I would have posted this in the thread running a few months ago but it died and i can't find it . Alls i wanted to say was - I was in town today and wandered down Whitefriargate towards the old Market place (opp Trinity church) It was about 12:30pm and apart from myseld there were 2 people sat at the statue and not a soul anywhere !!! This was the hub of the city when i was a kid , well OK when the stalls were open , but still i found it quite sad really . there all off me chest now , like a sticky bit of phlegm
She can look all she likes, but unless the owners change their policy the properties on the south side will always be too dear.
You're not wrong, there's a 2,000 sq ft unit down there at the moment being marketed for £80k a year, considering the state of the place, that's ridiculous. At the bottom of Whitefriargate(corner of Silver St/Market Place) there's that fantastic old bank building on the corner, which is 8,000 sq ft and is on at £40k a year(it's a bit limited for uses and maintenance costs will probably put many off, but it's a great building).
Yes John and we(Mrs T and i) go there alot to get our fresh food goods. Nice cup of tea from the tea booth as well.
No surprises, we were overlooked by the Government again. Some of the places included in the second round of passed Portas Pilot bids seem a bit short-sighted by the government... Ashford, Berwick, Braintree, Brighton, Hatfield, Leamington (Old Town), Liverpool (Lodge Lane), Waterloo, Forest Hill, Kirkdale and Sydenham (London Borough of Lewisham), Chrisp Street, Watney Market, Roman Road (London Borough of Tower Hamlets), Loughborough, Lowestoft, Morecambe, Rotherham, Tiverton. ...I mean, Liverpool?!! A place that shouldn't need any extra funding after all the European development money that it has had poured into it. Brighton? Wouldn't have imagined Brighton being an area of retail decline. Loughborough? A place that is as much a university as it is a town... if you can't encourage retail and cafe businesses around 16,000 students, you're never going to. ...and how many places in London, yet again?!!
Tks FT good to know it is still going, we used to go there Saturday morning for our veg as well as haddock and chips at Carvers.
When the St Stephen's development began I figured the major hit would be taken by Prospect Centre and Prinny Quay, which seems to have been borne out. Shame to see the Old Town suffer though - its what makes the city what it is as opposed to some soulless corporate box like St Tesco has become. I imagine the geography of putting a big shopping centre right next to the Interchange dissuades a lot of footfall in the more historic areas mentioned here. Shame. The whole idea of throwing up more shopping centres as a means of increasing revenue to the city seems to me a bit of a red herring...all they're really doing is a) ensuring chain stores suck out all the money and b) providing a few **** retail jobs. Seems a bit of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic to me.
Whitefriar gate is usually packed....the bit down to trinity is always dead as people usually turn around at anne summers
I remember reading when it was announced that the money for the London ones comes out of Boris' budget rather than the central pot, so less in London wouldn't equal more elsewhere. On a slightly related theme, someone was asking recently what had happened to Tower's reopening. Going past today on the way to the train I saw the posters on the front are saying it reopens on Bank Holiday weekend, which is this week.
