Don't know their architrave from their entablature

I can't help but feel that when it comes to the web, property developers don't know their architrave from their oriel window.

(Sorry to be boring, but this is about the Marsworth yard demolition/planning application again.) 

I called Andrew Chandler, the BW contact listed at property development partnership H2Ourban, and asked him for more information about the Marsworth development.  Why it wasn't listed among the 'schemes' on the website? 

He said ah, yes, we need to get the website updated, it's a year or two out of date.

A year or two?  I asked.   Why, that's ridiculous!  What does it take to update a website? 

He said well, we can update the website, but our priority is to spend the money on development so it can benefit the waterways.  Or that sort of usual PR thrust.  

For him the website was expensive, luxury, eye-candy, and when he'd finished filing his nails being very busy answering my questions, he'd maybe think of looking at it again. 

I got pretty cross, and said that British Waterways was stuffed full with PR ladies who sent out press releases on frivolous things like halloween ghost-hunting nights at Standedge Tunnel and face-painting classes at waterway museums and hedge-laying courses for beginners, and unnecessary announcements of lock gate replacement works.   (A tiny exaggeration, I know, but there's a wash of truth in it.)  

But I was talking about something that kept canal users informed of canal-changing new developments and was not expensive.  (I know because I do one myself, every day in my spare time.) 

Anyway, he said 'we'll have to agree to disagree', and that made me blow my top and slam the phone down.

Architects and developers look on web sites as glossy brochures, like bright-screen versions of what they expect to leave with planners in enquiries.  They think it's all about fancy flash movies and not about just keeping ordinary people updated with simple information.

I could set up a website for any multi-million pound development in an hour or two.  It would be a blog format, it would include a simple gallery of pics, it would be updated weekly at least.  It would tell people what's going on.  It would enthuse people about the projects.   

(The word 'enthusiasm' comes from the Greek meaning 'to insert the spirit of God inside'.)

It wouldn't be 'a year or two out of date' like  the H2Ourban website.  And frankly, I think it would be rather more professional.

To think that all this started because they couldn't be architraved to keep canal users informed of what was going on down at Marsworth.

Later Aiden Johnson-Hugill phoned me back and we got on a bit better.  He's the young and thrusting BW guy responsible for the Marsworth development.  He tried to explain about where they were going to put a new sanitary station etc etc, but  my irritation had long since moved on the web site, and he just had to sit there and take it, poor thing.

Comments

[Skippy]

thanks for the contact details :D

[Andrew Denny]

Skippy, why don't you contact Andrew Chandler, then?  Don't say Granny sent you! :-)   On the other hand, hey, yes, why not say you saw the opportunity on Granny Buttons?  Better still, contact the head of PR at British Waterways:  Edward.Fox@britishwaterways.co.uk

[Skippy]

If they need help updating the websites I am still looking for a job and have the skills required to complete the tasks that they consider a luxury; also I have SEO knowledge; so the site can be better publicised.

[Kevin]

I always enjoy reading a good rant. Well done Andrew!