Hanley Regeneration in full swing?

[lew86]

Just went the bank and back and thought I'd just question the commitment and scale of the regeneration plans.

So then, this is (so far) what lucky visitors will benefit from by visiting Stoke-on-Trent.

1- Re-Tarmaced strips of road that cover pedestrian crossing.
2- Brand new lampposts that advertise Wedgewood- a company that seem to be struggling even after the many redundancies there.

And wait for it....

3- Another fucking Tesco. Becuase the world needs another Tesco.

So is this a sign of our imaginative council, or the first of a huge list that will pull in outside visitors and benefit the good people of Stoke on Trent?

[salopstick]

is it because charlie and camilla are visiting tomorrow

[mumf14]

It will never improve ...we're doomed.

[santy]

The council around this area are far too inept to pull it off I fear, look at the housing just outside Hanley by the St. Luke's primary school; you've got several houses pulled down, then several left up and a few across the road pulled down etc.

They've done some of the streets up down there, and made them look a bit tidier, then just around the corner there is piles of rubble etc.

It will probably leave Hanley in a terrible state afterwards, ultimately we are suffering from having our city being the unification of 6 towns; we have a strange city in the sense that you need to go up Hanley for one shop, Longton for another and then for bowling, cinema etc you have to go to Festival park, the train station is again out of the way for the city centre.

It's causing a lot of problems, Hanley needs to be overhauled, I have obviously left Stoke before but when I moved away I was a bit surprised by it all, even in smaller villages and such - there was a Netto, Tesco, Lidl, Aldi and others, all situated close to each other essentially in ease to get between for different things and what you want. Up here, Netto - Victoria Road, Lidl - Bentilee, Tesco - Longton/Hanley and then Aldi - pretty much festival park.

Then again, the train station was again, quite close to the heart of the town/city centres I went through, bus station not too far away. Quite strange living away from Stoke how much more accessible everything I needed was, its a shame but no one is doing anything to sort it one way or another.

It's still continuing, aimless development look at Longton, on one hand you have several shops still struggling to look like we're out of the 80's then 200 yards away you have the big new shiny Tesco, Argos etc.

[SuperRickyFuller]

I feel everything's on me doorstep in Dresden for me personally

Doctors and dentist is a two minute walk
Longton for food and house hold stuff (Tesco, Home Bargains, B&M)
Loads of decent boozers all within a ten minute walk (Potters Retreat, Park Inn, Princess Royal, New Florence, Ode Hut etc)
Couple of takeaways a few minutes walk, opposite Bargain Booze

I honestly do think I'm in the most convenient part of the city. Got everything I need within a mile radius

[starkiller]

Rather than another fucking Tesco, they should have decided to create an area for independent stores and maybe some kind of square/garden. It is these types of areas that give a city character.

Tesco will see off any independent stores left as the morons will flock to it as though it is something different.

Handing it over to Tesco just stinks of laziness, unimagination and back-handers.

A big fucking ugly, bland supermarket in a city-centre is unheard of in a decent city.


How the fuck is this going to attract outsiders to the area to shop when they can get the same thing (Tesco) anywhere?

[Moosehead]

Feb 18, 2010 16:00:00 GMT @sidders said:

Lick of paint on the bus station would be nice

Or a lick of a bulldozer!

Feb 18, 2010 16:20:34 GMT starkiller said:

Rather than another fucking Tesco, they should have decided to create an area for independent stores and maybe some kind of square/garden. It is these types of areas that give a city character.

I said a few weeks back on a thread that the triangular bulding just outside of the Potteries Centre (the 60s effort housing Clinton Cards) should be bulldozed to make way for a town square around the Sir Stan Statue. At least we'd get a focal point then.

[tampon]

I miss Clough Street car park

[Deleted]

Its a fuckin shit hole....I went to bristol last week and it was really nice. Stoke-on-Trent has become a horrible place, the only thing going for it is the warmth of the people who deserve so much better than the inept council provide.....Cultural Quarter my arse.

[Northy]

Feb 19, 2010 7:32:48 GMT greenhoff said:

Its a fuckin shit hole....I went to bristol last week and it was really nice. Stoke-on-Trent has become a horrible place, the only thing going for it is the warmth of the people who deserve so much better than the inept council provide.....Cultural Quarter my arse.

I regulary travel with work and unfortunately you are right, there has been a lack of vision in S-O-T for 40 years

[starkiller]

A big supermarket is the final nail in the coffin for this piss-poor 'city-centre.'


I thought the point was that they were trying to attract folk from elsewhere who tend to head for Manchester/Birmingham/Nottingham (even Shrewsbury/Chester) or the locals that think even Stafford is a better option.

I can just see the queues of cars from a 30 mile radius travelling to use a fucking Tesco because it is so unique and sought after.

It is embarrassing.

It would have been better to leave an historical cinema building there and make good use of it.

I gave up on the idea of S-o-T being good in my lifetime, years ago.

[pasa]

regeneration - its the biggest load of bollocks ive ever heard bar nothing.

they pulled down a load of old terraces ( i'm talking 10's of dozens of streets, and the best our supa dupa imaginative council can come up with to replace them with on the outskirts of town, a stones throw from the center is a great big fucking piece of grass with another pointless sculpture in the middle of it!!! ( you know the kind, a big stainless steel apple or somthing of that effect that means absolutley fuck all to the community!)

don't even get me started on this subject, i thought with all these houses coming down and talk of regeneration it'd give me some steady work for the forseeable future. what a load of old bollocks that turned out to be.

off with their heads.

wankers.

[jonesinamillion]

Feb 18, 2010 16:00:00 GMT @sidders said:

Lick of paint on the bus station would be nice

Yes, nothing a few kilos of cemtex couldn't solve.

I love the city but this & places like it are an embarrasment & just a magnet for low life bums.

[thepremierbanksy]

Feb 19, 2010 7:32:48 GMT greenhoff said:

Its a fuckin shit hole....I went to bristol last week and it was really nice. Stoke-on-Trent has become a horrible place, the only thing going for it is the warmth of the people who deserve so much better than the inept council provide.....Cultural Quarter my arse.

To be fair there are 5 tesco metros in the city centre all a cat's dick away from each other which probably equals 1 massive one! But you're right, it fucking pisses on Hanley.

The whole idea of getting people to visit Stoke for shopping does seem a bit farcical to me. I know the idea is to bring in money, but I think it's pretty much doomed and that they should just focus on making the city centre fit for the purposes of the existing residents. Lets face it, you're hard pushed to find anyone outside Stoke who thinks it is anything other than a complete and utter shithole. If someone suggested you go to Wolverhampton to go shopping and for a bit of a day out as it had been 'regenerated' you'd almost certainly politely decline the offer.

[mermaidsal]

I wish people would stop kicking shit out of ourselves and get behind this, and if you think the council's composed of idiots and crooks, stand for the bloody council!

Uniquely in the UK we had ALL S-o-T's historical core heavy industries kicked to death in the 1980s after Shelton Bar had been in death throes for a while anyway, our unique and wonderful craft industry of ceramics was decimated by international corporate greed and lack of the ability or will to fight back locally.... so, we have the biggest regeneration job over a short period of almost any city in the country.

It's started pretty well tbh. Fezzy Park isn't everything the creators wanted but it's doing ok and it feels a good place and it pays its way. What used to be a wasteland beside the D Road is now a really good wooded valley in summer, Wolstanton Retail Park pays its way and there's even decent new housing there (we went up the Link Road this morning on the way to my mum's). And look at the mess there was where the Brit is now. These things take time, how long's the Forest Park taken to be anything like? But then look how many years it took to turn that area into the Armageddon of spoil tips it replaced - 200 years of ruination recovered in less than 40 is impressive to say the least.

I don't happen to agree with the Tesco Quarter idea either, the city was built on small business and trades and I don't like us being a multinational corporate clone with nothing more to offer than bland chainstores but look at the rest of the package and Clough Street for example in its Beirut days. This takes faith and patience but it's got to be done and when there's a decent infrastructure and spirit around the Tesco Quarter, maybe we'll do better than Tesco but it's a start and my God we need it.

So, Be Loyal, Be Proud, Be Stoke?? ??

[philpatjj]

some poster said, only good thing about Hanley / S-O-T is friendly people and they deserve better.
Not much friendliness being shown in this thread I'm afraid, very negative, very depressing, very defeatist.
Of course Hanley aint great compared to Birmg'ham, Manch., Liv'pool, Bristol etc. But they have much bigger populations than us and so are entitled to a bigger 'pot' of money than us, also, we're a collection of 6 towns, so any money we are eligible for has to be spread around Tunstall, Burslem, Longton, etc.etc.
Ultimately there prob. isn't enough dosh to do a really cracking job on the city centre so hence you have to do deals with the likes of Tesco just to get a bit of cosmetic work finished off. i.e. pay for the ring road to be finished.
I personally feel that, if you class Festival Park as being - sort of - part of Hanley, then , really, we've got pretty much everything, cinema, bowling, casino, hotels, restaurants, bars, theatres, etc.etc.
We 're never going to be Las Vegas or anything like that so .......any chance of you lot stopping the WHINGEING ???

[lew86]

I love my city as much as the next person, doesnt mean I'm allowed my opinion.

I don't expect a sizeable restoration right now, I'm questioning the direction they are taking. The area getting up and running for faceless businesses (drive down the road that links Waterworld and the Sentinel offices), but just to what extent will people living in stoke benefit?

[mermaidsal]

Feb 19, 2010 13:54:28 GMT @lew86 said:

I love my city as much as the next person, doesnt mean I'm allowed my opinion.

I don't expect a sizeable restoration right now, I'm questioning the direction they are taking. The area getting up and running for faceless businesses (drive down the road that links Waterworld and the Sentinel offices), but just to what extent will people living in stoke benefit?

I agree, it'll be indirect at first and I hate faceless as much as anyone - but look at the other side of the coin, how much have people in Stoke done to regenerate the area, in terms of local businesses and just simple pride in neighbourhoods? Not a lot in the past 30 years tbh, so it just is going to take inward investment to start getting the place something like again, just as (very very sadly) it's taken retail parks and distribution centres instead of (with honourable exceptions) businesses that make anything original or really worth making. Just pragmatism really and sometimes there's a time for it.

[Mozzaa]

We're just going be the warehouse capital of the United Kingdom but regeneration of a city can't be done in a day it takes time and money; I'd prefer to live around here than other cities like Bradford, Hull etc

[santy]

As I said, the regeneration attempts are far too aimless at the moment to produce anything truly worthwhile for us. We have a unique problem in that the regeneration attempts are spread across so many different places no area is getting to the standard it needs to be.

The road layout of Hanley is god-awful though, its something that would take more effort than currently put there to correct it. I seem to remember some talk of another road going from leek road up through the housing they're attempting to demolish now to get straight to Hanley to help alleviate traffic from the Bentilee/Bucknall and Fenton directions.

Then on the other hand, you have the new centre at Bentilee, fair enough there was somewhat of a case for a new doctors surgery but the whole thing wasn't necessary. I have found it rather ironic, the 2 busiest shops there are Heron (the old kwik save) and co-op, the two that were there before.

Slow and steady progress is fine and good, but dispersed dribs and drabs won't work. The major factor that is holding it back is what makes the city unique though, with how dispersed everything is bus travel is too slow.

When I lived down south in Havant, in general there was pretty much everything you needed, but from Havant all accessible in 15 minutes was Petersfield, Rolands Castle, Fratton, 2 Portsmouth stations, Bedhampton and Cosham. That is in the time it takes usually to get a bus from Bentilee to Hanley. It was a similar kind of dispersion, the cinema was in cosham, bowling complex in bedhampton, pubs in Fratton/Portsmouth and then clothes shops (decent ones) at Portsmouth harbour and then other things like various game stores and a few other things spread between Havant, Petersfield and Rolands Castle.

When I were living down there briefly about 18 months ago, I think it cost about £5 for a day pass for as many journeys along this line as you wanted, although just buying a day pass from Havant to Portsmouth for £2.10 was enough, providing you went to Portsmouth last and because thats where your ticket got taken.

Stoke would really thrive with easier transport around like that, it would alleviate traffic enormously as well. When I lived down there, I never went anywhere on the bus because it was more expensive and slower, its been done there to make peoples lives easier, the proper train routes aren't really effected, they were able to adapt the existing infrastructure and make use of level crossings in many places to make it much easier to get about.

What you essentially have down there, is several towns like our own city just not unified under the banner of a city.

[Moosehead]

I think one thing that has harmed the city centre on recent years is the change on Festival Park. Now there is a Boots, Argos, Burtons, travel Agents - all with free parking. The incentive to go into the City Centre just isn't there anymore. This will ultimatley lead to the smaller, specialist shops and coffee shops/bars losing out on passing footfall. Whether the new Tesco will reinvigorate the area or not I dont know, but would not be holding my breath. It's a shame the council didnt squeeze Tesco a bit more to get a new bus station put in - that is one of the first things that needs sorting up there...

However, I think there have been a few improvements over the past decade or so. Although the Cultural Quarter was mismanaged from day one, it is probably the best end of the town. Coupled with the redevelopment of the Bethesda Gardens, and hopefully a greater regional awareness of the Potteries Museum - that area has a bit of potential. It's a shame that the music circuit seems to neglect the Viccy Hall now though, as I think that could've given a much needed bump to the bars around town.

[digger1985]

I like reading the threads that keep cropping up about the regeneration of the city. I bought my first home early last year - one of the new builds on the canal just off botteslow st - so the regeneration is a subject close to my heart so.... BUMP!

[starkiller]

Using Festival Park as an excuse for Hanley being a shit-hole won't wash.

Loads of other cities and towns have retail parks on the way to the centre.


Sheffield has one of the biggest shopping centres in the country (Meadowhall) a couple of miles from the city centre.


There is quite simply no excuse for a centenary of abject failure.

Amenities and entertainment options are piss-poor. Real historical buildings, culture and pubs have also been systematically destroyed.

Stokies with any taste or sense tend to give Hanley as wide a berth as possible and head elsewhere for their shopping and nightlife. The nightlife choices are truly terrible with only the same type of folk catered for and no real choice of vibrant pub and music venues.

If the city-centre cannot attract its locals what hope of achieving the dream of outsiders into the area.


I can imagine it now in the surrounding areas, "Why don't we head to Stoke-on-Trent to shop this Saturday, love? I hear they've got a Tesco....."

Some great thinking from the corrupt, lazy and useless council again.


In our lifetime, there will never be a city centre to be proud of - the boat has been missed too many times and we have been left standing.

[mermaidsal]

Well, the six towns could always declare independence... If only tbh, Federation 100 years ago was the wrong move but it's a bit late for hindsight I suppose

[bunnyscfc]

starkiller is bob-on, as are many others. Bristol is THE most underrated city in the UK, it's a great place.

I admire your one-eyed optimism Sal, but Hanley is sh**hole, an utter dump of a place. I'm embarrassed to call it eithe a city centre or my city centre. Even Stafford is way ahead of Hanley as a decent town.

Give me 3 places to have a coffee in Hanley. 3 decent places. 3 independent smart cafes. Go on, have a go.

Then tell me 3 great places to take kids.

After that, give me 3 decent restaurants and 3 decent bars.

Finally, 3 independent clothes shops.

THAT'S why I always spend my hard-earned in Manchester. Hanley is slowly slipping down Trinity Street into Festival Park. Within a decade noone will go anywhere near Hanley, and Festival park will be a soulless Telford mk2. Stone, Nantwich, Stafford, Ashbourne and Leek are far better to potter around than Hanley.

As someone said the other day, Stoke is a great place to be born but a sh** place to live. As much as I love my Potteries roots, he had a point.

[MilanStokie]

There was a similar thread about this when the regeneration plans were announced. My idea back then was to restore the old Loop Line.

Now I know that would take a hell of long time and money to do, but for the road network in and around Stoke-on-Trent and the size of the place, the best way to overcome this would be some kind of internal rail network.

The majority of the lines are still down and others could really be added. Theoretically, you could link all 3 local universities to this line as well as the 6 towns and linking to the main railway stops at Crewe, Stoke and Longton.

Will they even consider this? Will they bollocks, they will more than likely reduce the number of buses, increase the prices of transport in general instead of creating a fantastic solution to our transport problems in 1 fell swoop. Think the clouded judgment of our council that they would rather save money than spend a bit to make a bit is causing mayhem.

[mermaidsal]

Feb 20, 2010 12:44:34 GMT MilanStokie said:

There was a similar thread about this when the regeneration plans were announced. My idea back then was to restore the old Loop Line.

Now I know that would take a hell of long time and money to do, but for the road network in and around Stoke-on-Trent and the size of the place, the best way to overcome this would be some kind of internal rail network.

The majority of the lines are still down and others could really be added. Theoretically, you could link all 3 local universities to this line as well as the 6 towns and linking to the main railway stops at Crewe, Stoke and Longton.

Will they even consider this? Will they bollocks, they will more than likely reduce the number of buses, increase the prices of transport in general instead of creating a fantastic solution to our transport problems in 1 fell swoop. Think the clouded judgment of our council that they would rather save money than spend a bit to make a bit is causing mayhem.

Agreed, typical bit of Stoke disease unfortunately - they kept their local train system longer than almost anybody, it suited the area really well, if only the Loop Line could have hung on 20 more years till urban metros/tram systems became popular again - instead of which planning's been dominated by working around cars for everyone, which makes no real sense in an area where the journeys are so short and the road system is one of the things that's made Hanley seem so depressing.

bunny, I'm not a one-eyed optimist, truly, just sick of so many people seeming to knock every attempt to move forward. Like I say, if you don't rate it then do something about it!

[wigginbird]

Hanley suffers in that it SO wants to be a "City Center" but due to the unique structure of stoke on trent (and newcastle) it will never be able to be one in the way that other city's of its size is. Well there is one way ....

knock down the shopping districts in Stoke, Longton, Fenton, Burslum, Tunstall and Newcastle.

As this will never happen, I'm afraid there is little hope .

There was mention above of some kind of Historic cinema being knocked down, i assume you were talking about the old ABC, which to my knowledge wasn't historic at all, The Odeon on Picadilly was though, I think its returned to its former state as Theatre now though

[MilanStokie]

The gap between each town being filled with housing estates, industries and fields of emptiness do not help with the connection of the 6 towns. Add to this the addition of these new housing estates with zero character, there just won't ever be a link. I don't think any of the 6 towns are that bad individually, I think they all offer something. The problem IMO (besides the appearance) is the bits in between.

Take for instance:

Hanley to Burslem.
Cobridge: Who wants to pass through that? Now if Cobridge was regenerated into some popular housing estate with nice local business, restaurants, bars and so on then I think people would even walk through it. As it is, unfortunately, it is almost a barrier for Tunstall/Burslem etc to stay way from Hanley.

Stoke to Hanley.
Shelton: Some actually half decent housing but a poor area where business cannot prosper. It is unfortunate really with the train station being there as well as the University and the college. But it is what it is. Sigh.

Hanley to Newcastle.
Another realy shame here that the links between the 2 are heavily car orientated. With only a handful of routes to take, it can be a nightmare to get to both. This 1 is being worked on with the Wolstanton by-pass. It is a shame they can't open another exit on the Wolstanton turn-off that leads directly onto Festival Park though.

[philpatjj]

Hanley :
3 coffees : Nero, Costa, Starbucks, yeah, I know they're not independent but there is 1 or 2, just below Regent Theatre (can't think of name), Wetherspoons do Lavazza coffee, also the casino, Quality Hotel, etc.
restaurants : Pastiche, Mr. Mimhs, (nice, sensibly-priced buffet) Fat Cat
Kids : museum, Waterworld, bowling, cinema, ski run, etc.etc.
Clothes : Terraces, Gemini plus another at that "end" of town that I can't remember the name of !