Around The Boardwalk

Plenty of confusion down at the harbour this morning, with all the usual Ron comings and Max goings thrown into disarray…

And that’s because, having been cordoned off temporarily last Tuesday due to a fracas, access alongside the marina is now, we’re told, closed for at least two months as work on the long-planned boardwalk gets underway.

A distinct lack of signposts was being addressed as we checked out the new lay of the land this morning, with plenty of people getting their rucksacks in a twist when their usual path to the Cliff Walk was blocked.

The new boardwalk will continue the walkway along the marina that extends the Trafalgar Road line – hence those big red metal supports sticking out of the water.

We’ll be getting our hands on the plans later this week, and we’ll post them here. In the meantime, access to and from the Cliff Walk on the Greystones end is through Marina Village rather than along the harbour.

It’s about a five minutes difference, and if it’s hardly a beautiful five minutes, we have to remember, this is a building site. And they’re building something very rock’n’roll for the town too.

Incidentally, on the north pier fracas, we spoke with the kids involved yesterday, and one of them is happy  to write up a few words giving their side of the story. Let’s hope we can get to the truth here, and push beyond the taxi driver responses on social media, where some see this problem as purely class warfare, the Have Yachts stopping the Have Nots from having their Last Of The Summer Wine fun.

There’s also the nostalgia-tinted argument that kids should be allowed to jump off a dangerous marina pier because, hey, back in my day, we all used to jump off the old harbour wall – which is akin to arguing that we should bring back drunk driving, smoking on aeroplanes, and the plastic bag. Just like in the good old days.

With a meeting being held on Tuesday night with harbour officials and local councillors over how to make both piers safe for everyone, the most likely solution will be the introduction of security cameras. People are a lot less likely to be dicks when they might have to actually take responsibility for their actions.

In the meantime, here’s that new route from the harbour to the Cliff Walk, in glorious technicolor and surround-sound….