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Stafford shops opening - Turning into a boom town?
- Thread starter Trumpet
- Start date
Thehooperman
Well-Known Forumite
Noah
Well-Known Forumite
I was mainly hanging around further east when I was a lad so not very familiar with this particular car park in the past. As a basic principle land where water has once been water will return. I know one station car park where everyone strives to park as far from the station as possible particularly if there has been a drop of rain.
Dancing Queen
Active Member
Ah, the shop that's been empty for 20 + years...SBC we invite you to a compulsory purchase!
proactive
Enjoying a drop of red.
Using our money! No thanks it can be better spent elsewhere, where there is genuine need.
Dancing Queen
Active Member
Unfortunately, many of the properties in our town centre are owned by remote investors who think nothing of land banking or sitting on assets waiting for their capital appreciation. Without intervention properties like this will deteriorate event further and a continually be a blot on the landscape.
proactive
Enjoying a drop of red.
I don't deny it but there are far more pressing causes for the disbursement of public funds in what are hard times for local government.
Tumble weed
Well-Known Forumite
Speaking of unsafe properties , apparently, the tavern might have to be demolished.
Last time the river flooded , the water was never pumped out from the basement so the floor and building is rotten , making it not cost effective to continue the renovation on it.
Dancing Queen
Active Member
Yes, sadly I heard something similar. The more these Victorian buildings and left empty and allowed to deteriorate, the faster they will disappear from our town centre. What will we get in their place?
Dancing Queen
Active Member
There will always be a shopping list of priorities for public spending in good times and bad. I personally think that 20 years is a long time for nothing to be done.
Tumble weed
Well-Known Forumite
Well planning permission was given to turn it into two restaurants, so they'd have to reapply with new plans if they wanted to continue with the restaurant idea.
The area will probably be redeveloped as flats joining on to the mills though .
The area will probably be redeveloped as flats joining on to the mills though .
proactive
Enjoying a drop of red.
Again, I don't disagree but there are other priorities.
Dancing Queen
Active Member
Yes, you are probably right. I'm not opposed to the revitalisation of town centres with 'above the shop' residential as long as there is a balance and some service/retail is retained. My concern is that with the relaxation of planning law we will see a proliferation of . flats in the centre and it will become something of a dormitory.
I have heard that spaces in the new Riverside multi-storey will accommodate residents' vehicles but where will shoppers park? The County Council already has a number of space in this facility during the week and now more will be taken up - fewer spaces will put more people off coming into town to shop I suspect.
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Dancing Queen
Active Member
Personally, I think the economic viability of the town centre is a priority...which is kind of the point of this thread.
Where or from whom have you heard this?
There is not a significant enough development in the town centre to warrant that many spaces and it would only be allocated on a demand basis anyway, plus it would require approval from the owners and police for the MS to have a 24 hour access granted.
As two of the larger apartment developments in Malt Mill and soon to be Britannia House have their own parking, there is nowhere near a large enough demand for it in the town centre.
Needless to say most planning consents for upper floor planning in town are essentially empty promises and nothing more than to increase portfolio values and more attractive to potential suitors. Multiple buildings have had planning consent more than once over the last 5 years plus with nothing happening...mill street, greengate (x2), princess st and the Whitehouse Premises
BobClay
Well-Known Forumite
Perhaps there should be a change in the law. If somebody allows a property to stand empty, decaying and neglected for a certain number of years (not as long as 20 in my thinking) then a compulsory purchase order can be issued for a price not exceeding fifty quid. (Should have at least patched up the decay if nothing else.)
That way the previous bad owner would get a few crates of beer out of it.
That way the previous bad owner would get a few crates of beer out of it.
Noah
Well-Known Forumite
Parts of it are in very poor condition. There are planning/licensing requirements that some areas are sealed to prevent any access because of their dangerous condition.
Withnail
Well-Known Forumite
What do you think will be the future of a town like Stafford?
What will the centre of a town like Stafford look like in ten years time - twenty years time?
What seems almost certain is it will look massively different to the Stafford of the 'Stafford Remembered' crowd, desperately clinging on to a past that is so long gone. It seems almost redundant to suggest that it is these blowhards holding on to a supposed golden past that have sold us a future that stinks of shit, but I'm happy to make that link regardless of its obviousness.
You are all a National disgrace.
Embrace your future.
What will the centre of a town like Stafford look like in ten years time - twenty years time?
What seems almost certain is it will look massively different to the Stafford of the 'Stafford Remembered' crowd, desperately clinging on to a past that is so long gone. It seems almost redundant to suggest that it is these blowhards holding on to a supposed golden past that have sold us a future that stinks of shit, but I'm happy to make that link regardless of its obviousness.
You are all a National disgrace.
You are too late, it is already happening, and has been doing so quite openly for a decade at the very least. It's all but happened already. We are already a dormitory town - a sleeper suburb of London/Birmingham/Manchester that will only become more so.
Embrace your future.
OJK
Well-Known Forumite
People of the county town - you have been sleepwalking into dystopia
