What do you reckon is the biggest challenge to my business?
I reckon it’s this.
Being stuck in Denny.

This is my town, it’s where I grew up and it’s where I live.
But compared to the town that I remember as a kid, Denny today is a ruin.
I can’t be a hot shot commercial photographer in an area that has no commerce.

You’ll have heard of the Carbuncle awards?
This is the prize they give out. The Plook on the Plinth

Last year John O’Groats won the award but refused to accept it so the group campaigning on behalf of redeveloping Denny town centre stepped in and asked for it to be awarded to us in the hope that it would spur some action.

I have been following the regeneration of Denny for some time.
Or maybe more accurately I’ve been watching the town wither and die.

Various members of the community council and other groups in Denny have sort of formed a new group called 21st Century Denny.
The hope being that they will be able to work with the council and help steer the direction of the town.

To be fair Falkirk Council have responded to the calls for action and are starting to knock down the buildings but I don’t like their plans for what happens next.
I think it’s great that they want to go it alone instead of signing the land over to some faceless EVIL supermarket chain, no names mentioned here but you can join up the dots and come to your own conclusions.
This is the current plan to regenerate Denny.
Knock it down and build one single building that will contain a library, 8 retail units and a world class car park.
The big empty space is in the hope of luring a big shop to fill the space.

I don’t like this plan. I think it would repeat the same mistake they made in the 1970′s when they knocked down the old town in favour of the concrete pigeon loft they ended up with.

I want them to build a town.
You know, with streets, houses, business units, leisure facilities, shops, event space and while we are at it, give us a cinema.
To me Denny needs things to do that don’t involve drinking.
If you are of a certain age, basically under 18 or over 65, what exactly do you do here?
There are quite a few groups that run in the school and church halls to be fair but there’s not enough.
It needs places to work and it would be good to have services back locally again instead of being forced to travel to somewhere else.

What do you think about this? I would be interested to hear what your views are so please email me andrew@andrewmckenne.net or hit me up on twitter @mckenna_andrew