tickle when the plans came to committee. It bordered on the sycophantic to hear the reverence given to the applicant. It was almost an apology for inconveniencing them. Not one of the planning committee voiced any concern at this sectioning-off of our scheduled ancient monument. Their names? Councillors: Mary Blandon, Peter Chillingworth, Barrie Cook, Mark Cory, Stephen Ford, Wyn Foster, Ray Gamble, Chris Hall, Sonia Lewis. Remember those names in any future heritage matters. History will judge them.

So, has anybody got £800,000 so that we can buy back the remains of the only Roman circus in Britain?

Colchester's Heritage Assets

I can't say that I will shed any tears over the fact that Taylor Wimpey have financial difficulties, as I read in last night's Gazette. It is that company who own the land on which our unique Roman circus lies and who have refused to allow us to have full and free access to it. Their concern was profit, pure and simple, to enable future owners of the land to have a nice garden rather to enable visitors to Colchester to see the circus starting gates remains. Our council clearly don't appreciate the archaeological importance of this piece of land, otherwise they would have made a bigger fuss about it. The missed opportunity for tourism is immense. But then, Colchester has long failed to capitalise on its heritage assets. We can only hope now that whoever acquires Taylor Wimpey will have a better regard for the only Roman circus known in Britain and will allow us full unrestricted access to its remains.