Taken from The Morganian February 1970 (How True are the Predictions?)

The city's transport system has changed from the old days : instead of the old fashioned Western National Buses, there is a public monorail system connecting what used to be the two old town centres. This service is cheap and efficient. Roads are still in use but instead of the old internal combustion engines there are atomic-regulo-cars which are much faster than petrol- driven cars and in addition need to be refuelled only once every two years.

Many of the old buildings have disappeared and have been replaced by tall, sleek, modern buildings. The centre of the old town of Bridgwater has been completely rebuilt with a new town hall, multi-storey department stores, first class restaurants and a monorail station. St. Mary's Church is dominated by tail buiidings,their windows flashing as the sun is reflected in them a thousand times. Eastover is now the site of three shops: Woolworths, recently rebuilt to blend into Taunbridge's tall, modern skyline, the Co-op shoe shop, also rebuilt, and Eastover Stores, which has expanded to cover more ground and reach higher than ever before.

As for car parks there are three, but not one of them can be seen as they are all underground. The city has a (arge airport and heliport in addition to its huge mono-rail station. Blake Gardens are still flourishing along the banks of the river Parrett which a few years ago underwent extensive depollution treatment. The water now is not brown with muddy banks, but clear with gravel sides. In addition a huge dam has been built near the river mouth and as the tide flows in the water is cleaned by huge filters.

A new entertainment centre is situated prominently where the old Mary Stanley Nursing Home (which has moved into the suburbs of Taunbridge), the old Peace £t Co. warehouse and a few other buildings in the immediate vicinity once stood. The centre contains a theatre, a cinema, a planetarium, a second lido, a gymnasium, a library, a restaurant and a multi-storey de- partment store. There is also a vast sports stadium with facilities for athletics all kinds of team games and indoor games such as snooker and table tennis. The low-lying fields next to Durleigh Brook have been flooded to form a boating lake for the holiday camp which has established itself next to the Hamp estate. This is a popular centre for tourists in summer.

Most of the factories have been moved away from the old town centre and where they stood there are now tall office blocks. modern stores and town houses and flats. The important Taunbridge Space Research centre is situated where Dr. Morgan's School used to be, the school having been absorbed into a large new comprehensive school on Quantock Road. Taunbridge Hospital, a vast establishment, stands in what was Taunton Vale. It has accommodation for 10,000 patients and has advanced medical equipment with a highly skilled team of doctors and nurses.

In 2000 A.D. young people are very well provided for. Near the entertainment centre (in fact, on the filled-in docks) an enormous structure is beginning to take shape. This will be a Youth Centre catering for boys and girls between 14 and 20. For younger children there is a club on the Bath Road and a large playgroup centre for infants adjacent to it. Taunbridge may well continue to expand until it joins with Wells, Glastonbury, Burnham-on-Sea and Weston-super-Mare- perhaps even with London. But before that happens people will be planegrating to Mars and Venus !

Andrew Roland (3B)