I really hope you're right. I have fewer family reasons to come to Hull these days but I will because I want to see how it develops and I do like a pint in Minerva! You can take the boy out of Hull etc, etc.
Castle St is a gamechanger, and that's a massive understatement. Won't be finished for 4 years but when it does it will unlock cross city traffic that has strangled it for decades. Shame it's 40 years too late for some of us, but it should be of benefit for the prosperity of our descendants and maybe halt the slow drift of port trade to Immingham.. We've lost the Zeebrugge ferry and the Rotterdam one is irregular so plenty of post Brexit uncertainty still. I can't recall seeing so much major roadworks going on on the major routes into the city on the west side- a lot of overdue money being spent. Now we need to push for electrification on the railways to get us on a level playing field with other northern cities. I also believe that City getting into the PL has been the single most important factor in the rebirth of Hull, the momentum and spirit of our rise infected the city and created the buzz. We should never let that be forgotten or understated.
Not seen this in hdm in the guardian Hull splashes out £4.6m as UK embraces lido revival Growing popularity of outdoor swimming leads to string of facilities opening across the country For the past 25 years, Hull’s lido has been out of bounds to everyone except the ducks and the local canoe club. Situated in the ward of Newington and Gipsyville, one of the most deprived neighbourhoods in Britain, Albert Avenue pool is surrounded by terraced houses whose occupants had long given up hope of ever taking to its waters without a kayak. Now, as part of its plans to “build a better society” post pandemic, Hull city council has decided to put £4.6m into reopening the outdoor pool and upgrading the complex. It is one of a string of new or refurbished lidos up and down the country, from Brighton to Salford, set to open in the coming years as outdoor swimming soars in popularity. For those lucky enough to live near a lido, bagging a swimming slot last summer was like getting a ticket for Glastonbury. Denied overseas holidays, more and more people discovered the joys of swimming under open skies, prompting a booking frenzy during the front crawl rush-hour. Once upon a time, most UK towns and cities had lidos. But by the 1990s, most had closed or been filled with concrete, the victims of cheap package holidays and ever tighter municipal budgets. Those that survived or reopened were often in wealthy or gentrifying areas, such as London Fields in Hackney, making outdoor swimming an increasingly middle-class pursuit. That’s what makes Hull’s lido so special, said Daren Hale, the deputy leader of Hull council. The fact it is in a “quite deprived terraced house community in west Hull makes it all the more admirable in my view,” he said, “because it means you don’t have to live in a swanky part of town” to enjoy it. The lido will be heated so it will not just be the preserve of masochists in winter, and Hale is optimistic it will be popular with the local community when it opens in summer/autumn 2022. For a council under extreme financial pressure following a £130m cut in central government funding over the past 10 years, reopening a lido may seem a luxury to some. Not so, said Hale. “With the Covid-19 pandemic, people have started to take stock of what’s important,” he said. “As we come out of the pandemic we need to build a better society. And I think the fear that we have is that unemployment will be higher, certainly for young people as the furlough scheme winds down, and people are going to need to have affordable, good leisure facilities on their doorstep.” please log in to view this image The Albert Avenue lido will mean residents will not ‘have to live in a swanky part of town’ to enjoy it, says Hull’s deputy council leader. Photograph: Hodson Architects Other lidos expected to open in 2022 include Cleveland pools in Bath, Britain’s oldest outdoor lido dating back more than 200 years; and Sea Lanes in Brighton, a brand new 50-metre outdoor pool on a privately run site billing itself as “the first national open water swimming centre of excellence”. In Salford in Greater Manchester, near the BBC’s northern home of Media City, a new development called Cotton Quays is set to include a lido as well as 1,500 homes, two hotels and floating gardens. Other areas are yet to be convinced of the mass appeal of open-air swimming. In Kenilworth, Warwickshire, the council is looking to demolish an outdoor pool and replace it with two indoor pools, prompting dozens of objections. And in Merseyside, campaigners trying to build the People’s Pool – a replacement for the demolished lido on New Brighton promenade – had a setback last week when Wirral council withdrew seed funding for the project, citing budget pressures. Across the country, dogged local campaigners continue pushing for their own outdoor pools to reopen. Phil Bradby, who runs Save Grange Lido in Cumbria, takes heart from the developments in Hull and beyond. “When I started Save Grange Lido 10 years ago people thought I was mad trying to save a long-forgotten, derelict lido from demolition but now there are campaigns and community groups all over the UK working to reopen old lidos and calling for new ones where they used to be – it really does look like a lido revolution,” he said.
I like that. Hull Olympic Swimming Club at Albert Ave, and Madeley St baths were both a big part of me growing up round there.
Lido my arse. It's Albert Ave outdoor pool we used as kids. Used to have leaves and stuff floating in it on a regular basis. A real cock shrinker of a pool, always used to head for the indoor towards the end which was like getting in in a hot tub in comparison. HCC claiming credit for re-opening what they themselves closed and let rot.. Way before your time Daren.
Probably buy everyone in Hull a hot tub for that price... Seriously if they don't sort out some decent parking might not be that popular for the masses
Dazzling Daren will want you going on your bike with all these marvellous cycle lanes he’s putting in
I'll always remember Albert Ave Baths, I learned to swim there, but even more memorable was leaving there after swimming and going to the sweet shop opposite and being told by the women behind the counter, " Have you heard the news boys, Kennedy has been shot"
I used to get a mix up including foam shrimps, sherbet flying saucers, blackjacks and fruit salads from there. They did a roaring trade.
They did. Seem to remember the counter and the people serving behind it was about a foot higher than the rest of the shop floor, as if it was on a raised platform. Or perhaps I was just a shortarse at the time...
