onionbagblog

A chance meeting at the @ColCAMRA Winter Beer Festival, and whaddya know – a fortnight later, and there I was waiting in the marbled lobby of Colchester Town Hall for the somewhat more sobering experience of interviewing a Colchester Borough Council cabinet member.

Cripes.

I’ve always thought that beer festivals are the best place to network. Likewise for the good Councillor Nick Barlow, the *shhh* LibDem representative for Castle Ward.

Um, I agree with Nick…

Of far more importance to me however is Councillor Barlow’s grand cabinet title of holding the portfolio for Economic Development, Culture and Tourism. Put simply, Nick’s role is to promote Colchester and shout about all that is good around Sunny Colch.

It is a perspective that I also empathise with. Essex gets enough national bad press from folk outside of the area. On the inside however, and Colchester is quite a unique town.

These are interesting times for a local politician who has the job of promoting Colchester. @firstsite is about to massively regenerate the Cultural Quarter of the town, presenting genuine economic growth, as well as flying the flag for the arts throughout the whole of the East of England.

There is also the possibility of the town converting to city status (boo!!!!) not to mention the current transformation of Colchester as a recognised Cycle Town.

Meanwhile, all of these developments are being played out amongst the backdrop of savage cuts in local authority spending.

And so after a brief tour of the grandiose inner surroundings of the Town Hall (um, relax m’South London colleagues / Comrades – I have no plans to return to the chamber…) and soon it was time to sit down with the good Councillor for a chinwag.

This was all part of a more thought out piece (natch) for the ace @Colchester101 magazine. Nick kindly agreed to the @audioboo action – partly to be able to publish the conversation instantly, partly to, um, hold me to account.

If you have any thoughts or issues regarding the promotion of culture within Colchester and the surrounds, then Nick is very keen to hear from you. As mentioned in the interview, he is very active on twitter @nickjbarlow, as well as blogging regularly at nickbarlow.com.

Many thanks to Nick for agreeing to the piece. If beer festivals prove to be happy hunting grounds for local bloggers and politico types, then I may just need to take out a membership with @ColCAMRA.

Chin chin.