Official Wolverhampton Development Thread 2

[DBadger]

£400m being injected into Black Country high streets

http://www.expressandstar.com/news/2...-high-streets/

"in Wolverhampton, Debenhams, H&M, Pizza Express and Ask will be approached by council chiefs and some £13.4m is to be injected into the area left blighted by the failed Summer Row project. The Mander and Wulfrun centres will also get an overhaul."

[MichaelWolves]

Come on this skyline needs developing !!!image hosted on flickr

[DBadger]

Landmark GKN factory to become Sikh temple

http://www.expressandstar.com/news/2...e-sikh-temple/

Closed for 15 years, repeated target of vandals and damaged extensively by travellers.


Featherstone: New Office Complex etc

http://www.expressandstar.com/busine...nds-jobs-boom/

"BAE Systems, which owns the former Royal Ordnance factory site in Featherstone, South Staffordshire, wants to create a new manufacturing business on the land. It also wants to build a new office complex as part of the scheme."

Furthers the case for Brinsford Parkway station (planned), as well as the Midland Metro from Wolverhampton to Brinsford Parkway via i54.


New Look closing 100 stores

Not sure if Wolverhampton is affected.

[DBadger]

Wolverhampton Railway Station

http://www.expressandstar.com/news/t...-station-plan/

A bid is in for £20.2 million of public money to try and revive long awaited plans to rebuild Wolverhampton’s rail station.

The Express & Star can reveal the estimated cost of the project has dropped to £96 million from £154m, with developers set to revise their designs to make it more attractive to investors.

Wolverhampton City Council regeneration chief Councillor Peter Bilson said the “world had changed” since the ambitious project for the station to be accompanied by a hotel and canalside bars had been drawn up in 2006 and 2007.

Bosses still want all those things but accept they will need to find £64 million of private sector investment, even if they get £20.2m from the Government’s regional growth fund and another £10m from other funds.

I don't know where they've saved £60m, hopefully by not putting the multi-storey car park above the station...

[sefton66]

good news, Wolverhampton Train Station really does need a makeover...

[DBadger]

More info here btw: http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=861808

All them silver buildings make up the £154m plan.

[sefton66]

I'd not seen that before, would be great if they built that but I can just see it being a train station now with a few shops on concourse level

There going to need to spend quite a bit getting rid of and getting in new bridges across platforms, from what I can remember half of the station has low beams with a lot of "mind your head" signs, probably need to be replaced

[Spread]

From Business Desk:

Wolves targets property developers with new city centre plan

WOLVERHAMPTON City Council has drawn up wide-ranging plans to revitalise its ailing city centre.

A new city centre prospectus will be presented to property companies at a launch event at Molineux on July 19 with an invitation for them to invest in the growth of the city centre.

The city council has consulted with the public, developers, landowners and businesses over the last 12 months to inform the prospectus. New research has confirmed additional capacity for nearly half a million square feet of retail and leisure floor space in the city centre.

The council says there is also latent demand has been identified for high grade office space.

Its prospectus sets out the priority regeneration areas and opportunities for private sector investment.

The council will also announce the role it will play through significant capital investment, the transformation of the city centre public realm and a business-friendly planning approach.

Three new food stores already have city centre planning permission with Sainsbury’s and Tesco expected to start on site later this year while Wolverhampton Wanderers have a £45m redevelopment programme for the Molineux under way.

Meanwhile a new bus station and highway works are in place at Wolverhampton Interchange as part of an initial £22.6m investment to bring forward a strategic transport hub, an enhanced gateway to the city centre and a locus for commercial development.

Elsewhere negotiations are advanced to bring forward a replacement hotel for the Fox Hotel which was recently acquired and demolished by the council and plans are being progressed for a major refurbishment of the Mander shopping centre.

In May this year, Wolverhampton city centre became one of the first in the country to be selected as one of the 12 UK Portas Pilot towns. The government scheme - based on the recommendations of shopping guru Mary Portas - is intended to help transform the retail fortunes of the selected towns and cities.

[DBadger]

Ugh. I don't mind supermarkets but the future plans for them are insane. Just off the ring road we are going to have a massive: Tesco (The Royal), Sainsburys (Raglan), Asda (Molineux), Morrisons (Peel), Waitrose (Blakenhall)... at least we're being all encompassing I guess.

It's just daft! How any of this is going to benefit the city centre is beyond me. At least Walsall and West Bromwich put their giant supermarkets in the centre where the high street will see some benefit.

Not to mention two are just moving out of the city centre.

[DBadger]

The Royal - November



A Tesco-driven redevelopment of the Royal Hospital is to start in November.

http://www.expressandstar.com/busine...on-tesco-site/

More information:

http://www.tescowolverhampton.co.uk/

[ReissOmari]

Looks great, so Tesco will actually use the old building as the supermarket, or just a facadé?

[sefton66]

I presume just the facade, looks really good though!

[DBadger]

The main store is a new build behind this, looking something like:



It's in the middle of a conservation area and I'm impressed to be honest given this is Tesco. Unfortunately they're building flats in front of it. I'd have liked the previous image to have been viewable from the A41.



The first image I posted is labelled F.

[DBadger]

Vine Island - A449

The Vine Island replacement has started - the Coop car park is no more. This is being replaced with a layby for shoppers, similar to that at Oxley, taking them away from the island which is being moved a few yards up the road. This will make a massive improvement even if it's not lights like they previously planned.

But, as Burnt Tree has shown, lights replacing islands is bloody stupid.

Other Things

Priory Green (formerly primary school) looks to be being extended - a hole has been knocked through the former Junior school entrance.

Does anybody know what this place is? I was after a job there for nostalgia's sake, but there are no signs or anything saying what it even is, offices for something, has been open a couple of years now I think.

[Butterfield]

Originally Posted by DBadger

But, as Burnt Tree has shown, lights replacing islands is bloody stupid.

But traffic lights have made the Burnt Tree junction easy and much safer to navigate now.

[DBadger]

The only experience I've had with it is huge tailbacks and an awkward driving line but in fairness I haven't used it much.

[sefton66]

Nope Burnt Tree is a massive improvement!

[Nacho]

New plans for Wolverhampton : http://www.expressandstar.com/news/2...evealed-today/

[DBadger]

Fantastic!

Also like the look of this:



Reckon this is the "indoor market" or just the outdoor with a nice roof?

Notice the beautiful "bridge" over the ring road (or is it just a big crossing?), you can hardly see the ring road's there in this photo!

Amazing news.

[Nacho]

Just as well you posted that DBadger ; I hadn't seen the additional gallery .