Looking at the plywood boards that now cover our town’s promised wonderland, Lizzie Beck is just left wondering. Where did our £400k go? And where’s Willy?
I could be justly accused of overegging the pudding by describing the town centre Debenhams building as iconic, but perhaps I’m fair in saying it’s now a monument to mismanagement, mind-bending misspending and many, many mistakes.
It’s also a mystery.
To be blunt, what happened? Where did the money go? Where did Owens go? What’s the real reason for closure? What will become of it? And why oh why did Hastings Town Fund invest £400k in possibly one of the worst business ideas ever cooked up on the back of a beer mat?
Did anyone check the owner and self-proclaimed Walt Disney/Willy Wonka, Graham Owen’s CV? Previous experience: running a similar business idea Phileas Fogg’s World of Adventures in Brighton into the ground. Transferable skills: running said similar business idea into the ground. Hobbies: magic shows, specialising in smoke, mirrors and disappearing acts. Special skill: sometimes confused with a Wally when standing in a crowd.
In the space of a year Owens, or O.W.E.N.S (whatever that stood for – ideas on a postcard please), closed without notice, n.b. see Phileas Fogg. Then it was for health and safety reasons, then it was staff illness, then it was for a refurbishment (after one year?). Then there was silence.
Mutterings became fact. The project was actually funded by Tory donor, Lubov Chernukhin, Graham Owen was fired and the company went into administration with a £5.6m loss.
MP for Hastings Helena Dollimore raised the issue in parliament at the end of last year saying, “Can the minister advise me how my constituents can get their money back and how we can ensure that money is never wasted again like that?”
In response, the Parliamentary under-secretary of state for housing, communities and local government, Alex Norris, said: “I was very disappointed to hear about the closure of Owens and about any money wasted under the previous government.
“On the general point, we are calling time on the waste from the previous government and moving towards multi-year funding settlements and ending competitive bidding for pots of money.”
Good to hear, but it’s also easy enough to say. Barn door, pantomime horse bolted. We want to know: how did no-one see this coming?
I had the dubious pleasure of attending the Owens press launch with a colleague. I’ve been to a few of these in my time; plastic cup of Cava, cheese on a toothpick and usually a lot of fawning. Not this time.
Graham Owen took to the floor and was refreshingly honest in his lack of interest in Hastings, the place, the residents – including employing and hosting them. We were to be his pilot scheme you see, his real aim was to ‘roll out’ his idea in more prosperous towns. He had a cockamamie idea that Londoners would travel two hours to hire the whole building for corporate ‘dos’, or train down in summer and ignore that mighty (and free) attraction we have called the sea. And he had accordingly priced the ‘amusements’ horrendously high. He foresaw – when pushed twice by the only redeeming aspect of the night, the glittering MC – that Hastings folk would benefit from all year round entertainment via a big screen TV. More commonly known as a bar. Though to give Walt Wanker his due, it was a bar with plastic ivy, no windows or air conditioning; ideal for a sunny day two minutes from that other small attraction, the sea.
I was genuinely open mouthed at how appalling the place was, cheap props, a ball pool and a bar was pretty much it. Now, some of us are familiar with sprucing your place up before receiving guests, dirty knickers kicked under the bed kind of thing; when it’s a press launch, as a rule the owners go a step further. But not Willy Disney that night. Approximately 90% of the ‘attractions’ didn’t work, 50% were missing and 100% of the staff didn’t know what they were doing.
The restaurant had no tables and chairs, I failed to find an experience I could immerse myself in other than to marvel at the tatty looking ‘actors’ milling around in cheap, flammable part-costume. The wealth of fine food we have on offer in Hastings had not been made use of, and the smell of chain-made waffles combined with strobes, UV lighting and plastic ivy that gave credence to the name ‘Garden Bar’, were vomit inducing. I did have one of the greatest experiences of hysteria though as my colleague and I stumbled into the 1066 ‘immersive experience’ for which the Town Fund paid. Never has a plain black corridor with a cassette of battle sounds caused such mirth and disbelief.
In truth the misuse of the building, the council backing and the disdain and disrespect of Debbie and Graham Owen to our town makes me angry. More Bonnie and Clyde than Willy Wanker. False advertising, prohibitive pricing and a complete disregard of the target audience leaves a bitter taste. HBC and the Town Deal Board need to treat the town’s residents with respect too. We want that building functional, and we could’ve made much better use of that funding. If we are going to celebrate what we have then we start with the basics, not with wildly ill-thought-out white elephants.
There was nothing honest about Owens. A quick glance on Tripadvisor, where over 50% of reviews are negative, sees Debbie Owen lamely blame inappropriate music that was played for children via their music system as having been ‘tampered with’. Parents with excited children were hit with unexpected additional charges at the door, blatantly exploiting ‘pester power’ or just sheer disappointment. Though arguably the true disappointments were inside the doors, not at them.The amusements were not amusing, employees lost their jobs without warning and Graham and Debbie disappeared without ever explaining why. They took their money and ran. It’s not good enough.
I’m keeping my eye out for another Where’s Willy? type attraction coming to an unsuitable town soon. Could it be Margate? Folkstone? Southend? Rinsing the depressed seaside circuit as far as they can. Maybe Eastbourne’s out of the question if the self-styled Sheik Abid Gulzar has already taken it for all its got. Wherever the next doomed venture turns up, it’ll be easy to spot by its prices and then the boarding over the windows. In the meantime, the once-Debenhams, once-O.W.E.N.S building remains boarded up, the public grant not returned, unpaid contractors left high and dry.
Perhaps the council and Hastings Town Deal can come clean about their cock-up, apologise, then listen to the town before transparently, coherently and competently laying out some ideas for the future of the building, because it seems too much to hope that Moxie, a representative of Hastings business or, Dog-forbid, the long since defeated Tory administration, would put any time and effort into the same.
I’m just a humble journo here, but couldn’t the building be a bit of a hub for local business ventures – a mixture of units, perhaps some built in co-operation with those willing to occupy them. Think Heist or St Andrews Mews. Maybe one floor could be an indoor market, like St Leonards Church on the intersection of London and Pevensey Road. There could be spaces for local performers and buskers, collaboration with artists for interior and exterior decoration.
All of the infrastructure for such a venture seems like it exists within the town, after all. I mean the businesses, the arts, the organisers – they all seem to be here, waiting for a venue. And in the meantime, while you’re waiting to get all that in place, you’ve got security on site. You’ve got a network of local homeless charities and food banks. Why not turn the ground floor into a warm space for rough sleepers to keep the frost out on these cold winter nights? Charities could provide most of the food and accommodation, and security’s already keeping watch – all they’d need is a bit of tolerance training: don’t hit people for being homeless, but don’t let them bring their in booze and whatever other ‘winter warmers’ they might be fancying either.
You could even make the space comfortable for them. Have a film projector on for a few hours or something. I bet there’s a projector left somewhere among the Owens detritus. Show us that you care about this town, Moxie, Town Deal, Business Improvement District or “Love Hastings”. Show us that you’re not just another Owens, or another Tory funding pot designated exclusively for the people who already have too much.
We would love to hear from anyone who worked in or visited Owens and wants to share their experience. We also want to know what you would like to see done with the building. Email news@hastings-examiner.uk.
Great article with just the right amount of humour