Would be LGBTQ+ candidate and Plymouth businessman Ian Fleming, is standing for Plymouth City Council local elections tomorrow – and has vowed to fight hard for local SMEs that are the lifeblood of the city’s enterprise culture if elected. He has conducted a concerted local campaign on several issues across the St Peter and Waterfront Ward that he is hoping to represent.
As a resident on Plymouth Hoe for 32 years, he is calling for a derelict plot of land that was the Quality Inn on Cliff Road, and been empty for several years, to be a temporary car park to relieve visitor and local parking issues across Plymouth Hoe. The temporary car park could also generate income for the cash-strapped city council and support more visitors to Plymouth’s premier tourist spot while the council and developers decide the future of the site.
Fleming is leading the campaign to save the Grade 2-listed Palace Theatre in Union Street, and for emergency repairs to be conducted immediately to save one of England’s finest Victorian masterpiece theatres.
“The city’s heritage is worth saving and this Summer is Tinside Lido’s 88th year in our civic life, and Plymouth’s global marketing tool in promoting our city worldwide,” he says. “It is England’s finest art deco outdoor lido, and I was proud to have worked with my husband, Kevin Kelway, back in 1998, in setting up the Tinside Action Group, and the five-year campaign to save it from ‘demolition to restoration’.”
The Plymouth businessman is a passionate supporter of Plymouth’s Freeport Status that will generate more jobs and growth to the city and wider South West economy, and especially the city’s role as a cruise liner destination. On the campaign trail, local residents have raised the issue of the former Plymouth Wedding Registry Office in Lockyer Street, which is in the Hoe Conservation Area, and the building’s future is presently stuck in limbo.
Fleming comments:
“A vision was created in the middle of the Second War, and was to become Plymouth’s central ‘Garden Vista’ through the heart of the city up to the Hoe and Sound. The architects Patrick Abercrombie and James Paton-Watson designed plans with slopes, terraces, steps, pools, avenues and varying water features. That vision is still not lost over the ‘saga of the trees’ that temporarily damaged our city’s reputation. But we must honour that blueprint of 1943, with council leaders keeping their nerve and regenerating Plymouth’s Post War central walkway.
Work is progressing around the Council House and Civic Square that should be finished in ten weeks (a separate scheme) from Armada Way development, and will end the clogged and cluttered image it looked before. As the Vista forms part of the St Peter and Waterfront Ward, and as a Plymouth businessman, I totally understand the urgency and frustration by town traders in getting the stalled Armada Way development finished.
Meanwhile, tomorrow night we will be celebrating Plymouth’s LGBTQ+ business community and the contribution we make to the city’s economy and wider region with a Coronation Showcase. The event is being organised by OutBritain and Dorcas Media, at the Duke of Cornwall Hotel, Millbay, Plymouth, from 6pm to 8.30pm with some great presentations and informal networking.”
The showcase is open to all. If you wish to attend follow this link:
