Optomen TV briefed that Margate people were mostly interested in seeing Mary and not their town

Serious questions were raised in a Parliamentary debate yesterday by Rochdale MP, Simon Danczuk, where he referred to the Optomen Television produced series, Mary Queen of the High Street as 'tawdry'. The Gazette have a feature on it on their shiny new website. Well done those at Gazette Towers for the new site. View the online debate.

The FOI released email that Mr Danczuk refers to is an email sent on June 29th 2012 that was sent from Mary Portas' then business partner, to a Government Officer, forwarding feedback from Optomen Television regarding a meeting they'd attended in the Portas Pilot TV Town of Liskeard. Optomen state that the people of Liskeard are 'genuinely interested citizens, unlike in Margate where the people there were mostly interested in seeing Mary'.

From: [OPTOMEN1] [mailto:Sent: Friday, June 29, 2012 04:43 PM
To: [OPTOMEN2]; [MP1]
Cc: Mary; [MP3]; [OPTOMEN3]
Subject: RE: liskeard
Hi [MP1]
This happened before we went to Liskeard and [DCLG3] mentioned it to us on the day. I think it’s all good. Here’s why:
- The councillors walked out of the meeting because 300 people turned up and were given the opportunity to vote (amazing. These were genuinely interested citizens, unlike in margate where the people there were mostly interested in seeing Mary). The councillors were upset because normally only people who have come to town forum meetinga twice before have the right to vote. (ie the councillors didn’t want 300 people to vote, only the usual bureaucrats)
- In tv terms the fight between the bureaucrats and the passionate citizens could be great.
- the mayor, who led the walk out, wants to redevelop the town to an inch of his life. He wants to turn the cattle market (c.a. 1260) into a supermarket.
This article is cleverly written to involve us but ultimately it’s not about us. It’s about two liskeard groups who want control over 100k. in addition to this: the retailers association voted unanimously to have the tv crews and Mary there.
The town team are over the moon about us being there. The mayor also welcomes us there (but may cause trouble when we don’t do what he wants us to do) Everyone is on board.
It’s going to be great!
[OPTOMEN1] x
From: [OPTOMEN2]
Sent: 29 June 2012 16:08
To: [MP1] Cc: [OPTOMEN1]; Mary; [MP3][OPTOMEN3]
Subject: Re: liskeard
Keep us posted.

Optomen couldn't have been more wrong. Here's our video from the June 12th public meeting event, which I think shows just how much Margate people were engaged and how different to the image portrayed in the Mary Portas programme of May 14th.