All in all, not such a great deal then. It is good that there will be some investment in the station of course, but it is likely in 10 years we will still have a concrete station stuck between a car park and a shopping centre.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
The People's Republic of Birmingham does a bit of digging into the £128 million New St Station investment and isn't overly impressed.
3 Comments:
Thanks for the link, Pete. One can't help thinking part of the problem is the councils insistence on using the money to build yet another shopping centre linking the Bullring and the Mailbox. Even I don't see why the Department of Transport should pay for that.
My understanding is they're hoping for something similar to the way the Bull Ring opened up the route from New St to Digbeth. I remember being amazed when I first saw how close St Martins is to the Rotunda. Previously they'd seemed miles apart. I'm guessing that route (with very few shops) was a requirement of the development.
The idea with New St, I think, is to link up the area around Hill St to New St in a similar way and thus encourage development in the former. (Apparently property values are vastly different on either side of the station and there's no real reason why this should be other than access).
As to who should pay for this, it probable won't be the DoT directly. I'd imagine whoever develops said shopping area will pick up the tab. But it will have to be tied in pretty tightly to whatever the DoT does pay for.
Pure speculation I hasten to add. I don't really have an opinion either way.
Too bad the Eastside Grand Central concept will never take off - that would be a real boon for the city and the country.
But any expenditure on New Street ought to be a good thing.
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