Time to show backbone over tourist information

There is a tide in the affairs of town regeneration which is approaching its flood and which if not taken by Rother District Council will be to the authority's shame and to the local economy's loss.

Visit any community on Continental Europe, no matter how small or how modest, and if it has anything at all to attract the visitor a Tourist Information Centre will be at its very core.

To the Continental mind, not to offer this basic facility '“ and to benefit from it - would be unthinkable.

To hand that responsibility to the TIC in a neighbouring town with a vigorous tourist agenda of its own would, even if it were a local authority partner, be regarded as ludicrous.

And so it is ludicrous that Bexhill's tourist economy welfare is dependent on Battle TIC's goodwill.

There was a palpable air of disappointment among representatives of local organisations attending this week's Town Forum when Rother's De La Warr Pavilion working group chairman admitted that the group was no longer looking at linking future Rother funding of the De La Warr Pavilion Trust with insistence on a full TIC being reinstated at the pavilion.

Instead, the group is negotiating for visitor information to be provided at the pavilion but, crucially, not the booking of accommodation.

One should not, of course, "shoot the messenger." The chairman was merely reflecting the current thinking of the working group, whose findings will have to be put before the full council.

But "negotiations" of this nature are meaningless.

The Forum's own minutes will record that at a previous forum, DLWP Trust officers made it clear that they are ALREADY providing this degree of visitor information.

Rother has never been in a stronger position since the hand-over to the Trust to influence the pavilion's future for the good of all '“ including the pavilion itself.

For a stranger arriving in Bexhill, the pavilion is THE obvious place to find a TIC. Full TIC facilities would draw more visitors into the pavilion and give them a taste of what it can offer.

Hopefully, with a "satisfaction index" built into future Rother funding, the authority will be able to work in partnership with the Trust to ensure that more of the things that people responding to the working group's survey identified as their priorities will be incorporated into its running.

But if the council fails to use the strong negotiating position that major funding '“ on which the pavilion depends '“ confers it will be seen by the electorate as spineless.

Half a loaf may be better than none. But why settle for half measures? When the goal is an important one, GO for it!