Nottingham Council unimpressed with Spectator article

Posted by Rachael Gallagher on 12 December 2008 at 11:52
Tags: Consumer Magazines, Journalism, Magazines

The Spectator’s Robert Beaumont has been slammed by Nottingham Council for a piece he wrote in the right-wing weekly criticising the City and its regeneration schemes.

The article by Beaumont labels Nottingham as “bleak” and says that some areas are “pockets of deprivation, crime, drug addiction and third-generation welfare dependency, where you can smell the stench of hopelessness.”

Nottingham City Council described the article as an “uninformed piece of jaundiced journalism”, with city council deputy leader Graham Chapman accusing the piece of being out of date. He said: “He’s gone back as far as the 1990s for quotes, and is three years out with comments about guns as we haven’t had a shooting in the city for about two years.. It refers to Nottingham as a northern town and calls Rushcliffe a suburb on Nottingham. The man is well out (with his facts).”

Beaumont defended the article: “Regeneration in the city centre, when compared to cities such as Leeds, Sheffield and Newcastle, hasn’t been as imaginative as one would have hoped.”