I INTENDED to write on the banking ‘system’ but the latest ‘art work’, of the brutalist four screen cinema on a recent front page of the MDA demands analysis.

Memories are short, but consider the Asda lump in the centre, a tribute to Mammon and the dominance of shopping. I recall the owner of the lighting shop that was close by the previous offices of the MDA. He said what we had lost. An open central garden and town square, tree lined and by the Lemon. The Passmore Library enhanced, and now the good museum close by.

People sauntering and sitting. Meeting family and friends, leisurely and joyful. Now the disabled limping in to register the need for a parking space at ‘customer services’. And those other things we have lost, like Ridgeway’s the shoe shop. An othopaedic surgeon knew the vital need for well fitting shoes, carefully chosen.

I ask the councillors, who for the time being have power in deciding the ‘built environment’ of our dear but beaten up town, to stand in the canyon between the Butter Market and the equally brutal multi-storey car park on a cold and wet day. And to look carefully at the people waiting for the buses.

Firstly they are not many in number, but most are elderly, some smoking and generally unfit – speaking as a doctor. (I will refer to a plan in a later opinion piece regarding a public forum to educate people in health – very poorly done by our so called main stream media and the NHS).

I have written before saying that public transport provision in Newton Abbot is abysmal and the opposite of civilised. I called for a bus and coach station at Brunel’s station where people going to and from NA could have warmth and shelter whilst they waited, either for a train or for local and moorland connection.

There would be welcoming and good information there, and an electric powered shuttle bus to bring them to the centre and the Butter Market. There, one third of that market would be set aside for people waiting for buses with affordable refreshment.

I corresponded with Councillor Jackie Hook, and later she agreed that current provision was poor and must be better. I see that ESS – Entertainment Solution Services - another Orwellian name, has made a claimed independent survey of TDC’s grand vision with its present £11 million tag. As quoted it is negative but not for the predicted footfall and cinema use.

The latter looks as if it has been snatched from thin air, like much else in our lowered country. To predict a healthy income from a multiplex cinema, and rent to TDC with advancing poverty is potty.

Think – one sixth of the UK population has less than £100 behind them. Fuel, food, mortgage costs advance and those affording Sky or Netflix films would perhaps prefer to stay home with sweaters on rather than shell out £80 and rising for a family visit to the cinema. ‘Top Gun’ is the attraction is it? A film of high tech killing from Hollywood where the Department of Defence has, as often, a part in the editing. Remind people that US ‘defence’ spending exceeds the total such spending of the next 10 countries combined.

There is a film I have yet to see. I love the big screen and the excellent sound like others. Film can be the best of art. But the film our present council should see is ‘Lala Land’.