Official Coventry Thread 6

[Jonny Gee]

Hello susamuruago

Last time I walked through Naul's Mill Park about 18 months ago there was water in that pond. The park hasn't been maintained very well for a few years now.

If you are serious about reporting that damaged sign you should notify the council I guess. Coventry Direct (council) contact info is on the right of this link:

http://www.coventry.gov.uk/info/100003/in_my_area

[Typhoon2000]

Originally Posted by DBadger

Looks a logical station to reopen in my opinion.

Edit: following a line around, you could have Coventry to Nuneaton to Coalville to Leicester. Coalville to Leicester is being reopened. It would give Cov a link to Leicester as I think somebody asked about earlier.

All passengers would change at Nuneaton. Less hassle.

Opening Coundon for peak services would make sense and wouldn't necessarily affect train times adversely. If KNUCKLE gets the go-ahead (perhaps as a true North-South cross city line) Coundon Station could work. It shouldn't cost much to build either if catering for two/three car Turbostar type sprinter trains. Friargate should go ahead to emphasise the need for such a link for commuter use though.

I reckon the density to justify a station is there to be honest.

[NewTroll]

Originally Posted by DBadger

Looks a logical station to reopen in my opinion.

Edit: following a line around, you could have Coventry to Nuneaton to Coalville to Leicester. Coalville to Leicester is being reopened. It would give Cov a link to Leicester as I think somebody asked about earlier.

They changed the line at Nuneaton a few years back which meant trains from Coventry -> Nuneaton couldn't easily get onto other lines. Or something. Prior to that you used to have link between Coventry and Nottingham! At the moment there's hardly any point in that line, really, but might be if Friargate gets built. What is now? One train an hour?

There were a few more stations on that line that were closed (The whole line was shut down in the 1960s and re-opened a few years later.)

- Foleshill (This would surely be a prime candidate?)
- Exhall (*I think* there was one there)
- Radford (Mainly for the Daimler Factory)

Didn't the government recently announce plans for a new express route that would go through East-West through Coventry, using the line between Coventry and Leamington? That line was also closed down in the past as well, and there is talk of a station for Warwick Uni.

Although as it's taken 10 years or so to get a station at the Ricoh, I can't imagine this'll all happen soon!

The Knuckle thing is a good idea. We took our kids on a train trip to Leamington... The only downside was that it was more expensive than parking in Leamington for a long time, and the parking at the station is expensive. Would be good for Friargate, though. I suspect businesses setting up there would be more interested in links with Leamington than Nuneaton.:-)

[NewTroll]

Originally Posted by Typhoon2000

All passengers would change at Nuneaton. Less hassle.

Opening Coundon for peak services would make sense and wouldn't necessarily affect train times adversely. If KNUCKLE gets the go-ahead (perhaps as a true North-South cross city line) Coundon Station could work. It shouldn't cost much to build either if catering for two/three car Turbostar type sprinter trains. Friargate should go ahead to emphasise the need for such a link for commuter use though.

I reckon the density to justify a station is there to be honest.

Isn't there just one train an hour on that line at the moment?

A few years back they planned to built this thing called 'Sprint' which was a bus that looked like a tram. Its route virtually mirrored the Nuneaton->Leamington Railway (Except, of course, it was more flexible.) It would run on a dedicated road. I couldn't see the point. Why not just use the existing railway?!?

Not sure what happened to that... It all went quiet. No doubt the consultants did well out of it!

[susamuruago]

I found some documents here: http://www.dft.gov.uk/publications/l...sport-schemes/
2 pdfs about this line are to be found there.

[Typhoon2000]

Originally Posted by NewTroll

Isn't there just one train an hour on that line at the moment?

A few years back they planned to built this thing called 'Sprint' which was a bus that looked like a tram. Its route virtually mirrored the Nuneaton->Leamington Railway (Except, of course, it was more flexible.) It would run on a dedicated road. I couldn't see the point. Why not just use the existing railway?!?

Not sure what happened to that... It all went quiet. No doubt the consultants did well out of it!

Sprinter trains are the lightweight fast accelerating (but normal top speed) commuter trains much like those used on the Leam to Kiddie line.

My point was though that this should be the Warwickshire Line with Coventry at the central hub. With careful thought and an integrated approach to the planning (I know this is CCC's weakness) Friargate could attract a decent amount of investment and get some decent firms in.

just OT, I love what they've done at the junction by the way... it's sooooo easy and safe to get into town now.. someone really has worked this out for the pedestrian and it works really well. Sorting out the that old square and Hereford Walk should be a priority.

[NewTroll]

Originally Posted by Typhoon2000

Sprinter trains are the lightweight fast accelerating (but normal top speed) commuter trains much like those used on the Leam to Kiddie line.

My point was though that this should be the Warwickshire Line with Coventry at the central hub. With careful thought and an integrated approach to the planning (I know this is CCC's weakness) Friargate could attract a decent amount of investment and get some decent firms in.

just OT, I love what they've done at the junction by the way... it's sooooo easy and safe to get into town now.. someone really has worked this out for the pedestrian and it works really well. Sorting out the that old square and Hereford Walk should be a priority.

Yes, that's what it should be like, but unfortunately Coventry isn't the natural 'hub' for Warwickshire in the sense that people from Warwickshire want or need to come here (To the city centre) to use its facilities or work here. In some ways Coventry city centre is a bit of non entity these days, occupying a strange place between the 'county' town and Birmingham.

As for the ring road - does Coventry even need a road like that? I'm beginning to think it doesn't. Busier cities than Coventry don't have one like it... Yet Coventry isn't a particularly busy city centre these days, and I don't think the ring road has ever reached anywhere near the capacity it could theoritically take. (Plus the fact most journeys don't even start or end inside the ringroad!)

[morestoreysplease]

Soon there's going to be a tipping point of bailing out the city centre before it goes bump! And I think completely down-grading the ring road a section at a time to let the centre "breathe" outwards is the ONLY way to do it. To let out also means letting in. Swanspool(?) is the starting point and removing that confusing junction of slip-roads would make such a difference.
I really think CCC should talk to BCC about how to remove concrete collars and the benefits of the subsequent results. I'll post an example of what Brum did 10 years ago below.

[morestoreysplease]

This is when we removed the whole of Masshouse Queensway in 2001 and this shows how McLaren was bounded by a huge stilted roundabout.



Not the best shot but the roads have been lowered and tree-lined and taken further away from the tower allowing for this temporary carpark to be planned as a site for hotels and offices in the near future.

image hosted on flickr


The temporary carpark as a plaza that could be put in if the hotel is delayed.

image hosted on flickr

[NewTroll]

The amount of space the ringroad and its junctions take up is huge... I've seen pictures of it under construction, and they virtually demolished most of the city centre to build it!

It will never go. The council think it's an 'asset' (Which is odd, as 10 years ago they came up with a plan to lower it.). Anyone with any sense knows how destructive it has been and I've read a study that implies quite strongly that the ringroad may well be one of the reasons why Coventry city centre has been in decline for decades. You only have to look at the land around it that has been empty and unused for years. I suspect it'll end up filled with cheap University building. Or surrounded by car parks. Or just left empty.

It's very depressing when you look at the streets they demolished to build it. Not really for the buildings, but for the way the city had a proper urban network of linked up streets lined with frontages. The ringroad not only destroyed the urban grid and changed how the city flowed, but it also removed visual links between people in the city centre and businesses. It's a road lined with service areas.

No one in Coventry seems to be able to admit that they got it wrong and screwed up. Hence we get endless attempts to make it work, and it's just pissing me off to see money thrown at futile projects.

They're at it again - trying to attract tourists to the city. They've done two large developments that failed to attract tourists, and tourist numbers at the cathedral have dwindled. We have more empty squares and inaccessible areas and developments that just don't go anywhere... The whole place needs rebuilding along the lines of the pre-war street pattern and the ring road converted to a surface level road system lined with buildings.

I bet no one in Birmingham misses the ring road. I used to hate driving around that bit by the Bullring. It's so much better now.

[CovAD]

Originally Posted by NewTroll

The amount of space the ringroad and its junctions take up is huge... I've seen pictures of it under construction, and they virtually demolished most of the city centre to build it!

It will never go. The council think it's an 'asset' (Which is odd, as 10 years ago they came up with a plan to lower it.). Anyone with any sense knows how destructive it has been and I've read a study that implies quite strongly that the ringroad may well be one of the reasons why Coventry city centre has been in decline for decades. You only have to look at the land around it that has been empty and unused for years. I suspect it'll end up filled with cheap University building. Or surrounded by car parks. Or just left empty.

It's very depressing when you look at the streets they demolished to build it. Not really for the buildings, but for the way the city had a proper urban network of linked up streets lined with frontages. The ringroad not only destroyed the urban grid and changed how the city flowed, but it also removed visual links between people in the city centre and businesses. It's a road lined with service areas.

No one in Coventry seems to be able to admit that they got it wrong and screwed up. Hence we get endless attempts to make it work, and it's just pissing me off to see money thrown at futile projects.

They're at it again - trying to attract tourists to the city. They've done two large developments that failed to attract tourists, and tourist numbers at the cathedral have dwindled. We have more empty squares and inaccessible areas and developments that just don't go anywhere... The whole place needs rebuilding along the lines of the pre-war street pattern and the ring road converted to a surface level road system lined with buildings.

I bet no one in Birmingham misses the ring road. I used to hate driving around that bit by the Bullring. It's so much better now.

It does still surprise me why so many people consider it an asset considering the city centre has been in decline pretty much since it was built, and Birmingham has shown how much of an improvement can be made if its removed.

I also can't understand why the council still feel the need to back it, as they can't be held accountable for a decision taken nigh on 50 years ago, even if it was by their own party. Besides which at the time it was a very new untried concept and just admit in the long term it has been unsuccessful. It was a brave decision to build it, now its time for the brave decision to knock it down. It'll be costly but nowhere near as costly as leaving it in place and seeing the city centre die completely.

I can only imagine that because they've had various plans which they've tried to fit in around the ringroad (Belgrade being on example) which led to them basically having to declare the ringroad was an asset has left them feeling they'll look silly if they then say it isn't (even though it didn't stop them changing their mind with Swanswell)

Frankly, I'd rather them show a bit of backbone and admit the errors and set about fixing them properly than steadfastly sticking to a plan that clearly isn't working.

At the moment we seem to go round in circles trying to find a solution. We want more tourists...that hasn't worked....more businesses and offices....hmm, no-one wants that....more shopping!......no....tourism maybe? And so on.

Other cities get this investment while we get ignored and they need to take a closer look at why we get ignored, and a lot of that can be placed at the door of the very poor infrastructure that connects the city centre to the rest of the city.

[DBadger]

I've never understood it.

With Wolverhampton the A449, A41, and A454 all pass through the city on their way from one big place to another big place. With Coventry, the roads leading to the ring road are designed to bring people into the city, they aren't through numbered. Admittedly this is because the A444 splits in the middle but maybe that's the answer, could the A444 be joined up into one road creating an Eastern bypass?

(There's also the A4114 but it's so short I didn't think to count it. Really this is covered by the A45 for through purposes).

If that was done the entire ring road logically can go, there are no more through routes to deal with - most people driving those roads are doing so to get into the city.

[NewTroll]

Originally Posted by DBadger

I've never understood it.

With Wolverhampton the A449, A41, and A454 all pass through the city on their way from one big place to another big place. With Coventry, the roads leading to the ring road are designed to bring people into the city, they aren't through numbered. Admittedly this is because the A444 splits in the middle but maybe that's the answer, could the A444 be joined up into one road creating an Eastern bypass?

(There's also the A4114 but it's so short I didn't think to count it. Really this is covered by the A45 for through purposes).

If that was done the entire ring road logically can go, there are no more through routes to deal with - most people driving those roads are doing so to get into the city.

The A444 was supposed to join up with the A46 and create a through route that would link the M6 with the M40... (And also the M1, as the A46 can be used to join the A45/M45/M1)

They did virtually all of it, but canned it with the last mile or so to go, most of which would run along a disused railway line. The A46's current terminus was designed to be extended later.

So the A46 dumps you in Whitley, and the A444 dumps you in Stoke. Neither go straight to the city centre and you end up in what is basically residential areas. The A46 joins London road, which runs to the ring road. From the end of the A444 you take Skyblue Way down to the ring road.

The city is a complete screw up - it really doesn't work well.

In general, the best way to get around the city is to go into the centre, around the ring road, and then out again. The sad thing is that it wasn't designed to be a bypass - it was designed to make it easier to get in and out of the city centre! There are no other easy through routes.

It needs sorting out, but I fear it's too late now.

There was also plans for a link between the A45 and the M6 that would extend the road that cuts across 'coundon wedge' (Near Browns Lane). This was canned a few years ago as well. This would actually create a complete outer ring road.

[CovAD]

Originally Posted by DBadger

I've never understood it.

With Wolverhampton the A449, A41, and A454 all pass through the city on their way from one big place to another big place. With Coventry, the roads leading to the ring road are designed to bring people into the city, they aren't through numbered. Admittedly this is because the A444 splits in the middle but maybe that's the answer, could the A444 be joined up into one road creating an Eastern bypass?

(There's also the A4114 but it's so short I didn't think to count it. Really this is covered by the A45 for through purposes).

If that was done the entire ring road logically can go, there are no more through routes to deal with - most people driving those roads are doing so to get into the city.

When they did the ring road they didn't think beyond it enough and the connecting roads, virtually all of which are far too small, single lane affairs. Even dual carriageways like Allesley Old Road (now a 30mph road) are effectively single lane due to parked cars. These roads should have been widened during construction.

Perhaps fewer junctions (say 4/5) attached to wider roads with the others just being routes into the city centre would have been better - split the traffic into those wishing to go into town and those wishing to go around it and stop it all just converging at the same place.

As NT has pointed out there were plans to join up the remaining sections of A444 but for some reason they just stopped, as was the final section of the outer ring road in the NW(although I think Coundon Wedge Drive wasn't the best choice as its like the A444/Sky Blue Way. Browns Lane would make it a more natural continuation.

[NewTroll]

Council are going to give land to developers for social housing.

http://www.coventrytelegraph.net/new...2746-32112915/

What is worrying is that this plan seems to consist of giving land away for 'large' social housing developments.

This is quite telling:

Coventry has 71 per cent of properties in the lower value council tax bands A and B - compared to 44 per cent in England as a whole.

Below-average population growth of 4.6 per cent has also seen Coventry slip from the 11th to the 13th biggest UK city in the last decade.

This is hardly the recipe for a thriving city.

[NewTroll]

Originally Posted by CovAD

When they did the ring road they didn't think beyond it enough and the connecting roads, virtually all of which are far too small, single lane affairs. Even dual carriageways like Allesley Old Road (now a 30mph road) are effectively single lane due to parked cars. These roads should have been widened during construction.

Perhaps fewer junctions (say 4/5) attached to wider roads with the others just being routes into the city centre would have been better - split the traffic into those wishing to go into town and those wishing to go around it and stop it all just converging at the same place.

As NT has pointed out there were plans to join up the remaining sections of A444 but for some reason they just stopped, as was the final section of the outer ring road in the NW(although I think Coundon Wedge Drive wasn't the best choice as its like the A444/Sky Blue Way. Browns Lane would make it a more natural continuation.

I wonder if they had plans to continue along those lines? I think the economic troubles of the seventies would have stopped that... And by the end of the seventies Coventry's local economy was in a dire state.

I have nothing against creating new routes to move traffic around areas that can no longer hold it, but feel the way the ring road was constructed was just way too brutal and damaging - in theory it might have looked good, but it seems to me to have made Coventry into a somewhat awkward place to work with.

Corporation Street was created as an alternative route to the older route through the city, and Hertford Street was built as a replacement to an older route, Warwick Lane (Still there but slightly modified). The big difference being that these routes were built as proper streets and lined with active frontages. They also fitted in well with the existing streets.

In the 1980s we got Skyblue Way, which was just bulldozed through. Now they are trying to rectify the problems it introduced with 'fargo' by trying to improve the appearance of the side facing the road and also introducing more buildings to make some sort of street frontage.

[NewTroll]

New round of city deals...

http://www.centreforcities.org/wave2.html

I imagine this will apply to the Coventry and Warwickshire LEP... Some interesting proposals, including devolutionn of public transport.

[Fernando Partridge]

Originally Posted by NewTroll

Council are going to give land to developers for social housing.

http://www.coventrytelegraph.net/new...2746-32112915/

What is worrying is that this plan seems to consist of giving land away for 'large' social housing developments.

This is quite telling:



This is hardly the recipe for a thriving city.

And the population growth there has been in Coventry is virtually all from economic migration. Not good at all.

[skybluecity]

Originally Posted by NewTroll

Council are going to give land to developers for social housing.

http://www.coventrytelegraph.net/new...2746-32112915/

What is worrying is that this plan seems to consist of giving land away for 'large' social housing developments.

This is quite telling:



This is hardly the recipe for a thriving city.

70%-75% band A/B is about the average for cities/large urban areas. The national average is skewed by London/South East which has below 20% band A/B properties. A fairer comparison would be Birmingham which is 66%, Leicester 79% (Leicester has 60% in band A) and Nottingham 80%.

[NewTroll]

Originally Posted by skybluecity

70%-75% band A/B is about the average for cities/large urban areas. The national average is skewed by London/South East which has below 20% band A/B properties. A fairer comparison would be Birmingham which is 66%, Leicester 79% (Leicester has 60% in band A) and Nottingham 80%.

Yes, I saw those stats. Not surprising as urban areas tend to be where all the industry was. :-(

On an unrelated thing.

I think there are fundamental differences between Coventry and Leicester/Nottingham. Administrative centres with larger surrounding population reliant on them & larger urban areas. Coventry/Warwickshire isn't really a entity with a true centre (Yet? Could this happen. Would it help boost the city centre and make Friargate, say, more viable?)

It seems that when you get two cities close together, there can be a 'shadowing' effect - Bolton (Which is similar in size to Cov) and Manchester, Bradford and Leeds, Coventry and Birmingham (Although I think Solihull & Leamington/Warwick don't help.)

The announcement that cities/regions *may* get more powers is interesting, as this would be Coventry and Warwickshire, not just Coventry - and some of the devolved powers include things like transport. Might be good for this city.

Although I feel our time here is coming to an end. I'm not convinced the company I work for will be here for long, and my wife's job is moving from Coventry city centre to Warwick. And we're in the catchment to a shit school. So a move may be on the cards in the future. Oddly, I really don't want to move from Earlsdon. I've had enough of Coventry as a city but my local area is fantastic. We shall see. To cap it off, the bastards are putting parking metres up in the city centre on the fragments of free parking. I use these _every day_ to stop off and get a coffee from the city centre. If I have to pay, I won't be doing that. I hope they have been sensible and made it free for 20 minutes or so. If not, they can suck on this: my money is going elsewhere.

If a meteor strike took out Leamington and Solihull town centres we'd be all right. Hopefully it'd take out Bedworth as well.