Dear Editor:

After extensive studies and polling, I don’t recall the community ever suggesting that the hospital property should be used for parking. This council, however, appears to have ignored the residents’ wishes and hired people to design a parking garage on the site of the old hospital (“Town pitches parking,” March 26).

As council had previously approved the construction of a new theatre without any parking, I wonder if the proposed parking garage was to correct this oversight.

I’m sure that no one thinks that it should be the taxpayers’ responsibility to build a parking garage for anyone, including the Shaw theatre, especially when other, more acceptable uses were being privately funded.

Speaking of which I was surprised to learn that the Shaw’s attendance was down eight per cent last year, and that the average age of the ticket buyer was 80 years old (“The little troop that became Shaw Inc.,” March 26).

It also appears that ticket sales accounted for only half of the Shaw theatre’s expenses and that the province donated $15 million and individuals gave more than $16 million to keep it going.

These are not encouraging financial results for the Shaw, which appears to have kept operating only through the charity of others.

Regarding the theatre design, I’ve always believed that any new building in this unique village should respect its neighbours in scale and appearance. With the latest proposal for the Royal George Theatre, it appears that the Shaw doesn’t share that opinion.

Perhaps it considers itself more important than the town itself, a town that has been here for over 200 years and previously had been protected by its residents from projects like this.

Another valid criticism is that facadism is never an acceptable solution to any problem and shouldn’t have been approved as a compromise to poor building design.

The local columnist Garth Turner wrote about the turmoil in our streets that would be caused by the heavy truck traffic during two years of construction of the new theatre. But what if you build it and they don’t come?

Hopefully it’s not too late to reconsider the wisdom in building a new Royal George Theatre in light of changing tastes, declining attendance and recent financial information, which has to question the ability of the Shaw to support itself without continuing to rely on government grants and private donations.

Also, don’t forget that the proposed building also is a colossal eyesore being totally out of scale with the Old Town.

Wayne Murray
NOTL