LETTER: Is programme another white elephant?

Can you please tell me what happened to the £25m project (which was part of the Townscape Heritage initiative scheme) to breathe new life into the historic White Hart Street area and which was given the go-ahead by Mansfield District Council (MDC) on Monday, September 15 2008?

Your newspaper carried the article recently which mentioned ‘transforming the rundown area surrounded by White Hart Street, Church Street and Dame Flogan Street into a Covent Garden-style development to include 145 apartments, offices, shops, restaurants and cafes, with four new buildings created and five run-down existing buildings converted’. No mention, by the way, of where cars would park.

Was this yet another ‘white elephant’ given the go-ahead by MDC, just like the many Robin Hood theme park projects et al which have never materialised over the past years?

With the exception of three Asian restaurants, tacky little car parks, countless estate agents, and a cleaned railway viaduct nothing has happened in the area but rot, with more than ten years gone and more to come.

John Heath

Anvil Court, Mansfield