Dominic Bareham STUDENTS have been left disappointed by a lack of feedback from regeneration firm 1st East after they were asked to come up with plans to improve Great Yarmouth.

Dominic Bareham

STUDENTS have been left disappointed by a lack of feedback from regeneration firm 1st East after they were asked to come up with plans to improve Great Yarmouth.

Pupils from Yarmouth High School were among schoolchildren from Yarmouth and Lowestoft asked to make recommendations on what they thought would make their towns a better place to live as part of an initiative by enterpriseGY and 1st East.

The current year 10 pupils at Yarmouth High drew up a plan to convert the Marina Centre on Yarmouth seafront into a water park with giant domes similar to those at the Eden Project in Cornwall.

Their vision was presented to staff from 1st East and councillors at a meeting at Yarmouth Town Hall in April, but they have since had very little response to their proposals even though nearly a year had passed since the presentation.

Deborah Roddis, a 14-19 work related manager at the high school, said although the eight pupils who took part were not expecting their plans to come to fruition, there was a feeling their ideas were not even being considered.

She said: “The students spent a lot of time and effort coming up with ideas and plans only to be told thanks very much, this is as far as it is going to go.”

Mrs Roddis added they wanted to feel they were taking an active part in the regeneration process such as by having further meetings with town planners to discuss ideas development ideas.

She added: “If they have the opportunity to meet with the planners and design team. Even to be part of that process, it would make them feel better.”

However, Joanna Young, communications manager at 1st East, said: “It was a competition held last summer and it hopefully encouraged young people and children to think about the future of their town and how they would like to see it progress and they came up with some very good ideas.

“Obviously we want to encourage as much involvement as possible from schools and colleges in the Yarmouth area because obviously the regeneration of Yarmouth is about their future to.”

In total, 50 students were briefed on proposed regeneration plans in a workshop at Yarmouth College in February last year.

Their task was then to research the views of their peers asking them to consider how the plans will make their life better and reporting back on the results at Yarmouth Town Hall.

They were asked for their views on how the regeneration plans would affect transport, the environment and tourism before being tasked to recommend their own regeneration schemes.