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Chernobyl-on-Sea? UK beach resort in uproar as it's likened to nuclear ghost city
Chernobyl.Independent councillor Paul Hayhurst made the comment during a debate about devolution when he warned "prosperous" Fylde faced being swallowed up by Blackpool which “looks like Chernobyl no matter how much money you put in there.”Chernobyl, for those of you in the back, is famously the site of the 1986 Soviet nuclear disaster which has left the city irradiated and abandoned to this day.Naturally, Councillor Hayhurt's comments went down like a cup of warm sick over in the seaside resort.LancsLive reports that he was branded "disrespectful" and "sour grapes" in response by Blackpool Council’s Labour leader Lynn Williams.To matters even more insensitive, Blackpool resort regularly hosts children for holidays from Belarus, where families are still feeling the after effects of the 1986 accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power station.Coun Hayhurst's outburst came due to new recommendations for Fylde to support plans for a Lancashire-wide deal where authorities would work together to bid for government funding.He said: “I am convinced on that basis that the more co-operation we have with our neighbours down the road, the more this area is going to suffer.”He added: “Our friends down the road, the bottomless pit, could swallow £5bn overnight and it would still look like Chernobyl."Blackpool needs probably half its hotels knocking down and instead of rebuilding on greenfield sites, it needs redeveloping because it’s never going to be the sort of place it was in the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s.”He added Fylde was "a prosperous borough" while Blackpool “looks like Chernobyl no matter how much money you put in there.”But Coun Williams hit back and said Coun Hayhurst had clearly not visited the resort for a while.In a statement in
