Last updated 13:20, Monday, 07 April 2008

Reiver is intrigued by news that the former Corus steelworks site in Workington may become a mixture of flats, shops and pavement café culture in a multi-million-pound development.

The former Corus site in Workington which could be transformed

I have to ask: has the 21st-century yet seen a development anywhere which has not promised to include café culture?

It is not so long ago that Botchergate – the Golden Mile itself – was heralded as the epitome of café culture. The reality is somewhat different. Not many cafés, not a lot of culture. It is easy to blame Britain’s binge drinking tendencies. But here’s one simple word which planners and architects might like to consider when putting forward café culture proposals: weather.

Reiver has spent much of his life travelling up and down Botchergate and the majority of that time has been spent either:

1) Dodging puddles on the pavement;

2) Dodging spray from cars driving through puddles or;

3) An acrobatic mixture of 1) and 2), like Gene Kelly after five bottles of Smirnoff Ice.

Café culture in Cumbria is a lovely idea but, sadly, the elements conspire against us for all but a handful of days each ‘summer’.

They may well yearn for a bit of surfing culture in Iceland, but they long ago had the grace to concede that it just wasn’t going to happen.

Still, if the Eatonfield Group, which bought the Corus site last year, has its way, the people of Workington will soon be hanging out on the Moss Bay waterfront as an invigorating Irish Sea breeze blows the froth off their cappuccinos.