Meadows kids at opening of Broad Marsh play equipment
Category Archives: Broadmarsh
Community Diagnostics Centre announced for Broad Marsh
The latest Nottingham Central Library opens
…. and Collin Street is now walkable its whole length.
Photos available via Facebook.
TO BE UPDATED and PHOTO MONTAGE TO BE ADDED
Flooded with light, clean and bright and accessible all the way.
Part of bus station and car park building, clad in tiles and artistic metal plates; and part of the renewal of the Board Marsh, following the collapse of the Broadmarsh shopping centre (prompted by Intu’s collapse).
The school from the south-west of The Meadows, Victoria, turned up to take part in listening to book readings, using the Lab and the Immersive Room, and use the other new facilities provided with the Children’s Library.
On a second visit, called in at the Local Studies Library, who helped me in materials for the reform of the Police in the sixties and for celebrating the first working class library in the world.
Executive Board – November 2023
Period 6 2023/24 Budget Monitoring – The current assessment is that – 6 months into the financial year – the council faces an in-year over spend of £23 million, compared to £25.894 million estimated in May of this year.
Currently 80% of the in-year overspend is the result of pressures in the People’s Directorate. People are forecasting a net pressure of £18.752 million, of which;
- £4.968m relates to Adults largely driven by external care placement costs.
- £13.507m net pressure relates to Children’s mainly due to demand pressures relating to Children in Care placements.
- £0.910m net pressure relates to Education which is mainly due to a pressure of around £1.1m on Special Education Need and Disabilities transport costs.
Other areas of the council contributing to the in-year overspend area:
- Communities, Environment and Resident Services are forecasting a net overspend of £1.936m mainly due to a combination of unachievable income, expenditure no longer qualifying for capitalisation and budget pressure in Community Safety and Logistics and Markets.
- Growth and City Development are forecasting a net pressure of £3.444m mainly due to increased demand and increased cost of using Bed and Breakfast accommodation in temporary accommodation.
- Finance and Resources are reporting a net overspend of £1.801m largely driven by a combination of previous budget savings and historic structural budget issues. Though the Transformation Programme has provided or on track to provide £15.671 million worth of savings, there remains a challenge to deliver the remaining £9.516 million.
Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund – Additional grant funding to retrofit council housing to ensure warm, energy-efficient homes, reduce carbon emissions, tackle fuel poverty and support green jobs. The additional grant is worth £558,822 and builds on £2.88 million received in July 2022. Close to 500 homes in Nottingham will have benefited once work has completed.
Holiday Activity Fund – 2024/25 – Accept money for the Holiday Activity Fund which provides activities during Easter, Summer, October and Christmas school holidays for a minimum of four hour a day for four days a week. In 2023 we received £1.8 million which has funded 60 community groups were funded to deliver 1,416 sessions of activity equating to 5,664 hours of activity. We expect to receive a similar amount in the next allocation of grant funding for 2024/25.
London Road – Emergency Planning Function Update – An update on the progress of transferring the councils’ Emergency Planning team from the Fire Station on London Road to Loxley House. This decision was originally taken at Executive Board in November 2022 with the intention of freeing up space at London Road so that a permanent Police presence in the Meadows area could be secured. … the Police have advised that their intention is remain in their Riverside base until 2027.
Department for Transport: Safer Roads Fund – Road Safety Improvements on the A609 and the A6130 – The City Council has secured a £1.425 million grant from the Department of Transport, Safer Roads Fund. The project aims to improve road safety on the A609, Ilkeston Road and Wollaton Road and the A6130, Gregory Boulevard, Radford Boulevard and Lenton Boulevard. The proposals on both A-roads aim to reduce the number and severity of road traffic collisions and resultant casualties by providing a safer environment for road users and providing safer crossing points for pedestrians.
News was breaking that a Levelling Up bid for Bulwell had been awarded; but no help for the re-development of the former Broadmarsh shopping centre.
Not Levelling Up
I understand a rationale that says the allocation of national funds for regeneration should be geared to what is assessed to be the best prospect for success.
(Nottingham has won money from the first tranche of “Levelling Up” because of our ability to progress environmentally friendly transport schemes.)
But don’t then call the allocation of funds by largest potential impact “levelling up”.
Especially when Nottingham – 17th lowest in average personal incomes – loses out to Rutland (302nd). I’m not in a position to judge the Rutland and Melton scheme(s) which seemed to think renewing and repurposing a cattle market could boost its distinctive food production businesses (although the pitch by the MP to say it will be an extra local stop for tourists seemed less than compelling).
Nottingham needs the investment.
There was once a vision for changing Broadmarsh shopping centre from what in the 1970s seemed very modern but which offered a 300 yard long brick wall with an entrance not much bigger than a conservatory’s. The council owned 1/3rd of the centre, but it was difficult to see how it couldn’t join Intu (which owned the other 2/3rds) in its vision for a new centre. Then the pandemic came, and Intu went bust, mid-demolition. Now the council owns the whole site and only contributed £17 million for the £50 million of demolition works that was done. Help to reach a satisfactory stage is always going to be needed. The city needs to avoid the kind of hole that has blighted other cities in the past.
And when other town and cities are getting help for projects for projects that might not be worthy enough either, it burns.
Then, it turns out that one-half of the schemes that were in Conservative MPs’ constituencies were granted, compared to only one-quarter of schemes from Labour constituencies. Nearly all of the core cities missed out.
Given the Conservatives knew what they was doing was controversial (to say the least), I’m not quite sure what opportunity there will be for constructive feedback – they’ll be too frightened to explain what they did and why (whilst Conservative MPs knew of the decisions for some hours, Labour MPs were only told just short of midnight).
Nottingham’s 3 bids are –
** The £20m Broad Marsh bid was focussed on a key element of the vision, to prepare the Frame of the derelict shopping centre to be retained and reimagined as a unique space for play, performance and food, providing a catalyst for private sector partners to invest in the wider project.
** The £20m Bulwell town centre bid was to create a new Bulwell Promenade through substantial enhancements of green space and public realm alongside the River Leen. It also included improvements to the market place and urban greening; the restoration of heritage buildings and easier access and better connectivity between Bulwell Bogs, the tram stop, bus station, the market place and high streets.
** The £17m Island Quarter bid, submitted on behalf of developers Conygar, focused on renovating three heritage warehouse buildings at the heart of the 36-acre site near to Nottingham Station. It would have brought the buildings back into productive use providing a community open theatre, creative and digital studio space as well as improving access for pedestrians, cyclists and vehicle users with an upgraded junction connecting the site to the Sneinton community.
Broad Marsh on a Christmas sunset
Only had the phone camera and a shaky hand available.
Broad Marsh dungarees
The Lib Dems and the Green have proposed a joint proposal on the renewal of Broad Marsh. An emphasis on making the roofs of future developments green and accessible to the public is not a bad idea.
But I wonder if the artist they commissioned was making a point when they dressed the city of caves workers in dungarees.
Health & Safety thinking probably stopped them short of them wearing sandals.
Walking through Broadmarsh again
Pleased to see a direct pedestrian route between Carrington Street and Listergate open again.
There was vision to open up the walk through from Collin Street to Listergate providing with and light; to replace what for 40 years had been a tunnel with an entrance not that much larger than some conservatories. Change was needed. Change was agreed and given planning permission for.
A redevelopment was agreed between Nottingham City Council, the 1/3rd owner, with Intu, the 2/3rds owner.
Intu were a major player in shopping centres; but they went bust cos –
1. there was a pandemic;
2. there’s been a trend for people who own cars to use out of town shopping centres;
3. a tax regime that lets suppliers like Amazon completely off the hook.
They are deserving of some sympathy and I imagine city retailers can relate to those points.
When Intu went bust, the works were not at a natural stoping point, as you might expect. The route was judged insufficiently safe (and I know there were problems with keeping the route dry.).
Some effort has gone in to making it safe; and the route has now been re-opened. When I went to see it, people were not aware the route was re-instated and heads down were heading from the top of Carrington Street to go around using Maid Marian Way.
Some effort has gone into getting the route re-opened as quickly as possible (see Post article, reporting City council figure of £344k). Tricky cos all sorts of issues concerning ownership and new funding have had to be resolved. The City Council has had to get economic development support (NPost article reports £8 million) for new aim of demolishing buildings and clearing the site at Collin Street level.
Some surprise then to see Left Lion and West Bridgford Wire and others scream social media posts saying it doesn’t look nice. Duh.
Posts that then host comments suggesting the route doesn’t look safe – and constructors have worked to make it safe.
And something should be done! Duh. Like there’s no plan to get more done.
So say it again – it was an imperative to get the walking route open cos the walk-arounds are really some distance. In the light of the collapse, we made it our top priority to get the link back.
Yet poor acknowledgement of how important it was to get the pedestrian route open again.
The northern part of Carrington Street has seen heritage funds invested into making the buildings a lot smarter and more evocative of their age.
Trouble is, the eye sees it much better than my photography skills manage to evoke.
And when you’re walking through, you may not see it, cos guess what, it’s a building site too.
We replacing the bus station, the layout of which will be much more passenger friendly, and the car park; and Nottingham’s central library will be moved there – designed properly for the purpose.
New college buildings are being built by the tram viaduct, just off what was Sussex Street. The college is due to start teaching there in January.
The future for the Broadmarsh as a whole remains uncertain, and some kind of public consultation may well be conducted soon.
It may well be recognised that shopping will not be such a part of the future vision. But it’s not clear that there still isn’t commercial demand for a cinema and a bowling alley.
And what to do with Severns House, on the north east corner of the site, which was never handsome, but which is still functional.
And Nottingham remains chronically short of proper accommodation for young people and students.
We have instead families being pushed out of private rented accommodation.
Finally, some pleasure to be taken in seeing what was a major shop on Listergate that Marks & Spencer chose to leave, re-opened this same morning.
Closing Collin Street to traffic in August
Received a letter to local residents on these plans and you might wonder why carry on with radical change when works to transform Broadmarsh have stopped, question marks hang over city street retail, the opening of the new Nottingham College has slipped to January 2021, more people might be working from home and the earliest any extra new development on the Island site could be is 2022. And then confusing signals have at times been given over the future of bus priority lanes on Carrington Street (only last Saturday), expanding the capacity of the London Road / Queens Road junction and the A453/A52 Clifton Bridge capacity remaining constricted cos of the unexpected and major repairs needed.
Yet the longer term vision for traffic in the city centre and across from and to West Bridgford and the north of the city has been of reduction of traffic since before the construction of the Southern Relief Route – the new Castle Marina Road and the widened Queens Drive / Waterway Street West / Sheriffs Way / Queens Road / London Road – to enable it some 20ish years ago.
A 4 lane “racing track” along Collin Street “cuts off” the railway station from the city centre and we wanted change.
The lower levels of traffic as we come out of the public health emergency actually means this is might be a better time to introduce the change, and I hope the transfer of the nearside inbound lane on Trent Bridge to cyclists will encourage the move to working from home, or commuters using their bikes.
As for some of the confusing signals that have at times come out, I’ve not heard of Queens Road junction being planned for expansion for some time now, and the notion of buses travelling south from out of the city no longer having a direct and prioritised route to the Meadows Way east bus lane seems peculiar at best, kinda running counter to the philosophy of the north of The Meadows (running along Crocus Street and Traffic Street) providing thousands of extra homes and bedrooms for people who will be less reliant on the car.
I wonder if more of NCT’s bus routes might want to explore running around the city? More of the City Council’s services are provided from Loxley House, more of the DWP’s services too; we will be moving the Central Library from Angel Row to Collin Street and Nottingham College will have a new central location off Middle Hill. And the Island site will look to be more active.
Some of NCT’s Orange and Turquoise routes offer a City Loop option from the north, and alongside NCT’s Green services and NCT’s Navy 49 use the Middle Hill / Fletcher Gate / George Street route. It’s great, and serves thousands of residents in the Lace Market and Hockley who don’t own cars.
But the Ice Arena and the Island site are only served by NCT’s Red route and the EcoLink.. Could NCT’s Brown and/or Yellow services be extended to run around the city centre travelling along all of Canal Street before coming back along Bellar Gate / Belward Street / Cranbrook Street and Lower Parliament Street, with the inbound Victoria Centre stop (J1) becoming an interchange for passengers coming in from Mansfield Road (incl. Lime, Purple and Sky Blue) who would then want to reach the south of the city centre, including dropping off much nearer to the railway station?
Broadmarsh is not a blank piece of paper
“Mr Rogan, a Nottingham-based architect who specialises in historic and conservation work, said “smaller, greener developments” should be replacing larger shopping centres.
“Describing the Broadmarsh building as “a dead whale” and the plans for Collin Street’s pedestrianised area as “a bit of a bodge”, he pointed to changing retail patterns in calling for a mixed development of smaller shopping units and housing to revive the area south of the city centre.
“I think [the council] are trying to make the best of a difficult situation, but they need to completely re-evaluate things in view of what’s happening,” he said.
“[Broadmarsh] is going to be an open sore until it’s gone, and it will always be that.”
A relatively measured statement from a locally known architect.
Others have called for a park to replace the existing shopping centre and part of Maid Marian Way to be buried in an underpass (claiming all that to be green).
Others still for the return of Drury Hill.
To which –
– the new Broadmarsh does move away from retail, including a cinema multiplex and bowling alley, believed commercially viable because of the larger numbers of younger people living in the city;
– Drury Hill could never be brought back, because we’ve since built up Middle Hill; the new Broadmarsh was set to extend Drury Lane and open up an existing green space which includes a remaining part of the cliff edge;
– the natural cliff itself has long since been dug out; it would not be a very handsome backdrop to a big new park; city centre land is still in demand, and even if we await the outcome of the public health emergency on retail, there is still a huge demand for housing to serve younger people and students;
– the original plans for shopping from 1997 did envisage the return of more of the original street pattern, but there was not that much on the eastern half of the shopping centre to begin with, and lots of the original streets were lost to Maid Marian Way;
– burying Maid Marian Way would not create an attractive feature; it would start with a severe cutting and end with a big hole; the gradients would make the journey too difficult for some of the traffic that uses that route, and might even have to be wider if the existing bus routes were to be defended; a huge cost, made worse by having to move utilities that probably traverse the road;
– removing the part of the car park that traverses Collin Street probably makes the car park unviable and a buy out would cost huge amounts of money;
– money for such projects is something the council doesn’t have.
Imagining a different future is not so difficult, if you ignore what’s there.
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