D Day for Aveling & Porter

Time-delayed photos of the Medway Conservative vandalism and destruction of the Aveling & Porter building in Strood.

The full cost to the tax-payer of this demolition stands at £800,000. Money taken from Council tax-payer pockets.

Money that could have been used to subsidise the Medway Freedom Pass or free bus passes for younger people.

Not only is the actual destruction a disgrace. But it seems the Council Censor has been undertaking some airbrushing of its own by changing its own Tourist website on the content of the Guildhall Museum; in the ironically titled 'lost industries' section' the content on Aveling & Porter has been deleted.

It had come to this blogs attention that the Council had recently removed the Aveling & Porter webpage on the Tourist website via a tip-off.

Seems like airbrushing history isnt just the actual demolition.

Please see cached version (from January) - here

And now the 'airbrushed version' - here

A statement on the webpage from someone with artistic licence. The comment that 'little remains of these industries and the men and women that worked in them' and "Looking at the area now, it is easy to forget that Rochester and Strood together were once the hub of a number of important heavy industries"

Not the most considered of comments given the timing.

£800,000 of money squandered, a historic asset demolished and residents ignored. All for a temporary car park.