The mythical beast that is the Talbot Gateway is edging closer to planning approval, and once again I have to question whether this is really the way Blackpool can progress.
There are many questions that must be asked about this project, mostly about the practicality and foresight that has gone into it.
We are told that the first phase of the project will include 14 town houses, a supermarket and a plaza. Perhaps I’m missing something, but what is going to attract anyone to pay top dollar for a spangly new town house in one of the most prolific areas for crime in Lancashire?
Railway noise? Vagrants and druggies? Busy main road? Nowhere to park? Tunnel that stinks of piss? Construction works for next 15 years? Prospect that even more criminals will be in the area if the courts and police station move there? I don’t think so.
No supermarket chain has committed to the project yet so this could be up in the air, though someone like Netto would be ideal for the inhabitants. I am guessing that the Talbot Plaza will be on the old bowling club which has been flattened for a while. I’ve just had a quick look on the Council’s website for information about it, and apparently;
The first phase of construction is due to start in 2007 and expected to reach completion in 2010. Total value of the overall development is expected to be £227.625 million.
Right, well that hasn’t happened. Perhaps that was a change in the plans.
Talking of which, only last week we saw that the council had declassified 900 hotels and given their owners license to do what they like with them. A pessimistic town hall planning report stated;
No future scenario in Blackpool will restore past visitor numbers and the quantity of required holiday accommodation needs to be substantially reduced.
Maxine Callow went further and said;
“I think even people in the industry would accept we don’t need all the bed spaces we have now in what is a dwindling market.”
But of the Gateway, the Gasjet said in November;
It will bring 3,000 jobs to the town centre and will also include three hotels boasting 460 rooms between them, retail space, offices, restaurants and car parking.
Three new hotels with 460 rooms: roughly 153 rooms per hotel. That doesn’t really fit in with what the council said last week. But today, the Gasjet went one step further by saying;
(The Talbot Gateway) will take shape over 10 to 15 years with council offices, four hotels, residential accommodation and shops being introduced in phases.
Four hotels?!
So in the last quarter, another hotel has been incorporated into the plans. The plans are definitely not set in stone, then, and I wonder what the fourth hotel has replaced because the scale of the plans has not changed. Assuming the fourth hotel is of the same size as the other three hotels, this gives just over 600 new hotel rooms.
But don’t forget that there’s another five or six (depending on planning permission) storey 200-room hotel in the offing next to the Winter Gardens. We’re looking at an increase of over 800 hotel rooms. If the town hall planners believe that, “no future scenario will restore visitor numbers”, what the fuck is the business case for five new hotels?
Don’t tell me it’s for transient professionals or for the conference trade because Blackpool lost that years ago and there are no provisions for it in the Talbot Gateway.
Peter and Maxine Callow need to take a long hard look at themselves about this, because what they are doing is not only going to harm local businesses, but rip out the heart of the town whilst selling its soul to anonymous national and multinational hotel chains.
Don’t get me wrong, I agree that modern hotels are essential to any prospect of continuing tourism or any forthcoming business travellers, however why couldn’t the council involve and help out current hoteliers rather than simply cutting them loose so that the Callows can build their legacy?
The one question I would love to ask the council, be it Weaver, Callow or whomever, is how exactly they think the Talbot Gateway is going to increase the town’s prosperity, because as yet, even after years of artists impressions and articles in the local media about it, I’m not convinced by any of it.
Well said Phil, the TWATBOT Gateway to Callows anus is just that; a pile of shite.Its illogical, lacking in vision,incoherent, badly planned and doesnt seem to meet any stategic objective for lifting the town out of this 30 year recession.
A squandered opportunity by a shower of economic retards who have to be voted out, and a proper mayor voted in!
It will only favour Callow and his Ivory tower twat friends in their new offices,the whole thing is an absolute dusgrace and testament to Callow’s lack of coherent planning.
Hee isnt worth a fucking piss.
The problem as ever is we are paying for the mistakes of the early 1970′s when for some reason unknown to anyone I know they demolished a beautiful railway station in Blackpool North and built the building where Wilkinson’s are today.
I support the Talbot Gateway on the basis that it will attempt to repair the damage done then, sadly we aren’t losing either the Talbot Road Bus station or the Wilkinsons building but something is better than nothing.
One thing I would like to see is the building of the tram line from Blackpool North to join the existing system and at the very least if no tram line is built yet, space be left for it to be built.
Indeed. I’m not against the Talbot Gateway as a project, I’m against the fact that no thought has gone into it, it’s a total cop out by the council and ReBlackpool and every time they publish anything it’s loaded with spin.
They always say it’s going to boost this and regenerate that, but they never, ever, say how.
There is nothing at all in the Talbot Gateway that would attract me there or give me a reason to spend time there. Nothing. And the same applies for everyone in Blackpool that doesn’t work at the town hall.
Yes, it’s a horrible area and it will be getting large amounts of money spent on it, but after all this has happened will it be any different?
They needed to take the lead and go for a full on transport hub. They failed to do so. The second option was a crowd pulling arena or music hall – after all the location next to the station is ideal. They failed. The third option was smashing the bus station down and creating a really nice green area. Call it the People’s Park or some other bollocks. Fail once again.
Instead of casinos, this time they’re gambling on hotels, but where the clientele will come from I do not know.
Even if they come, what are they coming for?? New Council offices?
a new police station? a new supermarket?
Jesus H Christ.
I support TG but what annoys me is how it constantly keeps getting scaled down; there were plans for a cinema (binned) Talbot Rd Bus Station and Wilkinsons were meant to be levelled (also binned) and there is great uncertainty over the much-talked about tramlink up Talbot Rd.
There’s no uncertainty – the tram link is not in the plans and it wont be implemented because there is no business case for it.
Sadly the tram line down Talbot Road won’t happen in the short term but the case for it is strong, especially if we factor in it’s alot cheaper to build that short line and connect Fleetwood and Cleveleys with a railway station then rebuild the entire railway line to Fleetwood.
We wouldn’t need central gov money for it either we could pay for it with a soft loan from the European Investment Bank.
I see no point in supporting what is an aborted foetus of regeneration.
What a busy day
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speaker: Joan Humble : Commons debate
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Oral Answers to Questions – Communities and Local Government: Regional Regeneration (9 Mar 2010)
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2010-03-09a.146.7&s=speaker%3A10299#g146.8
Joan Humble: What his most recent assessment is of the effectiveness of Government support for local authority regeneration initiatives in the north-west; and if he will make a statement.
Oral Answers to Questions – Communities and Local Government: Regional Regeneration (9 Mar 2010)
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2010-03-09a.146.7&s=speaker%3A10299#g147.1
Joan Humble: A clear indication of the effectiveness of the Government’s plans for regeneration in Blackpool has been the substantial rise-in some instances, 40 per cent.-in the numbers of visitors to the town.
Some have come to see the new St. John’s square, the Brilliance project and the new promenade taking shape. Will the Minister continue,
therefore, to support regeneration projects in Blackpool and…
Oral Answers to Questions – Communities and Local Government: Topical Questions (9 Mar 2010)
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2010-03-09a.148.0&s=speaker%3A10299#g149.2
Joan Humble: Does the Minister share my concern and that of many other Blackpool residents that our local Conservative council is refusing to put in an extra £148,000 to repair the many potholes that have appeared after the winter, when it has £6.8 million in reserves?
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Sounds like more Labour political pointscoring and backslapping to me. Enjoy it while you can Marsden and Humble only 2 months to go. LIEBOUR OUT 2010!!!!
spot on TB!
I see your comments about Foxhole were wrtiten about in a letter but you rebutted them, well done!
Oh yes, I feel quite honoured that one of my thousands of fans has taken the time to write about me in local prestige broadsheet The Gazette. I stand by my original comment Foxhole doesn’t need a bit of a facelift. On Dale St and Foxhall Road there is loads of empty derelict buildings and even if they were filled they will probably end up more cheap tat markets and bookies. They should demolish the whole area and redevelop it as a higher quality area.
when they do flatten it, make sure the callows and fowler are there to experience it, lol
Interesting. I registered for that last week but haven’t really had chance to look into it properly.
Excellent finds, though. It smells of political backslapping like most commons questions do, and it’s unfortunate that Joan Humble seeks to distort the truth and portray Blackpool in a light that suggests its booming when in fact the opposite is true.
new St. John’s square???
see that??? seriously?
I can’t really be bothered to write another article about it, but the Talbot Gateway has been given planning approval.
All the people involved with it say it’s the best thing since sliced bread, but then they would because they’re making money out of it and gaining publicity. And Peter Callow is determined to commission a legacy.
They say a police station, some council offices and a load of hotels will be a catalyst for regeneration. The artists impressions include things that have already been excluded from the plans, such as a tram link to Blackpool North.
Also important to remember is that no money apart from a small amount from the NWDA has actually been secured for any of it. No companies are signed up so far and all of the leisure facilities promised have been dropped from the plans, no doubt replaced by some of the hotels I mentioned here.
They also say the bottom of the Talbot Road bus station will become a shopping centre. Because we really need another of those.
The Gazette is acting as though it is big deal, its not as though the planners were going to reject it anyway though. I do support TG but I am annoyed how it keeps getting scaled down, now Wilkinsons and the bus station are being saved (happy days!!!), I want to see more shops in Blackpool because we have a lack of decent ones and better restaurants. Retail and tourism complement each other very well. Also someone once wrote a snotty letter into the Gazette saying ‘Did we really need a Debenhams, why not build a conference centre?’ 2
Apologies my stupid computer posted when I didn’t want it to. 2 reasons; 1. There are people who live on the Fylde Coast who are sick to death of Pretend City taking all our retail trade and who want better shops in Blackpool and 2. A conference centre would be a waste of money. Blackpool needs entertainment and leisure facilities like an arena not a boring old conference centre that we residents don’t really gain anything from.
People don’t only go to Preston because of the retail experience which I would concede is only slightly better (although their Debenhams is a lot better than ours).
They go because Preston is easier and less stressful to get to than Blackpool and it’s cheaper to park.
Getting locals to use the town centre is a very important issue, and with the cost of parking and terrible road systems they’re going the right way about discouraging it.
The town would gain from a conference centre provided it was actually able to attract regular conferences. Given the accessibility of the town, I’m not sure about whether that would work, but I would welcome a conference centre nonetheless.
I should add that this doesn’t mean I think there should be no arenas or other leisure facilities. Something like that would be great, but with the council lashing large sums of money into the Winter Gardens, perhaps that could be used for these purposes.
I would only accept a conference centre as part of another development, I would like something like an arena which people like me can acutally use and it would boost our visitor economy because people would come from all over to see shows and events. This would attract a better class of visitor as well that could use our shops, cafes and restaurants too. But I hope the snowdome will be a step in the right direction for entertainment/leisure facilities. I never shop in Preston because I think its a dump, Manchester and Liverpool are much better value for money. I parked my car in Whitefield the other day (just outside Bury) with free parking, £3 return on the Metro tram and a 10 minute ride I was in Manchester and had a full proper day out, beats Preston for me anyday and made me realise where Blackpool could be with the right ideas.
I’d also like to see more shops, but you have to ask whether they would be viable given the current high availability of shop units.
It also strikes me as a little unusual that they would build a new shopping centre to compete with the Houndshill that’s already having its development axed due to lack of demand and funding.
I agree there I would rather they concentrated retail development around the main retail areas and kept TG for business and leisure. I am furious the bus station is being saved, I just want it flattened, it serves no useful purpose and it is a blight on the landscape. But on the subject of Houndshill, phase 2 is finally going ahead after the centre was purchased by Centros which is a major developer.