£1.2 billion borough investment boom.

[Jonah]

I like to complain about the traffic as much as everyone but could anyone really have envisaged just how much traffic there is now compared to the 50s and 60s? I don't think so.

Back in the 50s and 60s you were lucky to have a car. Now you see households with a car for dad, a car for mum, a car for son and a car for daughter.

 

[Gramaisc]

Indeed, things had to change, this was the A34 - everything though Stafford went up there, no M6, no Beaconside - it's just that a lot of the replacements did not seem to be great improvements. Brookfields and the shops opposite, Market Street, Kemley House and the car showroom where the Station hotel was, etc.........

 

[Jonah]

Yeah completely agree. Some lovely buildings knocked down and replaced with crap.

 

[Gramaisc]

People were left with a feeling that there might be some underhandedness and a general lack of care about what the results really were. The rabbit warren of shops around Gaol Square was obliterated, except for an unused church, the Masonic Lodge and a derelict-looking ex-power station, to be replaced by a 'garden' that I have never seen anybody sat in having their lunch.

Etc.

The new play facilities in the Park do seem to have been an actual improvement, though.

 

[PeterD]

yes thats an improvement, there are some reasonable architectural decisions, but every time I see what was lost I shake my fist at unnamed town planners.

 

[Gramaisc]

yes thats an improvement, there are some reasonable architectural decisions, but every time I see what was lost I shake my fist at unnamed town planners.

Very little was 'lost' - apart from the odd genuinely accidental fire, most things were the result of positive decisions to destroy what was there and to replace it with what we see now.

When I take over, their ashes will be scattered at the base of the pebble-dashed wall, next to St Chad's Church.

 

[PPPPPP]

People were left with a feeling that there might be some underhandedness and a general lack of care about what the results really were. The rabbit warren of shops around Gaol Square was obliterated, except for an unused church, the Masonic Lodge and a derelict-looking ex-power station, to be replaced by a 'garden' that I have never seen anybody sat in having their lunch.

Etc.

The new play facilities in the Park do seem to have been an actual improvement, though.

How long has the Masonic bunker been there? Surprise they didn't rebuild it in the middle of the gyratory.

 

[Gramaisc]

How long has the Masonic bunker been there? Surprise they didn't rebuild it in the middle of the gyratory.

Built in 1849 - ran as the Methodist New Connexion Chapel until 1951 - reopened as the Masonic Temple in 1953.

 

[joshua]

How long has the Masonic bunker been there? Surprise they didn't rebuild it in the middle of the gyratory.

Can't really move it, there is an extensive subterranean command and control complex extending for quite some distance underneath and the masonic is one of the on foot entrances.

 

[PPPPPP]

Ah, so when the nuclear device lands on Stafford the world will belong to Freemasons, the supreme beings.

 

[joshua]

All hail our lizard overlords

 

[John Marwood]

Costa/Starbucks/Nero.....

 

[Laurie61]

Coffee has the same affect on me.

 

[John Marwood]

Coffee has the same affect on me.

I always take mine with 'sweeteners'

 

[Theresa Green]

OK, so the Royal Brine Baths are still with us and what do we imagine the interior contains? ......

…put the Royal in the Brine

 

[Glam]

Bluddy 'ell! Holy thread resurection Batman!!

 

[PeterD]

Still waiting for that investment.

 

[Theresa Green]

Not long now