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davieG

Is the City of Leicester a dump?

By davieG, in General Chat

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Guest MattP

Guest MattP

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1 minute ago, Langston said:

Great to see the local rag really bigging the city up.

 

https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/leicester-news/11-reasons-leicester-terrible-place-2324099

I was in town earlier today and I couldn't believe we had no Christmas stalls up around the Clock Tower or G. Gate - Dec 17th and felt like a dreary mid January day.

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Voll Blau

Voll Blau

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The railway linking Leicester to Burton could reopen after more than 50 years, if a new campaign proves successful.

There are fresh calls for the historic line, which was closed in 1964, to be reopened to passengers, with an action group potentially on the cards to spearhead the initiative.

Derbyshire Live reports an informal meeting took place in Midway on Thursday, December 12 to discuss pushing for the former Ivanhoe Line to reopen, including reopening a station at Ashby.

The Ivanhoe Line, closed as part of the infamous Beeching cuts in the early 60s, currently serves freight trains, but has not carried passengers since 1964.

https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/leicester-news/leicester-burton-rail-line-could-2338756?fbclid=IwAR1RxNUy5X8Anb8v_tgz4rbdLt29mYK6xZ4bC6LUhxc4Zg8tVD3WurljSrY

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davieG

davieG

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Leicester is named best-connected English city after London and Manchester
The figures are based on how easy it is to get to schools, doctors and shops


ByDavid OttewellTom MackSenior Reporter
15:31, 2 JAN 2019
s
Leicester has been named the third best city in the whole of England for getting around.

The ranking is based on how quickly people can get to schools, doctors, hospitals and shops either on foot or using buses. The city came just behind London and Manchester.

The figures, put together using Government data, show that 98 per cent of primary-school age children in Leicester are within 15 minutes’ walk or bus ride of a primary school.

For secondary schools, which serve larger areas, 49 per cent of youngsters are within a 15-minute walk or ride of their nearest school.

Meanwhile, although only 12 per cent are less than a 15-minute walk or ride from a hospital, 95 per cent of all residents are 15 minutes away from a GP surgery and 98 per cent are 15 minutes from a food shop.


Millions of pounds have been spent on the Connecting Leicester projects in the city over the past decade that have aimed to improve walking routes around the city, as well as cycle paths.

The projects will benefit from a new £6.2 million grant from the European Union that was announced in October.


A few months ago Leicester was given £6.2 million by the EU for more transport projects (Image: Google Maps)
Just over a year ago transport experts at the University of the West of England praised the recent changes to the city’s road network and compared them with Copenhagen, Milan and Lyon – other European cities that were judged to have good transport links.

Sir Peter Soulsby, the city mayor for Leicester, said: “This is one of the few occasions when I think a survey has got it right.

“Connecting Leicester has been a major theme in what I’ve been doing as mayor and I’ve always made it a very high priority.

“We’re blessed with a compact city centre and radial roads coming into the centre of Leicester.”

He said that with limited control over bus routes it was hard for local authorities to improve public transport and that he recognised some area of the city were better than others for roads.


He said: “I don’t think we get everything right and some links into the city are better than others.

“Like all other cities, the extent to which we can control public transport is very limited.

“I look forward to a time when buses are nationalised again.”

The new data compares the 35 largest English cities for public transport and at the top end, Leicester was followed by Portsmouth, Liverpool, Coventry, and then Brighton.

How England’s 35 biggest cities compared
1 London

2 Manchester

3Leicester

4 Portsmouth

5 Liverpool

6 Coventry

7 Brighton and Hove

8 Bristol

9 Salford

10 Birmingham

11 Gateshead

12 Southampton

13 Nottingham

14 Hull

15 Sunderland

16 Wolverhampton

17 Newcastle

18 Sheffield

19 Bradford

20 Exeter

21 Plymouth

22 Preston

23 Derby

24 Lincoln

25 Oxford

26 Leeds

27 Bournemouth

28 Cambridge

29 York

30 Stoke-on-Trent

31 Norwich

32 Gloucester

33 Lancaster

34 Carlisle

35 Canterbury

Despite its tram network, Nottingham was down in 13th, while Derby came 23rd.

Canterbury finished bottom of the list.

 

https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/leicester-news/leicester-named-best-connected-english-2381927

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davieG

davieG

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Why Leicester Council is planning a £450k revamp of roads next to DMU campus
Work is set to start in March


ByDan MartinPolitics Reporter
15:31, 22 JAN 2019UPDATED18:10, 22 JAN 2019

Hundreds of thousands of pounds are set to be spent revamping roads on the edge of De Montfort University’s campus.

Leicester City Council plans to start work on Bonners Lane and Grange Lane in March in a £450,000 scheme that is expected to take some four months to complete.

The council’s plans include work to improve the pedestrian crossing from Bonners Lane over the Oxford Street section of the inner ring road as well as improving it for cyclists.

Grange Lane is currently closed off near the Swan and Rushes pub but the council plans to open it up to traffic leaving Oxford Street.

Grange Lane will then become one way with a contraflow segregated cycle lane.

Tree planting is also proposed along with traffic calming measures.



City mayor Sir Peter Soulsby said: “This ties in with the work we are planning to improve York Road which will allow us to create very high quality pedestrian and cycling infrastructure around DMU connected to the absolutely excellent work the university has done on its campus.


“What it will mean is that vehicles will be able to slip off Oxford Street and they will be able to rejoin it at Bonners Lane which will become one way and will have a much better pedestrian access.”

“That will give improved access to DMUs staff car parks.

“Grange Lane used to be quite a major road and it now has a mixture of former factories, offices and student accommodation.

“There is a lot of potential to improve it.



The £1.5 million York Road scheme is designed to better connect the DMU campus to the new £35 million office and flats development at the bottom of New Walk and then the rest of the city centre.

Critics however have questioned the value of the scheme and its cost.

A petition against it has also been raised by the nearby Jain temple on Oxford Street.

They are concerned plans to remodel York Road will remove on street parking spaces used by elderly and disabled worshippers.

They have collected more than 1,500 names on their petition triggering a debate on the issue at the city council meeting on Thursday evening.

Sir Peter said: “I have some sympathy with people who want to be able to park near their places of worship.


“Here we are talking about the loss of a handful of parking spaces on a street which is very close to the Newarke Street multi-storey car park where there ample spaces.

“It may mean a little more inconvenience for a few but I would need a lot of persuading to think again because of the access to alternative parking nearby.”

https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/leicester-news/leicester-council-planning-450k-revamp-2456242

 

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Wymsey

Wymsey

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Christopher Scotney clothing shop on London Road has ceased trading after 40 years.

https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/business/christopher-scotney-menswear-shop-closes-2506336

Used to be a supplier of suits etc to some of the LCFC players and staff over the seasons.

But, the suit-hiring side of the business premise will continue to trade.

Edited by Wymeswold fox
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boots60

boots60

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12 hours ago, Wymeswold fox said:

Christopher Scotney clothing shop on London Road has ceased trading after 40 years.

https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/business/christopher-scotney-menswear-shop-closes-2506336

Used to be a supplier of suits etc to some of the LCFC players and staff over the seasons.

But, the suit-hiring side of the business premise will continue to trade.

Tailors to the toffs for decades & the BS throughout the 80's

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davieG

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New city centre Tesco 'wonder store' was a European record-breaker in 1961
State-of-the-art development combined shopping and parking


ByJane Goddard
10:21, 8 FEB 2019

0_LM-TESCO1-FEB8.jpg
The Tesco store at the bottom of the new six-tier “Multi-Dek” car park at Lee Circle, Leicester

They called it a “wonder store” in the adverts and, for a while at least, it put Leicester on the frontline of a social revolution.

In the winter of 1961, an eager crowd of more than 2,000 gathered to see Carry-On star Sid James declare this new shop open.

So many turned up, there were hundreds queuing outside, impatient to get inside.

“This is tighter than Filbert Street at a Cup tie,” said one shopper, as the crowds surged through the doors.

Police officers were called to keep things under control.

And the store at the epicentre of all this breathless fuss? A new Tesco.

The 24,000 sq ft supermarket was the first Tesco outside the south of England and would later enter the Guinness Book of Records as the largest store in Europe.

An advert for the official opening by TV and film star Sid James of the new Tesco store at Leicester's Lee Circle in 1961
0_LM-TESCO-FEB8.jpg
It was also a bold new experiment: a supermarket and homewares discount store combined.

“Cor, this beats the lot,” enthused Sid’s disembodied head, hovering disturbingly over the sketch of the store in an advert in the Mercury.

Underneath, the ad lists the startling range of goods on offer.

Not just groceries and meat but also clothing, linens, toys, electrical and all manner of household goods.

In this giddying new world of retail, new customers had to learn new customs.



“The rule is that everyone entering the shop takes a basket or a trolley, even if they might not buy anything,” explained the Mercury, helpfully.

“A feature which mothers appreciated was a small seat attachment for their small children on the trolleys.”

And it wasn’t just the shop that was state-of-the-art.

The store sat at the foot of a new six-tier “Multi-Dek” car park in Lee Circle, built at a cost of £750,000, offering spaces for 1,050 cars nd cannily linking two of post-war Britain’s burgeoning new pleasures as it moved out of an age of austerity: shopping and motoring.

 

A bowling alley also featured.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport, no less, hailed the combination of a supermarket and a multi-storey as a significant step forward in tackling city centre snarl-ups.

The multi-storey car park – reviled by some as a blot on the landscape, defended by others as an increasingly rare surviving example of brutalist architecture – still stands, despite the city council vowing to knock it down a few years ago.

Tesco itself has long since abandoned the site.

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Wymsey

Wymsey

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That Lee Circle car park building must be one of the worse buildings around in the city.

Not only has been an eyesore for many years, it's often been used by drug dealers, homeless people etc.

Plus the fire-damaged hotel, which closed about 10 years back (?), sitting on top of it.

Surprised that Peter Soulsby etc hasn't looked into its recent bad history of some years and had some plan to either freshen it up or more preferable knock it down and start afresh again with a new more secure car-parking area.

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davieG

davieG

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1 hour ago, Wymeswold fox said:

That Lee Circle car park building must be one of the worse buildings around in the city.

Not only has been an eyesore for many years, it's often been used by drug dealers, homeless people etc.

Plus the fire-damaged hotel, which closed about 10 years back (?), sitting on top of it.

Surprised that Peter Soulsby etc hasn't looked into its recent bad history of some years and had some plan to either freshen it up or more preferable knock it down and start afresh again with a new more secure car-parking area.

It just needs some money spending on it and the surrounding business premises. I'm not a big fan of modern concrete buildings but this one is unique and was a trail blazer plus in looked after properly a well located car park. I don't think there's a hotel on the top.

 

Most private car parks are dumps you can't just get rid of them. If this went you'd just get some ugly run of the mill multi-story rectangular concrete block replacing it.

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RoboFox

RoboFox

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On 08/02/2019 at 16:13, Langston said:

Lee Circle isn't that bad, I mean it's not pretty but it has character – it's Abbey Street that needs "knocking down." Look at the ****ing state of it. Doesn't look like somewhere in the developed world.

 

Christ.

 

I haven't been near the Abbey St. car park in years. It genuinely looks like something out of post-apocalyptic fiction.

 

It's unfortunately symptomatic of most of the area north of the city centre - Abbey St, Belgrave Gate and the industrial area on the other side of the flyover. Dilapidated, and in desperate need of investment. 

 

The Sky Plaza Hotel would be wicked for a bit of UrbEx though. 

 

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davieG

davieG

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City council planners have recommended the project be allowed to proceed arguing the changes will ‘significantly improve the functioning and facilities’ at the cathedral bringing ‘substantial community benefits.

They say the existing song school does not make a significant positive contribution to the setting of the cathedral while arguing the HLC “will complement the church and surrounding buildings with a building that is architecturally distinct and visually interesting.”

 

0_Cathedral-Day1.jpg

 

https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/leicester-news/113m-leicester-cathedral-revamp-been-2540194

 

Well I'm not religious but that is god "awful"

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