Extra £100,000 for Quantum Leap
Wednesday 23rd September 2009, 11:30AM BST.
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An extra £100,000 of taxpayers money was today approved to be spent on a controversial sculpture to mark the 200th anniversary of Shrewsbury’s most famous son Charles Darwin.
Shropshire Council’s cabinet approved the funding increase – just hours after protesters in the town vented their anger over the controversial public art work by unveiling a banner questioning why it has been built in the first place.
Councillor Jon Tandy urged people to turn out yesterday afternoon at the site of the Quantum Leap sculpture and Darwin Memorial Garden in Mardol Quay to show their disapproval for the project.
He unveiled a banner which read “The Origin of What?” to highlight the spiralling cost of the sculpture.
Last week George Candler, assistant director for culture and leisure at Shropshire Council, said the final budget for the sculpture was expected to be £450,000.
It was thought the project to create Quantum Leap and the Darwin Memorial Garden would originally cost £350,000.
Councillor Tandy said: “I think it has been a fiasco from start to finish.
“There needs to be a full investigation into how the money has been allocated to this project and why it has been necessary to spend so much money.
“The money could have been better spent on community projects as it is public money.”
Peter Loosley, 71, from Frankwell, in Shrewsbury, turned out to protest.
He said: “I think it’s an insult, it’s a waste of money. It’s in the wrong place and will be a climbing frame for drunken lads coming out of the pubs and the outside edge will be used as a diving board into the river.”
Another protester Chris Bradley, 30, also from Shrewsbury, said: “I don’t think it’s been fully thought through with regard to its design and location.”
Councillors today agreed to a budget increase of £100,000 for the project but called for the authority to try to find external funding.
Councillor Alan Mosley said: “To be honest it looks significantly different to the artists impression, the two ends don’t even meet and now more work is being carried out to put the is right”.
Sheila Healy, interim chief executive of the council, said at today’s meeting that the project had already received a lot of external funding but the authority would look for more.
She said: “There is often a lot of technical issues with projects such as these.”
By Emma Kasprzak and Andy Morris
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I work in the ‘public art’ sector, 6 years art school education indeed. Initially I actually thought the idea had something going for it and the presentation graphic looked intriguing. Sadly I have to say that what we have got before us is nothing like the proposal, either in shape scale or colour. I would just like the artist duo responsible to break their deafening silence and explain how and why this has come to be so.
Over to you gentlemen!!!
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“the origin of tax payers money being wasted in shrewsbury yet again”
lets just not pay our council tax, then see how the council come creeping to us all.
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This is a major work of art which will grace our town long after Councillor Tandy has departed. I believe the silent majority of Shrewsbury can see its value to our town, and believe Darwin is owed such a commemoration.
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Jesus wept.
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I have now come to the conclusion if it is the shower in charge of the country, or local guv wasting tax payers money it is not worth moaning about it. Nothing will be done they will continue doing it and we will continue paying for it . The piece of art as far as i am concerned is just a pile of rubbish( i am sure the art fans will say it is because i do not get it ) and a terrible waste of money only in the uk can this go on.
Any chance of getting funding to relocate to another country????
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@ H st john peasbody, That would make an excellent public monument..
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Like I have already said on another thread about this project …
When we quote for a job, that’s the price you pay. End of.
Any subsequent problems working within agreed specification that result in extra costs are down to us, NOT the customer !!
So … WHY wasn’t this project properly planned, specified, and then put out to tender for FIXED PRICE quotations?
It’s just NOT acceptable to say that extra costs are now apparent. That should ahave been allowed for in the planning stages.
ALL building projects have an element of Risk. That’s reflected in the skill of quotaion. You build that into the initial cost !!
I’m sure every builder in the land encounters problems every day.
HOW would YOU react if suddenly your new house jumped in price just becuase the builder had experienced unforseen problems?
I think I know what most people would say!!
This project is no different, except that the extra cost isn’t directly coming out of someones pocket, so it doesn’t seem to matter!
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“I love fools’ experiments.A very interesting darwin qoute aimed at the council maybe????What a waste of money and how long before someone climbs on it falls off and claims-do we pay for the compensation too
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Why not make it a monument to Councillors past It would fit the bill as it is as dull as dishwater and about as usefull
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“Why not make it a monument to Councillors past It would fit the bill as it is as dull as dishwater and about as usefull”
Now that would be a good excuse for a monument!
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Lets not forget the £20k plus to cage it in when someone climbs on it and falls YES it will happen..
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It sure looks like a wood louse.
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It is a pity that the money could not be spent on improving the terrible road and pavement surfaces, worn road markings and clearing the hedgerows that obscure road signs and sightlines around Shrewbury.If there must be a (cheaper) sculpture why not put it in the pedestrianised area of the town centre where everybody can see it without crossing several busy roads!!!???
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Funny, I don’t recall approving this, but hey I guess there is nothing better the money could be spent on to improve the lives of the “taxpayers” right?
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‘Woppy’ Phillips would have made better use of the materials in this frightful (and frightfully expensive) insult to the town.
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Halt all work and leave the thing as it is. It is ideally located as a reminder to Shropshire Council of their gross incompetence. They can view it with pride on a daily basis.
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The Wappy Phillips buildings were mediaeval in origin and yet they were burn’t to the ground and replaced by a rather industrial, shed like structure on a very open and I would have thought visually, important riverside site. The Theatre Severn hoewever was compromised by a lack of space on the site it was built mainly because of the old warehouse buildings. These are somehow unlike the Wappy Phillips buildings very important to be retained.
The logic in all of this?
The sculpture may eventually evolve into something reasonable but only if more of the trees are removed which obscure the structure and will make it mossy and dirty over time.
At half a million pounds we could have had an Anthony Gormley or Andy Goldsworthy sculpture.
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The Wappy Phillips building was an amazing sculpture in itself, and one that any town should have been proud of. To wander that maze of creaking rooms and spaces upstairs having walked up the wooden ramp, and to view upturned boxes of ex Ministry gear, piles of yellow and red corduroy flared trousers, unpaired boots, aircraft landing wheels, furniture piled upon furniture – it was a multidisciplinary, interactive, juxtapositionary spatial urban environmental installation piece that no contemporary artist apart from possibly Mike Nelson has come anywhere near producing. A very sad loss indeed, both to Shrewsbury, and to the world of Outsider Art.
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Er, I don’t think I would go that far!
I bought some furnishings for my bedsit in the 1970s.
It certainly would not have met any H&S regulations today.
I am surprised that nobody actually fell in to the Severn :)
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Strolling around Wappy Phillips building on a saturday morning – what happy memories! Truly an Aladdins cave of interesting items of all sorts. I always came away with something. No memories however of this concrete ‘work of art’ as this expensive Darwins Folly will be in our faces everyday for all time. The ‘sculpture’ looks dirty already.
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Wappy Philips yard – an absolute delight to a child where you could buy wellies all year round (not just when it snowed!)
TO get to the point – I thought we had a monument to Darwin outside the library! Now a monument to Wappy’s yard – that would be superb!! It would be good to see any pictures of Wappy’s old place in the Star sometime!
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this is quite simply a disgrace, in the middle of a recession, it shows how out of touch the political class in this country are with real people, like the MPs expenses, the Unitary Council decision, the war in Iraq, they just dont care about public opinion and have their own agenda to pursue in power like dictators, we must punish them at the ballot box
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I think I have the perfect solution. The council sell raffle tickets, at say £5 ea. the winner gets to press the plunger, to blow the thing up.
Im sure Joe Public would jump at the chance, and the council would be quids in. Next time they want to build something, ask the public, not councillors behind closed doors
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what a disgrace its going to flood there any way
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