Waterways & your city in picture.

[cardiff]

What did you expect to find in a major passenger port? Bit of a thick thing to say

[Scarecrow]

Passengers? Muddy sand? Actually, wouldn't that be a sandy loam?

[Cardinal Hildebrand]

Originally Posted by cardiff

What did you expect to find in a major passenger port? Bit of a thick thing to say

Not thick at all Mr Cardiff. Engage your brain before you post, and stop letting your heart rule your head.

I'd expect to find a multi-storey carpark with some street level shops in such a prominent location. And at least a plaza replacing the surface level. There are numerous better options than what's there.

Get on it Southampton!

[Pompey77]

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[Pompey77]

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Portsmouth's just a little navy base and a few posh yachties..
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Star Best;
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MV Star Leader;
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USS Scranton;
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HMS Manchester (with paying-off pennant);
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RFA Argus;
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RFA Orangeleaf;
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[ill tonkso]

I never realised how high ships sat in the water in Pompey. I am sure you can't usually see the bulbous bow?

[cardiff]

Originally Posted by Cardinal Hildebrand

Not thick at all Mr Cardiff. Engage your brain before you post, and stop letting your heart rule your head.

I'd expect to find a multi-storey carpark with some street level shops in such a prominent location. And at least a plaza replacing the surface level. There are numerous better options than what's there.

Get on it Southampton!

Maybe you should engage yours and stop being so disparaging and inflamatory. The car park is there because people park temporarily while they unload passengers onto ships during a brief time period. its not a car park its a giant unloading bay. High density development is not here because its a port, same as all the others with an extreemly high footfall (2500 passengers in QM2's case). Southampton is a port not a waterfront city.

[ill tonkso]

Ok, and I cannot believe I am coming to the defense of Southampton here but, these are working docks FFS!! What do you expect! Southampton has stuff like what you want over at Ocean Village, but this area is not designed to be a pleasant waterfront location, it is designed to load and unload great big fuck off ocean going ships. Southampton has MILES of working quayside, the docks are of a truly collosal scale.

[Pompey77]

Originally Posted by ill tonkso

I never realised how high ships sat in the water in Pompey. I am sure you can't usually see the bulbous bow?

Its fairly normal for them to protrude, sometimes by quite a lot depending on the particular design. You can tell by the plimsoll line on that ferry that its possibly slightly under its maximum loading but not by very much at all.

Its good to see the investment PCC has put in the port bearing fruit (that's a bad joke, I'm sorry) with Del Monte joining the growing commercial docks and the cruise business about to double. I'm also hearing rumours of a new high speed service to the channel islands and a mystery new operator on a new route to the continent plus the same old talk of Wightlink moving their vehicle operation to the International port (would require serious investment).

I also understand that the long term ambition of the Port is to build a dedicated cruise terminal separate from the U/C terminal facility but require release of navy wharfs in order to do so.

[ill tonkso]

I am sure the Cruise lot would love to operate out of White Links current location (stunning area) but it's faaaaaaaaaaaar too small. Would be great to see them going off the Pier Head witht eh Semiphor Tower, but that's deep in Navy World.

[Pompey77]

I really would like to see the navy consider releasing the South Railway jetty for cruise use, its completely perfect for mid cruise calls. However starting and ending cruises there would be a bit of a logistical nightmare. It has the royal yacht history which could be a big selling point.

I often sound like a broken record on this point but the navy really annoy me with the way they have managed their land holdings in Portsmouth. In the mid 90's they could have sold the entire southern half of Whale Island (which was pretty much redundant) for the expansion of the commercial port (admittedly this was a bad time for the port with the ferry sector completely saturated). They instead decided to locate the fleet HQ there, which could have gone in numerous locations within HMNB propper, not least the back garden of the Nelson wardrooms, and thus have hemmed in the commercial docks for the foreseeable future. And Whale island remains, like much of the RN's peripheral establishments a hugely underutilised and potentially hugely valuable asset but one who's true value cant be realised due to piss poor planning and lack of commercial nous. Genius!

[ill tonkso]

Well, in my opinion they need to move HMS Tem out of the city bloody centre! Waste of bloody space.

[Pompey77]

That's another fine example of exactly the same problem. Same goes for the transport depot / highbury college site, if there was anyone with half a braincell at the top of the MOD/RN they would have been chomping at the bit to sell to Centros/PCC at the height of the boom, but no it just sits there.

If there's one thing that separates Portsmouth from almost all other semi/post industrial cities is the lack of derelict sites available for development. That's precisely because the navy hasn't shrunk its land holding significantly despite the intensity of activity on these sites diminishing. The one exception to this is Vernon and look at the success that has resulted in (Gunwharf)!

[ill tonkso]

Or in fact the Commercial port! Parts of that were once Naval. It is a shame a lot of the waterfront locations in Portsmpouth have remained undeveloped. The Eastern Road screams missed opportunity to me.

[Pompey77]

It always makes me wonder how much better Portsmouth would fare if the MOD were to be a bit more intelligent in the way it manages its land. Makes you wonder what developments could have occurred and how much more growth the city could experience if only they would consolidate activities within the boundaries of the original dockyard wall.

[Pompey77]

On Flathouse quay at this very moment;

[Delirium]

Originally Posted by yoshef

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Neat.

[Cardinal Hildebrand]

Originally Posted by cardiff

Maybe you should engage yours and stop being so disparaging and inflamatory.

its not a car park its a giant unloading bay. Southampton is a port not a waterfront city

I think you've been posting in here too long and lost all perspective. If you think what I've posted is inflammatory, then you need to get out more pal. "Giant unloading bay" is a euphemism for 'huge surface level car park', if ever I've heard of one.

And why with a bit of deftness and careful planning can Southampton not be a successful port and an attractive waterfront city? Which is what I've been getting at.

[cardiff]

Euphamism, no an acurate discription, unloading bay wouldnt really describe rolling teletubby hills now would it?
I think maybe you are quite imature as you are obviously designed your initial post to get a reaction, as stated by other posters its a working port, name another port in the world that has high density development actually in the port, cant think of any in the UK! The closest i can think is Gunwarf in Portsmouth but thats next to the port, not in it. Maybe you need a bit more life experiance, and experiance of ports to realise why your dream does not happen.

[Delirium]

Originally Posted by Cardinal Hildebrand

And why with a bit of deftness and careful planning can Southampton not be a successful port and an attractive waterfront city? Which is what I've been getting at.

JB Priestley wasn't too impressed with Southampton; to paraphrase he remarked that the town didn't live up to/wasn't worthy of the grand ocean liners that docked there... and this was in the 1930s.

It might be able to create an attractive waterfront but probably not without giving away large chunks of land currently used for industry? Port cities have a tendency to 'segregate' much of their waterways from the rest of the city... or at least while most of it is still heavily industrialised, Liverpool is pretty lucky in this regard as it manages to strike a decent balance.