Blackpool Council published a document known as the Core Strategy last week and is letting the people of Blackpool view it and comment on it. Here is the link for anyone interested
But the main focus of this article is the plan to make Blackpool ‘a city on the beach’. Now I find this a much more realistic vision than all this ‘Las Vegas of the North’ stuff. Indeed I have said several times Blackpool should follow Brighton’s lead with their affectionate nickname ‘London by the sea’ and become ‘Manchester by the sea’.
Basically the idea of ‘City on the Beach’ is dividing Blackpool into 7 distinct zones another idea which has been put forward by commenters on the Gazette site and this site. The proposed 7 zones are as follows;
1. The Northern Quarter (a definite hint of Manchester there!!!). This basically incorpoates the area around Queen St, Talbot Square and Central Libary. Plans include preserving the ‘best’ and redeveloping the ‘worst’ and a proposed night market for the civic space.
2. Talbot Gateway; needs no introduction, but seems to get scaled back each time it is mentioned in the Gazette.
3. Creative Quarter; Incorporates Topping St, Edward St, Cedar Sq, Church St and Abingdon St. Planned to be made into a small business quarter and become a Blackpool version of the Brighton Lanes (Gordon Marsden will be happy; might actually make him come to Blackpool more than once a month).
4. The Winter Gardens; nothing concrete yet but the current plans are for boutique conferencing facilities, retail/leisure and themed attractions.
5. The Shopping Centre; Main plan includes the (long overdue!!!) completion of Phases II and III of Houndshill. There has also been (very preliminary) discussion of a possible link between the Winter Gardens and Houndshill.
6. Golden Mile; Completion of the Tower Headland which is looking fantastic along with the rest of the new Promenade. Also strategies to make the Promenade more pedestrian-friendly and better linked to the town centre.
7. The Leisure Quarter; This incorporates the Central Station site. The snowdome is the big vision for this site at present which is currently undergoing a feasibility study, there is talk of incorporating the snowdome into a mixed-use retail/leisure/entertainment development.
So all in all, 7 very interesting, ambitious but moreover realistic visions for Blackpool. No throwing the eggs in one basket (Fisher and Weaver I am looking at you) and no casinos. So far these plans look good, but my only question is where is the funding? Clearly the next few years are going to be painful for the country because of the battered and bruised economy after 13 years of Labour so I sincerely hope private investment will be sought for these projects where possible. But I have only provided a brief summary courtesy of the Gazette, anyone who is interested I recommend reading the full document.
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Excellent Post TB, I’ve gone through it and I like their public transport plans which are a commitment to extending the tram line to Blackpool North and improving the Blackpool South Line (no talk of Blackpool South closing) and I like their plans to do more with the Motorway in terms of creating a zone for it.
This city by the sea concept and the creation of the Blackpool Fylde and Wyre Economic Development Company points to a Fylde city on a polycentric model like the Ruhr and Stoke on Trent. If they want to city status their best chance is 2012 with the Queen’s Diamond Jubillee.
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Splitting the town into quarters isn’t the worst idea by any means, but there need to be some kind of defined areas to start with.
For example, the Leisure sector between Central Drive, Chapel Street and Bonny Street is currently packed with no leisure facilities at all unless a magistrates court and car park count. So that’s going to require hundreds of millions to actually become a leisure sector.
John Donnellon talked about piling money into revamping Talbot Square, something I have advocated for a long time, but they don’t have the money so how are they going to do that?
This demonstrates how close to reality this scheme is, and I believe it to be optimistic but on the whole far fetched.
Me, I still long for some green space in town, but this never seems to be included in any schemes.
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I agree about the green spaces Phil, Blackpool desperately needs more trees, it’s amazing the effect a tree line street can have on improving an area. Regeneration need not be expensive to be effective.
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Well said ZF, I know I like my comparisons but at the fablulous Liverpool One they have a restaurant terrace on the top floor with a fantastic selection of upmarket family/casual restaurants and then opposite they have a nice park (on the top floor!) which is really unusual in a good way and it works really well. But I agree I would like to see more greenery, I wish we could flatten Foxhall and develop that into a nice green area.
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I totally agree (and live on a tree-lined street). However councils hate tree-lined streets due to the problems with roots damaging the level of the pavements (particularly when they’ve been dug up a few times by utility firms) and putting them at risk of claims for tripping. They need very little maintenance too.
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I find the whole idea abhorant. Why the hell would anyone want Blackpool to become a “city”? What’s so wrong with being a town? Not content with building on every bit of land within Blackpool’s borders the plan is to merge Fylde and Cleveleys with the whole thing. Is there any city without a persistent serious problem with deprivation and crime? I can’t name one.
The people of Fylde will certainly not like this as an idea (though that treacherous dictator John Coombes has single-handedly tried to bind us into this there are moves to prove that he didn’t have the power to do so).
Whilst the ideas look “acheivable” – isn’t that because there’s not much new here? It’s ok saying this area will be “X” but you can only influence what you give for change of use planning permission for – unless a licence of another sort is required but even then people do have legal rights for the council not to close them down.
And whilst I very much like the idea of a snow dome – what’s going to happen regarding the already serious lack of parking in this area. Build on the central station parking area and you create a larger need for parking with less of it available.
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Some very good points Frustrated and I do admit there are some creases that need ironing out, but I would like to see these plans go ahead on the whole and I feel the parking problem could be solved by incorporating some multi-stories into the developments. If you go to Manchester/Liverpool they have hardly any ugly surface car parks like Central they have nice modern multi-stories like Q-Park. But also I would love to see Blackpool as a city, it would hopefully go some way to help improve our terrible image problem which we discussed yesterday. Also I don’t understand why in god’s name Preston ever got city status in 2002. They have nothing of any note, it is about the most boring and lifeless place in the country and there were about 50 more worthy contenders like Reading, Blackburn and Blackpool who deserved it more. But then Brighton got city status as well, it was like someone was just taking the piss giving city status to our two rivals.
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So many places were awarded city status that no-one knows what places are cities now. And the criteria weren’t exactly consistent so there’s no way of working it out.
I don’t think calling the place something else will work as a strategy (be that a city or renaming Blackpool as Manchester-on-Sea). Renaming businesses is something you do when your business has a terrible reputation – but you have to improve it first or the whole thing is pointless. Same applies to towns. I think compulsory purchase redevelopment plans are needed near those areas which already have a good business going (say the Pleasure Beach) combined with grants to help improve shopping area fronts in the centre (like St Annes did, though it’s not 100% sucessful it did improve the area substantially). Get the police to do their jobs re the drunks and the Wendy Lewis’s of this world and clean the area up at night (and during the day) turning the place back into a family friendly resort. Produce a tourism guide but insist on a base standard before places can go into it. Give out awards for tourism industry improvements. Get the kids at theatre schools out for productions whether in the street in summer or in theatres free for them to get them practice and increase what’s going on. Get the council or Gazette to do a proper “time out” style guide so that visitors and locals know what’s going on and support it. Make Tim Coglan Mayor of the town cleaning up the place like a modern day Western hero. Stop building places for “affordable housing”. It’s social rented housing (council housing) that’s needed – and the sort of people needing that are not a benefit to the town. There’s far too much scum of the earth from Manchester, Salford, Glasgow getting to their favourite holiday resort for a holiday for life on the state and it’s a big detriment to Blackpool as a result.
And get some bloomin’ park and ride schemes, and holiday stay parking at the edge of town which is safe for people’s cars with a free bus in. It’s the best investment for money coming into the town to support shops and businesses (and that free bus can stop at strategic locations to encourage shopping, Pleasure Beach visitors, Snow Dome visitors etc. so that people aren’t so much coming from nearby towns for a walk on the beach and not spending any money all day long)
If I had my way I’d get all the families holidaying in Blackpool not St Annes again and get pensioners holidaying in St Annes and Cleveleys (the quieter areas). At the moment there’s too much going after any business rather than being a certain thing and being the best at it. Blackpool should be exciting but fun – just like it always was. Not a run down place with drunks, druggies and hens and stags.
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Excellent Post TB, I’ve gone through it and I like their public transport plans which are a commitment to extending the tram line to Blackpool North and improving the Blackpool South Line (no talk of Blackpool South closing) and I like their plans to do more with the Motorway in terms of creating a zone for it.
This city by the sea concept and the creation of the Blackpool Fylde and Wyre Economic Development Company points to a Fylde city on a polycentric model like the Ruhr and Stoke on Trent. If they want to city status their best chance is 2012 with the Queen’s Diamond Jubillee.
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