UK Strategic Planning

[Xela]

7 hours ago, HKP90 said:

My home town, Dudley, is a case study for town centre decline. 

With Cradley Heath, my other old homestead, they just demolished the entirety of the town centre and replaced it with a Tesco megastore.

All these planning chickens, made for short term profit, come home to roost eventually.

Sutton Coldfield town centre is dying. Used to be packed on a weekend. Like a ghost town now, full of empty units. This is a reasonably affluent area as well. 

 

[Genie]

19 minutes ago, Xela said:

When I was there the other Saturday, it was just drinkers and eaters out! No one was shopping. 

As an aside, Ventura Park must be one of the most popular retail parks in the country. It is insanely popular. A lot of retail parks fizzle out after a while (The Fort, for one) but Ventura goes from strength to strength. 

Yeah, it’s been a success story but unfortunately it has massively outgrown its road infrastructure.

Saturday and Sunday it’s hell on earth. Any weekday evening and you’ve got the place to yourself. 

[villa4europe]

8 hours ago, HKP90 said:

My home town, Dudley, is a case study for town centre decline. 

With Cradley Heath, my other old homestead, they just demolished the entirety of the town centre and replaced it with a Tesco megastore.

All these planning chickens, made for short term profit, come home to roost eventually.

I wonder when, if ever, someone will openly attack tesco for their part in killing highstreet

Seems like it's too easy to point the finger at online shopping rather than the supermarkets selling everything under the sun 24 hours a day

Kiddy has a tesco, sainsburys, Morrisons, a small asda, 2 aldis and at least 4 tesco expresses for 60k people, the highstreet is dead 

[Chindie]

I worked in Walsall 10 or so years ago. That was a ghost town then. **** knows what it's like now. Even 5 years ago it was being called the worst town in the country for empty retail units.

[chrisp65]

I visit a fair few High Streets and some of them are vibrant, with local ceramicists selling their wares and eco friendly vegan stores where you bring your own containers. There will be artisan bakers that are opposite the local independent coffee shop and the coffee shop sells their cakes and they sell the coffee shop’s coffee. It’ll be booming, there will be charity shops but they will be Dog’s Trust and they will have designer labels for a tenner and a selection of immaculate jazz on vinyl.

Other High Streets will be shit and mostly closed other than Bet Fred and British Heart Foundation.

The difference is money. Rich people ghettos have lovely High Streets. The concept still works, you just need money in the local economy and most places have been systematically screwed for years and years.

[VILLAMARV]

11 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

I visit a fair few High Streets and some of them are vibrant, with local ceramicists selling their wares and eco friendly vegan stores where you bring your own containers. There will be artisan bakers that are opposite the local independent coffee shop and the coffee shop sells their cakes and they sell the coffee shop’s coffee. It’ll be booming, there will be charity shops but they will be Dog’s Trust and they will have designer labels for a tenner and a selection of immaculate jazz on vinyl.

Other High Streets will be shit and mostly closed other than Bet Fred and British Heart Foundation.

The difference is money. Rich people ghettos have lovely High Streets. The concept still works, you just need money in the local economy and most places have been systematically screwed for years and years.

The Mumbles is a textbook example of this and then juxtaposed with actual Swansea. Retail units were leaving the centre and chasing the footfall. I think you're bang on the money about....the money.

[MakemineVanilla]

16 hours ago, Xela said:

Sutton Coldfield town centre is dying.

I don't know what the opposite to gentrification is but it seems that Sutton has gone through that process, and looks to have been annexed by Kingstanding.

One of the signs was when Waitrose shut their shop in Mere Green, and the decline of the Sutton town centre has seen the replacement of retail with gin palaces, and the loss of M&S marked the onset of its nadir.

Its probably on a par with Erdington High Street these days, and I expect that eventually the retail will be replaced by housing, which has seen Birmingham Road become increasingly urbanised, as the houses have been replaced with flats.

[chrisp65]

4 hours ago, VILLAMARV said:

The Mumbles is a textbook example of this and then juxtaposed with actual Swansea. Retail units were leaving the centre and chasing the footfall. I think you're bang on the money about....the money.

I spend a fair bit of time down Mumbles, I’m there tomorrow and its very much a strange rich bubble on the edge of Swansea.

For clarity, it shouldn’t be inferred from this that I’m strange, rich, or a bubble.

I’m looking for places for someone and they absolutely have to be Mumbles, it’s item 1 on their list of criteria with everything else secondary. I’ve tried showing them places literally on the other side of the road that are bigger, in better condition, and £150,000 cheaper and they just won’t consider them. I’ve tried to show them a place that looks like its in the Mumbles but if you check the town plan the red line surprisingly loops around it so counted as the next district, they wouldn’t go and view it. By the same token, we’ve been offered units in the centre of Swansea main shopping district and we’ve declined them because they just have the smell of retail death on them.

Interestingly (well to me it’s interesting), there is a lot of the Mumbles where car ownership is a real pain in the arse, whole inaccessible streets and lanes of houses on infeasibly steep and narrow lanes all with double yellows. These people are already a 15 minute city. They have the butcher and the optician and the surgery and the restaurants and organic local vegan beer tap house and the quirky seafront seafood shack all on the doorstep because frankly, car use is a nightmare, for all that its prime real estate. But there is no Asda. It’s all about the money.

[sidcow]

Again, another thing they're not prepared to invest in. 

If you want to develop 15 minutes cities you need to redevelopment and reinvigorate the high street. 

You'll have to spend money improving the environment and you'll have to encourage businesses to return so charge far lower rents, business rates and taxes on high street businesses. 

You can't just expect them to miraculously transform and people to switch away from out of town supermarkets and retail parks.  Have to level the playing field somehow. 

Again, talk a game but do nothing to make it happen. 

[Genie]

How does it work in terms of pricing and competition? In your 15 minute city you 1 supermarket or 1 butchers or 1 bakery… if they have no competition won’t prices be very high? Then what about if they close? 

[Davkaus]

 

15 minutes ago, Genie said:

How does it work in terms of pricing and competition? In your 15 minute city you 1 supermarket or 1 butchers or 1 bakery… if they have no competition won’t prices be very high? Then what about if they close? 

Would you have just 1? Why? I've currently got about 4 supermarkets within a 15 minute cycle of my house.

Some aren't so lucky, but there are plenty of small towns with only 1 supermarket and they don't jack the prices up (obviously the "convenience" stores are another matter) so I'm not sure why it'd happen here. 

And, again, nobody is being banned from travelling out of their zone, at worst it'll be slightly more inconvenient to drive to the next supermarket

[Genie]

21 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

 

Would you have just 1? Why? I've currently got about 4 supermarkets within a 15 minute cycle of my house.

Some aren't so lucky, but there are plenty of small towns with only 1 supermarket and they don't jack the prices up (obviously the "convenience" stores are another matter) so I'm not sure why it'd happen here. 

And, again, nobody is being banned from travelling out of their zone, at worst it'll be slightly more inconvenient to drive to the next supermarket

True, I’ve probably got the wrong picture in my head.

Tamworth for many is probably one of these 15 minute towns already. I almost never leave the town anymore, and we have a plethora of supermarkets and shops.

 

[icouldtelltheworld]

4 hours ago, MakemineVanilla said:

Its probably on a par with Erdington High Street these days, and I expect that eventually the retail will be replaced by housing, which has seen Birmingham Road become increasingly urbanised, as the houses have been replaced with flats.

Sutton town centre is dying, but it's nothing akin to what has happened to Erdington high street over the past 15 or so years

[VILLAMARV]

What would actually need to be built in different areas? There doesn't seem to be an agreed upon definition of what constitutes the desirable amenities. But supermarkets, pharmacies, parks and primary schools seem to be a popular starting point. And the minutes can be X (10/15/20 minutes as applicable). I know a few people who've moved onto new build estates just off the M4 in South Wales and while the space was left for the school on the plans but it's seemingly been shelved. There's a shop and a playground but they'd be in line for some amenities.

[Xela]

6 hours ago, MakemineVanilla said:

I don't know what the opposite to gentrification is but it seems that Sutton has gone through that process, and looks to have been annexed by Kingstanding.

One of the signs was when Waitrose shut their shop in Mere Green, and the decline of the Sutton town centre has seen the replacement of retail with gin palaces, and the loss of M&S marked the onset of its nadir.

Its probably on a par with Erdington High Street these days, and I expect that eventually the retail will be replaced by housing, which has seen Birmingham Road become increasingly urbanised, as the houses have been replaced with flats.

I know a lot of Sutton people who are moving to Lichfield, or plan to. 

[Genie]

29 minutes ago, Xela said:

I know a lot of Sutton people who are moving to Lichfield, or plan to. 

I’ve not been for a while but I do hear that Lichfield city centre is doing very well / vibrant.

[MakemineVanilla]

50 minutes ago, Xela said:

I know a lot of Sutton people who are moving to Lichfield, or plan to. 

Lichfield still retains its charm and also has a Waitrose.

[Chindie]

Birmingham City Council plans to make the city centre a traffic free zone and reduce capacity for cars by a third throughout the city.

**** stupid.

[bickster]

6 hours ago, Chindie said:

Birmingham City Council plans to make the city centre a traffic free zone and reduce capacity for cars by a third throughout the city.

**** stupid.

They are all at it, Liverpool exactly the same. It Liverpool's case they are using the congestion caused by their planning to justify it

[Milfner]

10 hours ago, Chindie said:

Birmingham City Council plans to make the city centre a traffic free zone and reduce capacity for cars by a third throughout the city.

**** stupid.

Sounds good to me. 

Way too much of the city centre is accessible to private cars where it shouldn't be. Lines of cars parked up down just makes the city look incredibly unpresentable.