A couple of artist's impressions. Let's hope the architects are a bit more inspired...
All quite nice, yes, but good value for £60 million? Well, we'll have to see. I'm right behind the development of the station as the public transport hub for the city, I should say, being an enthusiast for getting cars out of the city. Cities are for people, not for cars, and one of the best things about how Nottingham has changed over the nigh-on 40 years I've been wandering around the city has been the steady increase in pedestrian zones. For more on a similar theme, see fellow blogger Alan-a-Dale's story here.
I read that part of the plan for the railway station is a 950-space carpark. A better solution to my mind would be to increase the amount of space dedicated to new retail space and 'public realm' around the site, and encourage people from outside the city to leave their cars at the various park & ride sites on the outskirts - and hopefully that would include the proposed new park & ride at Clifton as part of the tram extension. Let's hope that the funding for that can somehow be ring-fenced.
A promising sign in that regard was today's other big public transport announcement: that the Government want to go ahead with HS2, the high speed rail link between London and the north. The favoured plan is a line from London to Birmingham with two lines then going off to link up with the west and east coast mainlines at Manchester and Leeds respectively. The latter would run through the East Midlands; it would be nice to think it went through our new station, but I suspect it's more likely to be a new station serving the whole region.
Good news, then, and it's encouraging to see capital investment still possible in the age of austerity. While we're at it, could we puh-leeeze make sure any new trains are electric? As we contemplate the run-down of fossil fuels, it's plain embarrassing to be travelling to and from London in diesels.
More retail space!!! Tunbridge Wells residents are waging war on their Council for suggesting more shops are needed. Admittedly the proposal is to knock down the library, council offices, theatre and police station to make way for them. But still - more shops. I think not in any normal town. Especially when you want shoppers to line up and wait for a bus, laden with heavy bags, to get to their car. I preferred it when you were trying to measure Mrs QO's private parts which I think ended in failure and hospitalisation and therefore is a task still waiting to be done.
ReplyDeleteSurely that bottom pic is identical to its existing state, + palm tree?
ReplyDeleteArtistricky: the sort of retail space I have in mind at the station would be selling decent beer and Cornish pasties. Essentials for civilised travel, to my mind. As for measuring Mrs QO's meaculpa oblongata, as soon as inspiration strikes, I'll pick up the story...
ReplyDeleteMM: Yes indeed. Well, there's some polished flooring down and it looks as if cars have been banned from the front area. But it's not terribly creative, is it? Hence my comment about whether the expenditure would be good value or not. Time will tell!
Why are people always so cynical? In the second artist's impression there are TWO palm trees, a flower stall and some new toilets. £60m doesn't go far in a recession you know.
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