Wake up to why there is so little info on our city

For a city the size of Sunderland to have no tourism literature is an absolute disgrace.

Even some towns have guides and maps available.

In the Customer Service Building in Fawcett Street is a table not far from the payment section. It is round the right hand side when you go in and would be missed by most people using the building.

It has a few leaflets, some out of date and some of them have nothing to do with Sunderland, such as The Bowes Museum in Durham.

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In a cardboard container marked ‘Tourist Information Guides’ (which doesn’t contain any tourist information guides) someone has placed Pink Floyd sheets.

Staff there say that maps might be available at The Museum and Winter Gardens. Wrong! All they have is a guide to their building and one on St Peter’s Sculpture Trail.

In Local Studies the counter contains cheap print-outs of the city centre.

Some people would call them a joke.

I would call the council incompetent and indifferent for offering something so out of date.

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Joplings closed in 2010. TJ Hughes and the Tourist Information Centre closed in 2011.

Primark store closed in Fawcett Street and opened in The Bridges in 2012. Then in 2013 Crowtree Leisure Centre was demolished.

Two years later WH Smith left. In 2016 BHS, Gillbridge Police Station, HM Revenue and Customs and Holland and Barrett closed down. A new Holland and Barrett was opened in The Bridges.

The map also shows River Island where Vodafone is now, Toni & Guy still in High Street and another one to go recently, Royal Bank of Scotland. This out of date map is also online.

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Do the councillors have amnesia? Can they not remember closing the Tourist Information Office in 2011 or all the other changes that have gone on in Sunderland over the years?

No matter how much they pay themselves and no matter which people they have at the top, they still can’t get things right.

It is also an embarrassment and irritation to staff who are asked about maps and guides.

Wake up councillors and Chief Executive. Also, wake up voters.

Name withheld