Poundbury, oh Poundbury

I've been wishing to visit this urban extension of Dorchester for some time now and did so last week, mid-week, mid-day.  My initial reaction was one which used to be common to people who encountered Milton Keynes, who having driven right through the new city, found it eerily devoid of people. In the case of Milton Keynes, their experience was to be expected due to the explicit separation of people and traffic by the design. In the case of Poundbury however, I was on foot and hoping to discover the hub of the place; where people would meet; the heart of the development. I didn't.

We walked from one end to the other, from one side to the other and passed at the most six other people. My husband remarked that he felt rather as if we were on a film set; that the place wasn't quite real.

I have a keen interest in what makes retail spaces work and their interaction with the public realm.  Well, Poundbury isn't short of public realm. The wide roads, the interesting spaces and juxtaposition of the buildings all contrive to give lots of opportunity for humans to interact.  But where are the humans?  Presumably those who live in Poundbury mainly work elsewhere. Those who work in the sprinkling of retail and commercial units designed around the public squares were obviously hard at it behind the large windows of their large units. Solicitors, care organisations, bridal shops, kitchen companies - I'm sure there are other categories, but this was my impression of unit occupants. I longed to turn a corner and find a little greengrocer in a tiny shop, with vegetables piled up outside (it was a sunny day) or that I might stumble over some cafe culture or even a pub, where real people were spilling out into the sunshine. 

I was told later on, when discussing the lack of people in Poundbury with someone who knows the place, that the social life there is excellent and that it's a Marmite town; people either love it or they don't. I guess that's one other thing that it has in common with Milton Keynes.

When Her Majesty visits next week she will be unveiling a statue in Queen Mother Square and I'm sure she'll be impressed with the truly majestic buildings close by and with her son's rather splendid achievement. What I'm also sure of is that Poundbury will on that day be full of bustling humanity and hundreds of people, so let's hope some of that street-level vitality lasts after she's left the square.

Why I'm for 'Out'

The EU's inability to deal with the mess it has created with the inequity of nation state economies is appalling. Its complete failure to handle effectively asylum seekers and refugees to provide safe sanctuary is scandalous. I want my country to open its doors to those escaping war and torture. And if to do that we have to say to the rest of Europe, sorry but you can't migrate here for the time being - then so be it. While we're in the EU we can't do that.

We have a Europe that is meddling where it shouldn't, flexing its military muscles (reg. the EU exercise on Salisbury Plain recently), selling its soul to multinationals (TTIP) while at the same time failing on tests of basic humanity. It doesn't represent me in any way, shape or form and it doesn't represent a lot of those in the countries it purports to represent.

People have taken to the streets in frustration all over Europe in the past few years and they don't do so to applaud a superb EU government. It's too big; you can't standardise life to the extent that it wants to. The inevitable result of EU mismanagement will be, I'm afraid, social unrest. And none of us wants to see bloody revolutions again in Europe.

That's why I'm out. It's nothing to do with celebrities or politicians. It's my own observation, reading and investigation that have led me to this conclusion.