Friday 19 October 2007

To whom it may concern

Dear Kettering Borough Council

What the heck is wrong with you? A couple of days ago it was announced that you are commissioning a £48,000 piece of artwork for the town. Now I'm as much of an art fan as the next person (not too big a fan then obviously) but £48,000 worth of tax-payers' money going to create pieces of sculpture that would be called eye-sores if they weren't art, is absurd.

You have made a great deal of the fact that you're asking the members of the general public to vote and decide which of three designs we would most like to see. If you're going to that trouble could you not also have a 'no artwork' option? An opportunity for those of us who would like to see the money spent on maintaining roads, improving libraries or providing better school bus services, to make our feelings known.

Apparently artists were asked to design pieces that would 'create a link between three green spaces so visitors to Kettering could appreciate how the town fits together'. What utter claptrap. Firstly, visitors to Kettering? You're having a laugh right? I suppose it's conceivable that someone could get lost on the way to Cambridge or Birmingham and find themselves wandering the streets. Even if that were the case I'm not convinced that they are likely to be overcome with delight at the way that these three oddball sculptures reflect Kettering's togetherness.

It's not the first time that the council has done something like this. Back in 2005 you paid £10,000 for a monstrosity of a clock in the town centre. At least in this instance it was erected for a specific purpose - to celebrate 100 years of the Rotary Club - although how many of our town's residents actually know that is another matter.

I am fed up with local government complaining that it doesn't have enough money for vital services, upping the council tax and then spending out on such frivolous and pointless projects.

Yours grumpily
Giraffe-A-Licious

Words fail to describe just how horrific this clock is.

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