View Full Version : Gmtv
neepnipper
20-Nov-06, 09:24
Has anyone seen the item on GMTV this morning about poverty in the UK?
Of all the places they could choose to film in they chose Wick.
Kids speaking about how all hope is lost as there are no jobs in Wick and they are afraid of the break-ins and vandalism.
Just as the area is picking itself up with all the new shops, the dental school etc we have to put up with being classed as a second rate area.
I'm not saying there's not hardship, but come on, Wick is no worse than any other town or city in the UK why they filmed here is anyones guess.
Has anyone seen the item on GMTV this morning about poverty in the UK?
Of all the places they could choose to film in they chose Wick.
Kids speaking about how all hope is lost as there are no jobs in Wick and they are afraid of the break-ins and vandalism.
Just as the area is picking itself up with all the new shops, the dental school etc we have to put up with being classed as a second rate area.
I'm not saying there's not hardship, but come on, Wick is no worse than any other town or city in the UK why they filmed here is anyones guess.Wick? They must just have fancied a few days Holiday in the area. I suspect choosing Wick had more to do with their Expense Claims than looking for "Facts".
I have no intention of making light of plight of Wick or the situation of some of the people there but, compared with a lot of areas it is pure Heaven.
Yes there is definitely an employment problem, that is undeniable, but Break-ins and Vandalism? There is nowhere in Wick I would not walk at any time of day or night and no matter where I park my car I don't have that anxious feeling wondering if it will still be there when I return to it.
My only thought is that whoever did the item had a bet that he could find a producer dim enough to believe it.
cuddlepop
20-Nov-06, 10:00
I didn't see it but MrCP couldn't believe his eyes:eek: .Why choose Wick?they must be up there filming something else.
The last thing you need up there or anywhere for that matter is negative publicity[disgust]
neepnipper
20-Nov-06, 10:29
I have just e-mailed GMTV to ask why they chose Wick and I pointed out a few things that their researcher obviously missed I also criticised them for their negative portrayel of the area.
See if I get a reply!
Missed it, what a shame to portray the town in that kind of light, lets face it everywhere has its problems. I thought Wick was an up and coming area, I watched a programe about property development once and they said, if your looking to buy in a place that is on the up, look out for big name stores moving there, as apparently they really do their research before ploughing money into building a store, obvioulsey if there was no money in the town to be spent, they wouldn't open up:confused
Sad thing is people watching, will take that as gospel now!
Let us know theire response to your email I can understand why your mad.
willowbankbear
20-Nov-06, 13:24
Has anyone seen the item on GMTV this morning about poverty in the UK?
Of all the places they could choose to film in they chose Wick.
Kids speaking about how all hope is lost as there are no jobs in Wick and they are afraid of the break-ins and vandalism.
Just as the area is picking itself up with all the new shops, the dental school etc we have to put up with being classed as a second rate area.
I'm not saying there's not hardship, but come on, Wick is no worse than any other town or city in the UK why they filmed here is anyones guess.
Ive never been ashamed to be a Weeker Until 6.30am this morning!!
What drivel to make a story, did anyone notice the first camera shot was of the North side-Wick. What type of houses have we got there? tenements, squaling slums? NO!!!!! Bungalows where youd struggle to get 1 for less than £90.000 & there isnt just 1 street of them on our side, theres hundreds of them.
Wick is not deprived, far from it Castlemilk, Easterhouse,Blackhill in Glasgow are deprived, Wick is far from being in the same state as they are.
I was sitting watching telly on the rig,with some workmates & thanks to that little beaut of a story getting ripped to pieces :( No thanks to this total non story. How embarrasing that was
Could someone write a more-detailed account of what the GMTV programme was claiming?
Edit: The only thing I found on the GMTV website was this article (http://www.gm.tv/index.cfm?articleid=23395). It doesn't mention Wick.
neepnipper
20-Nov-06, 13:47
The article was about poverty and how it affects children, there was a woman on the programme from a charity or organisation to do with child poverty in GB (I think) and Gordon Brown was also on later to make comments but I missed that part.
The film started with a sweeping shot of Wick, and a doom and gloom voice saying ' Wick, a town in the north of Scotland........' then it went on to interview local primary school kids about their opinion of Wick, the kids were saying things like' some kids haven't got football boots 'cos they can't afford them', ' we say we want this or that for Christmas but we don't get what we want because there's no money', 'I don't like the break-ins and vandalism', 'there used to be jobs in Wick but now there's not so I don't know what I'll do when I grow up'.
It really did portray Wick as down and out.
Sooooo angry!!!!
Was the programme telling lies then? From all the stories that we get to hear on the org then I think not.
Its all to do with a grant system that Children in need are asking the goverment to set up. For low Income families to be able to get a £100 at summertime for childrens clothes/footware for school & at christmas for Heating bills.
But cant see why they would target Wick for this is i dare say there are worse of places.
My son was one of chidren interviewed on there and what he said they asked about the things that were shown it was good to see our kids on telly mind, also it was to do with massk and they did a project in the summer they r also paying for all the kids who took part to go for a day out , i agree to some extent they did protray wick in a bad lite but in gentral it was meant to be about provety in gentral
as i said before the kids were asked their idea of provety not just in wick and those kids were saying what their idae of provety was not kids in wick nessersarly .
Was the programme telling lies then? From all the stories that we get to hear on the org then I think not.What, that Wick is typical of Britain when it comes to break-ins, vandalism and child poverty? Wick, the dregs of industrial deprivation? Deprived shoeless kids wandering Wick's football pitches?
I would say, from what appears to have been portrayed by the programme, that I would describe it as a peice of rather "very maginative" editing!
Make me wonder if the producer of "Coast" has moved to pastures new.
Has anyone seen the item on GMTV this morning about poverty in the UK?
Of all the places they could choose to film in they chose Wick.
Kids speaking about how all hope is lost as there are no jobs in Wick and they are afraid of the break-ins and vandalism.
Just as the area is picking itself up with all the new shops, the dental school etc we have to put up with being classed as a second rate area.
I'm not saying there's not hardship, but come on, Wick is no worse than any other town or city in the UK why they filmed here is anyones guess.sorry to gon but it has made me mad poeple going on no one has mentioned how well our kids did the reason wick was chossen was because roadshows all over scotland were done last summer and they were so ompresed with massk and our kids they wanted to come back and speak to them and film them ,about their idea of provety.
No doubt about it Woolie, the kids did speak well. For some kids poverty is a real issue.
However I would agree with Jaws, this was all about editing and the outcome gave a very poor impression of our town.
evelyn
I agree it was good editing but think we should give the kids a pat on the back they were all brill.
The Pepsi Challenge
20-Nov-06, 16:22
Next week on GMTV: Thurso - one of the most affluent and comfortable places to live in the UK.
I didn't see it either but these posts made me so cross I've added my twopennorth in an email to the programme website. Maybe if enough people do this they'll apologise (or pigs might fly)
I was sitting watching telly on the rig,with some workmates & thanks to that little beaut of a story getting ripped to pieces :( No thanks to this total non story. How embarrasing that was
SNAP mate!Ive been gettin it all day!
Gogglebox
20-Nov-06, 18:55
Didnt High Ormlie protray itself in this light deliberatley a few years ago to get loads of grants from EC etc
Buttercup
20-Nov-06, 19:29
Didnt High Ormlie protray itself in this light deliberatley a few years ago to get loads of grants from EC etc
Yes, some people,mostly those that didn't live there, portrayed High Ormlie in a bad light, and yes they got lots of grants and money thrown their way but what have they done with it? - apart from narrowing the road and making a "Homezone".:roll: I've been lead to believe that they spent a fortune on surveys and gave the place a worse name than it had to start with! Is the turnover of houses still happening as fast as ever?
Woolie, If the kids did well then I'm happy for them and I've no doubt that what they said was correct.
I admit I didn't see it myself and I would not think of blaming the kids for any impression GMTV gave by the way they presented the item. I've no doubt that had their intention been different the item would have been differently edited and half the world would be flocking to the new up and coming Boom Town.
Not that I have any distrust of the media, you understand. [lol]
I bet the guy that made the story wasn`t a local
Buttercup
20-Nov-06, 20:54
I bet the guy that made the story wasn`t a local
Didn't The Pepsi Challenge do much the same for Thurso short ago? ;)
Didn't The Pepsi Challenge do much the same for Thurso short ago? ;)
sory couldn`t comment this I hadn`t read that storie but I take your meaning it did some damage to the area from a person from outside the area..:confused
The Pepsi Challenge
21-Nov-06, 00:50
Dang. That's right. I sold my soul, and my town out, for a little silver. Tsk! Tsk! Thanks for reminding me.
In actual fact I've done more than my bit to benefit Thurso down the years, even long after I left. Sadly the apparent lack of 'vision' in the county - and the almost total apathy - left me somewhat disappointed. I'm currently trying to attract a top band to come up and play the Big Gig in Thurso next year.
roblovesplastic
21-Nov-06, 00:59
Caithness is the best place I have ever lived in.
Caithness is the best place I have ever lived in.
me too my mum was saying that what was said was'nt rite and she would put anyone rite.
willowbankbear
21-Nov-06, 13:11
Didn't The Pepsi Challenge do much the same for Thurso short ago? ;)
No, not really he told the truth:roll:
Didnt High Ormlie protray itself in this light deliberatley a few years ago to get loads of grants from EC etc
Yes they did and gave the whole town a bad name and the rest of the town still feels a sense of grievance at the money spent in Ormlie. Indeed, the Wick initiative was in a way prompted by Ormlie's successful grants and spending. One area of Wick felt they were due such support too. I am not criticising them for this nor Ormlie to an extent but the way the areas were/are portrayed has had negative effect outwith Caithness. Also anyone who has visited certain areas of our Scottish cities and certainly areas in many cities south of the border will really know what deprivation is. In national terms Wick and Thurso have no areas of serious deprivation.
I will say that Caithness/Sutherland was the best place I ever lived and I still recommend it to all here and now and again people come up to me for advice or tell of their great holidays and the extremely nice people they have met
Caithness is the best place I have ever lived in.
Caithness is a close second to Kirkby-in-Furness!!
Bill Fernie
22-Nov-06, 01:44
I did not see the programme referred to but perhaps it might be worth considering why they might have come to Wick. Whilst there are no doubt places that are worse as there are places that are better. The fact is that parts of Wick are listed quite highly in the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation. The Pulteneytown area of Wick has the highest levels of deprivation and is the reason why councillor Katrina MacNab and her committee work hard within the Pulteneytown People’s Project to tackle the problems.
I do not think any programme that shows part of a problem should be criticised for showing the problem. Of course any area has problems and no doubt if it was a programme about Wick as a whole there would be some balance. I understand the programme was about poverty if the item at http://www.gm.tv/index.cfm?articleid=23395 is anything to go by.
Undoubtedly rural poverty has been in many ways overshadowed by concentration on urban issues where a large housing estate in Glasgow or Edinburgh tended to get lots of publicity. However in recent years there has been recognition that poverty is often hidden in rural areas as it may be in a small village, town or even a few houses in a remote location such as in part of the Highlands. Poverty can hit very hard in terms of fuel poverty in our colder climate or transport poverty. Did you know that Wick for many years has had amongst the lowest levels of car ownership of any part of Highland. There is tendency for people to say you cannot live in Caithness without a car. Well if that is so then how is life affected? What aspects of life are poorer and how are children affected if the family has none of its own transport. It does not take much to see that it has huge affect in an area where public transport can be poor or non-existent.
Wick has the second highest levels of unemployment in Highland after Alness. The levels of long-term unemployment in particular are high. Whilst nationally the numbers in Wick may seem small they stand out when set against the rest of Caithness and Sutherland.
See http://www.caithness-business.co.uk/article.php?id=341
In reality you could take a programme about poverty and make it in almost any town or village. In any place there are people with good jobs, rich pensioners and working folk happy with their standard of living and housing etc. But nearby there will be people struggling and the affects on their lives of year in year out poverty are profound. I do not think we should object o a programme highlighting an issue such as poverty in any place. Indeed it may well be that highlighting the problems might help those trying to do something about it by bringing more focus on the area of concern.
The fact is that parts of Wick do figure in the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation and have done so for the past few years since it began to be used as measure. There have been plenty of arguments about how the Index was made up and some changes made to it. Wick has continued to figure in it even with the changes.
The people in Ormlie were able to focus on their problems and managed to get more money spent in their area to help combat some of the affects and the Ormlie Community Association continues to thrive. Similarly Pulteneytown People’s Projects has brought in considerable sums of money by getting more focus on the problems of the area.
Poverty in an area does not appear overnight. It comes gradually and is often accompanied by rising and long-term unemployment and aging population and reducing numbers of young people and outward migration. All of this has applied to Wick for many years. A decline of various types of employment, changes in working practices, changes in government departments and other issues have all led to a continual decline over the past 30 years.
For more on the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation see
http://www.highland.gov.uk/yourcouncil/highlandfactsandfigures/deprivationandfragility/default.htm
and
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/SIMD/Overview
Vandalism and crime have been a growing problem in Wick as in many places as are drugs and alcohol problems. There is no point in denying these things but of course the scale has to be put in to context. Wick is safe place to walk about in and despite having had my own house broken into I would still say Wick was relatively safe place.
The answers to the problems are many and varied and my first time on the council I have supported any measure that I feel would improve the overall economic development of Wick as a starting point. That would include approval for new housing projects, shops, redevelopment of Lower Pulteney, the ambitious plans for Wick harbour via the Wick Harbour Authority and the recently formed Wick 21 group. At the same time more money has been spent on social provision such as child care projects and training. Encouraging more economic development is seen in the new Wick Business Park units and as director of CASE I have always believed that this was good move for Wick despite the length of time it took to get the first business into a unit. The second two are also now built and have tenants with one half of one still looking for business to occupy it. I believe we need to keep going on that site and encourage more take up of yet more units to get a critical mass to begin to make Wick a place to locate a business.
Wick does not stand on its own and nor does any part of Caithness. It is one place in a much larger area and the changes at Dounreay could have a huge impact on Wick as they will on Thurso. The poverty in Wick and indeed the fragility of the east of Caithness with reducing and again population need more of the approach we have been seeing and which are only now beginning to come to fruition.
Wick is evolving and if it is possible to have more development and investment in the infrastructure then that will only be to the good. The work currently going on via roads and water have helped keep money coming into the town and all of the work on shops on the south of Wick and now Tescos on the other side have give Wick a boost in certain sectors. The need is to keep the momentum going and to keep money moving to create more jobs and business opportunities. Only then will we see a better life opening up in Wick. Whilst we have not yet gotten rid of all of the problems we are seeing inroads being made into them. Perhaps the programme makers will come back in a year or two to see how Wick turned itself around.
Bill Fernie
22-Nov-06, 01:45
On 11 December 2005 I published a page drawing together what I saw as some of the positive things happening in Wick. See http://www.caithness.org/atoz/wick/changingwick11december2005/index.htm
I am sure that many of you can now add many things can be added to that listing. I will certainly be adding to the list when I write another update in December 2006. Wick is going to change and if I can do anything to help I will encourage more investment and try to ensure that the area sees further local authority spending that will add to the betterment of services if that is possible.
Changing the outward migration of young people is a huge task and it may never be possible to halt it completely but if we can encourage businesses to locate and shops to see a future here we may get more people to come in.
Recognising that there are problems is only a start to solving them. Stating the extent of poverty does not necessarily paint a place in bad light but rather show that there are problems that need to be rectified. Whilst for anyone in employment things might not seem to bad it has to also be remembered that the Highlands on average has about 15% lower incomes than the average UK income. If you are on say above the middle this might be bearable but if you are long term on the bottom or suffer from fuel poverty that is judged to be where a household spend more than 10% of their weekly income on fuel then the north would have quite a high number of folk coming into that category. This is part of the reason why the Highland Council and the Department of Trade and Industry are supporting the development of the Heat and Power Scheme for Wick and why it has started in the part of town with amongst the lowest per capita incomes of the area.
By any measures parts Wick are in a worse position than Ormlie. Ormlie had people who were ahead in applying for funding and getting themselves listed by the Scottish Executive as an area needing funding. The Index of Multiple Deprivation puts parts of Wick into the poorer part of Highland and this is the reason that more is going on to help in a variety of programmes. As for the economic activity that is probably more to do with businesses seeing opportunities for development that a town with an airport, a railhead and harbour might have in the future.
The programme set out to make a point on one aspect contributing to the whole picture they were trying to show. Wick has many other aspects and another picture can be painted and no doubt will be in other programmes in the future. In fact as many of you have commented other pictures of Wick are already being painted as new things are happening all over the town. Nothing stands still and just as Wick has seen many years of decline but many people are working to turn this around. And Wick is not alone in its problems and stands as part of the whole of the area. A similar story might have been portrayed on the east coast of Caithness where the South East Caithness Development Group an Initiative At the Edge project http://www.caithness.org/initiativeattheedge/index.htm is trying to tackle the problems in that area.
On wider front the Caithness Partnership is taking a more strategic view to problems across the county http://www.caithness.org/caithnesspartnership/index.htm and tries to involve groups from across the area in defining what requires to be done and input to a whole range of strategies and government bodies.
In Wick yet another group meets to exchange information regularly in the Town Hall.
Perhaps the programme from GMTV did look at a negative aspect of Wick to server one particular purpose but this may be no bad thing for any of the groups trying to alleviate the circumstances of anyone affected by poverty or crime. Maybe it did seem negative and some people may not see their town from that particular perspective but we should acknowledge that there were children who could be found to say what they did and we need perhaps to concentrate on dealing with their problems and improve everyone’s lot so that in a few years Wick will not still be on the same position on the Index of Multiple Deprivation as it has been in recent years and that unemployment is not as high as it currently is compared to the rest of Highland.
Behind much of what I have said there is whole host of detail and information and from my own point of view why I have taken my stand on many aspects of what happens in the county and to the area. For example it is why my attitude was so hard in trying to maintain a consultant led maternity service and why I acted as the press officer for two years. Although the main thrust of the campaign was about the safety for mothers and babies and the affects on families if there was down grading it was also to me about the affect it would have on the way Wick was seen from outside. A place that was being run down rather than one that was thriving. By keeping vital health service in place it says a lot about what is going on and says to outside people that rather than turning their back on the area they have confidence that things are going to improve. This is only one part of it all and who knows whether that confident note might not have persuaded Tesco to come to Wick rather than not.
If the programme did portray an aspect of Wick we would rather not see then lets keep working to make sure that it does not continue in that way. I firmly believe that we are tackling the problems and that slowly but surely things are improving and they are going to get better. As said I said in the last paragraph of my 11 December 2005 snapshot of Wick http://www.caithness.org/caithnesspartnership/index.htm
Describing Wick In A Few Years Time
One of the busiest bustling towns in the north of Scotland sitting on a large busy harbour incorporating a complex of marina and leisure facilities. Over the years wick has become a magnet for shopping from all over the north and attracts a growing number of people to work in the increasing number of firms moving to Caithness to take advantage of living in the far north of the Highlands. Wick with its unique transport connections of rail, sea and air put in a strong position to attract firms that need to be able to get in and out quickly and the fact that Broadband has been in place for sometime means that communications are excellent for any hi-tech firm who wish to take advantage of a workforce keen to live and work in the area.
I think we are getting there but there is still plenty to do and Wick is still a great place to live as far as I am concerned.
Powered by vBulletin® Copyright © 2024 vBulletin Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved.