Plan to revive ‘bland’ centre
Thursday 13th September 2007, 7:33PM BST.
The town centre of Telford is “bland”, car dominated and must be transformed to be fit for the 21st century, according to a new masterplan for the heart of the borough.
Telford & Wrekin Council has set out the blueprint to guide development of the area for years into the future. It says that the town is dead at night, lacks character and is overwhelmed by main roads.
The 120-page document, which is only at an early proposal stage, says the centre must be made “people friendly” by providing more and improved public space.
It says the main road around the shopping centre should be made into an “urban street for people”.
The document, drawn up by council planners and called the Central Telford Area Action plan, also says more than 1,500 homes should be built in the centre and surrounding districts.
It says: “The overall townscape of Central Telford is bland with a lack of distinctiveness or identity either in individual buildings or the built environment as a whole.
“Whilst this is a negative feature it also provides an opportunity to develop one.”
The report adds: “The car-dominated environment leads to pockets of poor quality public realm for people.”
It says the different areas of the centre must be joined together better and night-time services such as bars mixed into other areas.
“When the shopping centre closes (in the) early evening, the activity levels in the town centre fall dramatically and there is very little to attract people to stay there in the evening.”
If the plan is accepted by the council’s cabinet on Monday it will go through several more consultation stages before it is accepted.
It continues: “Part of the vision for the town is for it to evolve from a new town to a modern city. At its heart will be a progressive, forward-looking 21st century town centre with an enhanced sense of place and a strong community, which will have adopted good practice in contemporary sustainable urban living.”
It says Malinslee, Holinswood and Old Park would benefit if they had better pedestrian links to the town centre.
The key points of the plan:
- Southwater to be leisure, culture and tourism hub
- Town Park Arena to be developed for leisure facilities
- Improve routes between surrounding areas and centre
- Create multi-storey car park at Telford Central train station
- Improve route between train station and services
- Build more multi-storey car parks
- Use current open car parks to add to “public space”
- Create link road between M54 and A442
- “Downgrade” Box Road around Shopping Centre
- Protect open spaces and biodiversity
- Reduce carbon output
- Build 1,517 homes in surrounding districts
- Develop commercial, retail and also cultural use
By Dave West
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They should improve the bit outside beatties near the way that leads to the courts and to the cinema, as goths etc. have overtaken that area.
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better to drop a nuke and start again
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I really think its going to take more than 120pg document to sort out Telford town centre, they should knock the whole place to the ground and build a big dention centre to keep all the scallys and chavs in from Telford to get them away from the rest of us!
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HAHAHA WELL SAID PAUL
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They want to have more open spaces yet at the same time they want to build on the town park.
Also more activities at night yet they wanted to knock down the ice rink and bowling alley as reported only a few days ago.
And then you have the parking charge issue which will keep a number of people away from the site.
Can’t they just knock the whole place down and let the sorrounding areas thrive like they used to!!
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more night clubs, pubs etc and FREE parking
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Paul, I think they have already done that but expanded the area to cover the whole of Telford, not just the central area. Telford is one big Council estate with a couple of nice areas poisoned by the effects of awful surroundings.
Either way, I quite like the town centre, but I would like to make one improvement. Scrap parking charges and introduce an admission charge, this would help keep the idiots out and make it easier for us hard working, honest people to do our shopping.
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blimey! it aint that bad, and personally I would rather have goths and grebs hanging around any day as opposed to the trouble making chavs that seem to flourish in Telford!
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Admission charge ‘Matty’ you must be joking.
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Only the arena is in real danger of being built on in the town park and that is to replace the bowling alley and ice rink. The arena is hardly ever used anyway. They do however want to build right up to the very edge of the park.
Some of you are showing a real ignorance of Telford and the people who live there.
Oh and the carparks will never be free again. How many other town centres have free parking. Just get on the bus they’re not that bad.
I also don’t get why this is news now, the Central Telford AAP has been around since 2005.
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Martin, I was joking but it would be a great idea as I’m fed up of being tripped over by 3 year old kids with their 16 year old mothers. You also suggest knocking the town centre down which is a ridiculous suggestion, do you know how many people are employed there, and how much revenue it brings into the area? Knock it down and they will go elsewhere! (Merry Hill etc.)
Good point d. ‘goths and grebs’ are too busy looking miserable to cause anyone any grief and would much rather walk past them than the foul mouthed and violent chavs.
Gaz, why should Telford have free parking? Its your choice to go there (or not) so if you don’t like it then don’t go! I notice you also want more nightclubs, there are numerous clubs in Telford and not enough people to keep any more than one busy at a time, so maybe you should go elsewhere for a night out?
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I think they should knock down the whole Town Centre- the bigger they make it the more people ( nice and undesirables ) more noise, more cars, more litter, increase in parking charges ( maybe ) probably an increase in council tax too, need I go on………
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Demolish the mall and build a REAL town centre for Telford. With streets, squares, etc.
Don’t understand why people shop there when we have Shrewsbury, Wellington, Ludlow, etc in Shropshire.
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This is about redevloping an outdated centre not an opportunity to slag off people who live in Telford. Get back to the real issue here. Most of the people who live in Telford are decent hard working people and some of us don’t have a choice about where we live.
The people who are really losing out are the people who live in Telford, we have no choice but to pay the parking charges that the greedy owners have imposed.
Who will benefit by the redevelop? The people with money of course.
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Actually Grey, the Merryhill Shopping Centre still has free parking and I have never had the problems parking there has I have at Telford. If proposed changes to the Centre will make it more like Merry Hill, bring it on!!!!! (but no admission charges please!!!!!!!!?????)
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Grey said:
Only the arena is in real danger of being built on in the town park and that is to replace the bowling alley and ice rink. The arena is hardly ever used anyway. They do however want to build right up to the very edge of the park.
Some of you are showing a real ignorance of Telford and the people who live there.
….and you are showing just as great a degree of ignorance if you believe that. The areas where “They do however want to build right up to the very edge of the park” were PART of the Park until the council changed the boundaries in March last year.
You’re not by any chance associated with The International Centre are you?
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a note on the “more nightlcubs” suggestions…people flock to places that are vibrant, classy and trendy, we have one main club in Wellington, that club is full of local/Shropshire people, visitors who come here have made it known that it isnt somewhere they would return to a) too much violence and b) full of chavs. And I agree. Anymore clubs doesnt mean the place will go up in the classy stakes!
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No, nothing to do with the International centre. As I have stated before, I just want a town centre that is decent and if that means chipping away at the very edges to create a mixed use denser centre then so be it. Having said that it doesn’t mean i’m in favour of concreting over the whole park.
Sarah, Merry Hell is not a town centre and furthermore parking charges are shortly to be introduced there too.
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Demolish the centre – now there’s an idea. Turn it into a real town not a not a clone-town. Let Telford centre have real shops not ever bigger ever more shed-like monolths please. It’s private so – get what your given or buy the place your self.. :-/
There should be a mandatory public area up there that the public has a specific ‘right’ to be on – at the moment its all private land and free speach and activity is not allowed – the security move people on.
However free speach isn’t on the current agenda in this country – we’re all the bad guys we just dont know it yet.
D.
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Grey, it’s not just the edge by the Town Centre that they’re chipping away at, but also land near Randlay, Stirchley and a large area to the west of Hinkshay Road. In each case they are saying that it is land “at the edge of the Park”. Once that’s been built on, a whole new area becomes “land at the edge of the Park”, and so on, until there’s nothing left.
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ok i thought telford was ok till i moved away!!!
i have found a vibrant night life now and everyone mixes together in the same centre young and old, and even middle aged from late night worshippers in the local church, to clubbers, ppl out for a meal in all the local resturants, to chavs or what eva they are called these days hanging out with skate boards!!.
it is lovely to see the town centre used to it’s max at all times of the day and night which makes it safe when eva u are there. i was so used to a boring night out in oakengates in telford. i am never moving back i love it in my new town!!! have fun T & W council will never listen look at newport bus stops madness. and the council will never put on a better bus service to those in newport to get in to the town centre last bus is far to early i can now get a bus 24 hours a day every 10 mins
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