Barry: St George’s Square fountains are a damp squib

Oct 28 2009 by Barry Gibson, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

THE relentless rain which beat down on Huddersfield last Thursday night provided a fitting backdrop to the unveiling of the new St George’s Square.

A more religious man than me might have seen that downpour as judgement from the heavens on Kirklees Council’s £4m revamp of Huddersfield’s most important public space.

But to me, Thursday’s rain was just a good excuse to put off my first visit to the new-look square.

Instead, I wandered down there around 6pm on Friday to see what the place looked like in the fading light of British Summer Time.

There were plenty of people around the new fountains and waterfall. Young people were posing for pictures by the relocated Harold Wilson statue, children were running round the fountains laughing.

And a grim-faced columnist was scribbling in his notebook. Angry shorthand is so hard to read back, but I’ll try my best.

I went first to the waterfall feature down by John William Street. The thing that strikes you immediately is how small it is, just a few feet high. The water flows down the little black granite wall as purple light shines up from below.

It reminded me of a urinal from a really bad 70s nightclub. Except urinals in really bad 70s nightclubs don’t tend to cost £50,000-a-year to maintain.

I then walked to the station entrance and looked down towards the waterfall. Except, from that distance you can’t see a waterfall. All you can see is a pointless black wall.

Then there were the fountains by the station entrance, spurting up water like a series of mediocre geysers.

In these days when some would tell you that health and safety is overbearing, it was surprising to see damp, slippy patches on either side of the fountains. If someone turns their ankle on one of those, there’ll be a claim put in – just add that to the £4m bill.