Is the City of Leicester a dump?

[TheLittleBigMan]

On 10/03/2019 at 20:17, Parafox said:

The lovely, historic wealthy homes of Leicester's successful business people in the Knighton/Oadby have been taken over for student accommodation.

These properties were largely donated to the university by their late owners. The main concern is the new builds going up all over the place. I'm strongly opposed to them as they are ruining local areas and bare no relevance to current architecture. This city just isn't big enough to cope with the huge influx of student accommodation. We don't have the infrastructure to support 2 universities. Jamie Lewis has a reputation of the dark arts getting his code buildings up, let alone the fact they are absolute dog sh*t to look at. Peter Soulsby will roll over for them and you can bet local opinion will count for nothing. Just look at the garbage that went up behind the Western, this despite the local community opposing it on mass.   

Edited 15 March 2019 by TheLittleBigMan

[davieG]

12 hours ago, TheLittleBigMan said:

These properties were largely donated to the university by their late owners. The main concern is the new builds going up all over the place. I'm strongly opposed to them as they are ruining local areas and bare no relevance to current architecture. This city just isn't big enough to cope with the huge influx of student accommodation. We don't have the infrastructure to support 2 universities. Jamie Lewis has a reputation of the dark arts getting his code buildings up, let alone the fact they are absolute dog sh*t to look at. Peter Soulsby will roll over for them and you can bet local opinion will count for nothing. Just look at the garbage that went up behind the Western, this despite the local community opposing it on mass.   

You mean like this

The £51 million Merlin Works scheme is already being built by Jamie Lewis in the Waterside regeneration area of Leicester

 

 

 

The £500m-plus plan to address Leicester housing crisis

International investors "primed" to pump hundreds of millions into thousands of executive flats

 

Tom Pegden

12:10, 15 MAR 2019

NEWS

The £51 million Merlin Works scheme is already being built by Jamie Lewis in the Waterside regeneration area of Leicester

 

Leicester developers are drawing up a £500 million, five year plan to build as many as 3,000 new executive flats in the city.

Speaking at the international MIPIM property conference in the south of France, they said multi-billion pound investment firms were looking at the city as a safe bet for their money.

Joe Levy, managing director of student flats developer Bradgate Estates, believed there was appetite among some of the city’s big developers to build more schemes similar to those going up in Vaughan Way and the city’s Waterside.

He said new PRS – high-spec serviced Private Rented Sector schemes – would help address the housing crisis, meet demand from young executives keen to live close to the offices and amenities of the city centre, and provide sound, long-term investments for funders.

Joe Levy of Bradgate Estates at MIPIM in Cannes, France

 

The first tenants will move into Leicester’s newest executive flats complex – the £43 million, 297 apartment Wullcomb complex opposite Highcross – this summer. The lowest rents will be £595 a month.

Leicester student developer Jamie Lewis, who was also at the Cannes conference to talk to council  representatives about schemes in other cities, has started work on the £51 million Merlin Works scheme overlooking the River Soar in Bath Lane. Some 384 one and two-bedroom rental apartments will be ready late next year.

Mr Lewis is also involved in a £60 million plan – still in the early stages – to build 300 PRS flats and 250 student flats on land going from Braunstone Gate, across the Old River Soar towards Bede Park.

 

That is being led by Roy Coley who runs Sowden Group in the city.

 

Mr Levy, a lead sponsor of the Team Leicester delegation to promote city and county investment opportunities at MIPIM, said attending last year’s event promoted deals worth £20 million for his business.

He believes there was no reason why future MIPIM’s couldn’t help generate more than £500 million for further schemes.

 

 

He said: “There are funders who have already invested in Leicester, such as Cording Real Estate Group [in Bath Lane] and Long Harbour [in Vaughan Way] and they are actively seeking more sites and want to work with partners they already know.

“They have got hundreds of millions of pounds and we are encouraging them to invest in Leicester.

“All the developers here at MIPIM are on the same page and we want to know if the council has an appetite to support us.

“It could be more than £500 million – maybe even £1 billion of investment – because the future is going to be PRS. But we are in a competition for funding with cities like Eindhoven and Dusseldorf.

 

The Wullcomb

“A five year plan could see us bring 2,500-3,000 new homes to Leicester, maybe more, by collaborating and working through any concerns.

“We can make a profit, but at the same time the city benefits, the taxpayer benefits and people looking for places to live benefit.”

 

 

Jamie Lewis – who held 23 meetings at this year’s MIPIM – said: “There is an appetite from institutions that want to invest, which won’t be there for ever.

“And if the deals are done it could conceivably come to £500 million.

“Whether that’s PRS, build to rent, co-living, or housing is still to be seen. Co-living, for instance, is ideal for graduates who want smaller apartments not dissimilar to the student accommodation they would have been in at university.”

Property developer Jamie Lewis

Speaking in November, Charlie Miller, director of residential acquisitions at Cording, said: “Leicester is a fantastic location for the fund’s first build-to-rent investment.

 

“It is a vibrant city which features prominently in the East Midlands with a high demand for affordable new build-to-rent accommodation in line with the fund’s strategy.

“Leicester’s population is forecast to grow at a rate in excess of the national average, while the current supply of rental stock in Leicester is limited and relatively dated.”

 

https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/business/500m-plus-plan-address-leicester-2648551

[davieG]

https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/leicester-news/100-million-plan-try-tackle-2651726

 

The £100 million plan to try to tackle Leicester's awful traffic congestion by 2023
Council bosses are developing a range of ideas they hope will persuade or push people out of their cars in favour of using buses, walking or cycling.

 

A £100 million package of measures the city council hopes will persuade or push people out of their cars in favour of using buses, walking or cycling is being drawn up.

The major bid for Government cash is being prepared to try to overhaul the way people move around the city with the aim of solving Leicester’s traffic congestion and air pollution problems.

Leicester is one of 12 cities invited to bid for a share of the £1.2 billion Government Transforming Cities fund.

 

 

 

The city council was last week awarded £8 million from for its first phase bid to the fund and is preparing a phase two bid which it needs to be completed by October.

Broadly what measures are being proposed by the council?
Bus stations

The city’s St Margaret’s bus station would undergo a major revamp to bring it up to the same standard as the nearby Haymarket bus station which has undergone a £14 million refurbishment.

 

The railway station
Changes are planned at the London Road railway station to better accommodate taxis.

 

Electric shuttle bus
An electric shuttle bus service is proposed to help people get between the two bus stations and the rail station.

Charles Street could be radically overhauled to enable this.

 

Electric park and ride buses
The electrification of buses running between the park and ride sites at Enderby and Meynell’s Gorse

 

More bus lanes and enforcement

Work to give buses greater priority on the major roads in and out of the city such as the A6, A50 and A47.

That would include more bus lanes and camera enforcement.

 

More cycles lanes and pedestrian routes
The city’s network of cycling and pedestrian routes would be extended out of the centre to connect with residential areas and parts of the city where major development is taking place such as Space Park Leicester off Abbey Lane and the Waterside regeneration area around Frog Island.

   
The authority's director of planning, development and transportation, Andrew Smith, said: “We succeeded with our first-tranche Transforming Cities bid, and now we are looking for our fair share of the £1.2 billion with our next bid.

“The business case is being drawn up and we have some work to do on it, but we are confident our proposals can help make some really major improvements to transport in the city.”

City mayor Sir Peter Soulsby said: “Our plans are very ambitious but they are realistic.

“We have effectively three transport hubs in the city but the inter-connectivity between them could and should be much better.

“We have key radial routes in the city where we need to get the buses moving more quickly.

"Saffron Lane and Narborough Road are two very good examples of where buses are held up but it would be possible to find ways of helping them hop the queue.

“Our intention is to build on the work we have already done to provide people with alternatives to the private car.”

 
However, Liberal Democrat city councillor Nigel Porter said the Labour-run authority was "obsessed" by getting people on buses and fining drivers.

He said: “Bus patronage is decreasing. It has been for years.

“People do not want to use buses. They are not using the park and ride and it costs the council hundreds of thousands of pounds in subsidy every year.

“I’m concerned this will be just another money pit.”

The city council and county council split a subsidy for park and ride of £500,000 annually, which they are seeking to reduce.

   
Conservative city councillor Ross Grant said: “It is disappointing, given the huge sums of money on offer from government, that this bid is lacks ambition for Leicester.

"Rather than encouraging people who can afford to switch to cleaner forms of transport, this penalises those who cannot afford to change their car.

"Enforced bus lanes put people off coming into Leicester altogether. Those who have to will be made to sit in slow moving traffic with high levels of pollution. No one wins.

"With this much money we could do so much more, but we are offered more of the same and it isn’t working."

 

[Wymsey]

A homeless person got water tipped onto them by a McDonald's worker in Leicester city centre.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-47752245

[Langston]

You can put all the bus lanes in you like but while they're expensive, unreliable, worn out and grubby – people will avoid using Leicester buses.

[Wolfox]

18 minutes ago, Langston said:

You can put all the bus lanes in you like but while they're expensive, unreliable, worn out and grubby – people will avoid using Leicester buses.

I used them in Nottingham a few months back a fiver for the whole family all day…

 

My wife dropped me off at Leicester racecourse a couple of weeks ago and I hopped on the #31…. I could’ve hired a stretch limo to take me into town for the same money….

 

i didn’t find them particularly grubby 

 

whats is the incentive to use public transport?

[Langston]

Just now, Wolfox said:

I used them in Nottingham a few months back a fiver for the whole family all day…

 

My wife dropped me off at Leicester racecourse a couple of weeks ago and I hopped on the #31…. I could’ve hired a stretch limo to take me into town for the same money….

 

i didn’t find them particularly grubby 

 

whats is the incentive to use public transport?

 

The 31 service probably has the newest and nicest buses in the city though. They're actually half-decent! 

[boots60]

Today I Will get a £4.20 day saver on arriva, this will take me into town & back, bus to the Aylestone road & back if I can't be arsed to walk & because my car will spend the day parked outside my house I will be able to drink my own body weight in lager & not have to worry about driving.

I love arriva buses on match days. 

 

[davieG]

On 18/02/2019 at 14:40, davieG said:

The problem is allowing this

 

 

to be replaced by this

 

 

 

and this

 

 

by this

 

 

and this

 

Was originally the Temperance Hall

 

with this

 

This

 

to be replaced by this.

[davieG]

Vanishing Leicester

 

https://le.ac.uk/news/2017/january/new-digital-map-remembers-2018vanished-leicester2019

 

University of Leicester

 

Leicester researchers have developed a new digital map of ‘Vanished Leicester’ which shows the transformation of the city in recent decades.

The digital map, developed by the University’s Special Collections, uses a collection of photographs taken by retired architect Dennis Calow which show a number of buildings demolished in the post-war slum clearance programmes in Leicestershire.

The map, produced using Historic Digimap, the British Geological Survey website and Google’s Fusion Tables, allows users to interact with Calow’s collection of photographs.

The University is now encouraging the public to get in touch with their memories to build up a history of the under-recorded buildings.

Dr Simon Dixon, Archives and Special Collections Manager, explained: “Recent years have seen an increase in the popularity of historical images of this type, which is reflected in the number of popular local ‘nostalgia’ pages on Facebook which regularly post historic images. These also allow users to record their personal memories of place through lively discussions about the images posted.”

 

Press Release - https://www2.le.ac.uk/offices/press/press-releases/2017/january/public-encouraged-to-help-record-leicester2019s-working-class-victorian-history

Digital Map of Vanished Leicester - https://fusiontables.googleusercontent.com/embedviz?q=select+col10+from+1s5kc3yrw6ZdvNBOU8KW9myfYTFETw5_2f8IylQkd&viz=MAP&h=false&lat=52.63770776639928&lng=-1.1252495788714896&t=1&z=13&l=col10&y=2&tmplt=2&hml=GEOCODABLE

View Vanished Leicester here - http://specialcollections.le.ac.uk/digital/collection/p15407coll5

 

 

BBC Today Article - 

 

 

 

 

[CosbehFox]

On 30/03/2019 at 09:29, Wolfox said:

I used them in Nottingham a few months back a fiver for the whole family all day…

 

My wife dropped me off at Leicester racecourse a couple of weeks ago and I hopped on the #31…. I could’ve hired a stretch limo to take me into town for the same money….

 

i didn’t find them particularly grubby 

 

whats is the incentive to use public transport?

Really good article in the I paper this weekend how the major cities of the UK outside of London have seen public transport quality nosedive when it was placed up for competition. 

 

Transport for London allows London folk to use multiple modes of transport with relative ease. Whereas in Leicester, you'd need an Arriva pass for say a bus from Oadby and then a First bus to your next destination. 

[orangecity23]

10 hours ago, davieG said:

 

Leicester researchers have developed a new digital map of ‘Vanished Leicester’ which shows the transformation of the city in recent decades.

The digital map, developed by the University’s Special Collections, uses a collection of photographs taken by retired architect Dennis Calow which show a number of buildings demolished in the post-war slum clearance programmes in Leicestershire.

 

Uni of Leicester trying to map bits of Leicester that are vanishing, meanwhile, on the other side of the city DMU are busy working out what to knock down next. Like trying to do the washing up while your roommate is lobbing more dirty pots into the sink

[Heathrow fox]

7 hours ago, Cardiff_Fox said:

Really good article in the I paper this weekend how the major cities of the UK outside of London have seen public transport quality nosedive when it was placed up for competition. 

 

Transport for London allows London folk to use multiple modes of transport with relative ease. Whereas in Leicester, you'd need an Arriva pass for say a bus from Oadby and then a First bus to your next destination. 

Yes and most buses in London are   nearly always packed.

[Livid]

I commute from Coalville to Leicester and the main thing that puts me off taking the bus is the time it takes. They have cut back on so many local services that what should be a straight drive down the A511 and A50 is now detoured round every village in the area. 

 

I would love to sit back, put my headphones on and read a book but they have to make it an attractive alternative. 

[Parafox]

On ‎16‎/‎04‎/‎2019 at 21:05, orangecity23 said:

Uni of Leicester trying to map bits of Leicester that are vanishing, meanwhile, on the other side of the city DMU are busy working out what to knock down next. Like trying to do the washing up while your roommate is lobbing more dirty pots into the sink

I would argue that Loughborough Uni is bigger than DMU in terms of the number of students, yet they have not attempted to invade the town. Their campus is almost entirely self contained. I appreciate that DMU lives in the middle of our city where Loughborough is pretty much purpose-built. However, it seems to me that DMU has some sort of leverage over the LCC enabling them to pursue whatever they want and get planning permission to remove whatever buildings they want to in order to grow, like a cancer, at the cost of our heritage. The main DMU building at The Newarke is an abomination. What has the DMU given back to the city? Have they helped retain or renovate or preserve any of our city's history? 

[Kopic]

1 hour ago, Parafox said:

I would argue that Loughborough Uni is bigger than DMU in terms of the number of students, yet they have not attempted to invade the town. Their campus is almost entirely self contained. I appreciate that DMU lives in the middle of our city where Loughborough is pretty much purpose-built. However, it seems to me that DMU has some sort of leverage over the LCC enabling them to pursue whatever they want and get planning permission to remove whatever buildings they want to in order to grow, like a cancer, at the cost of our heritage. The main DMU building at The Newarke is an abomination. What has the DMU given back to the city? Have they helped retain or renovate or preserve any of our city's history? 

They gave us a massive outdoor TV screen to watch the world cup on which they then turned off because people threw bottles at it 

[Stadt]

DMU students are c unts 

[DennisNedry]

On 10/04/2019 at 19:09, davieG said:

This

 

to be replaced by this.

 

Wow.

 

I had no idea such beautiful old buildings were demolished to make way for boring concrete eyesores. It's truly saddening to see these photos Davie. Was everybody permanently stoned in the 60s?!

[Parafox]

14 hours ago, Kopic said:

They gave us a massive outdoor TV screen to watch the world cup on 

That's not the same as retaining or renovating though, is it? That was only ever going to be a temporary thing anyway.

[Kopic]

2 hours ago, Parafox said:

That's not the same as retaining or renovating though, is it? That was only ever going to be a temporary thing anyway.

I said that somewhat tongue in cheek, I always thought the screen was a joke. But they did try and use it to provide something for the local community which just got ruined.

 

Being in my late twenties I have zero knowledge of what the DMU campus used to be like or if the sorry state it was in was as a result of the uni. I went to DMU before the latest developments, and personally feel the new pedestrianised area is a lovely part of the city now compared to how it was (again, I dont know if that was DMU's doing or it was always shit).  The new building looks alright and they've done some work on the canal side too which is decent. I have no vested interest in defending DMU, I went there a few years ago. I dont know what beautiful old buildings they knocked down to build their campus or which ones they own that they have neglected, I just think the new development is actually now a really nice part of the city, open to everyone. 

 

I feel the developments planned by Leicester uni are terrible and far more detrimental to the surrounding areas.

 

Granted the huge green building is disgusting though.

Edited 22 April 2019 by Kopic

[davieG]

Not forgetting this

 

Replaced by this

 

The frontage of the Malcolm Arcade on Silver Street in 2011 which replaced Phipp's original frontage of the Royal Opera House, Silver Street, Leicester in 1960 - Courtesy David Garratt.

 

[Footballwipe]

One thing I do enjoy reading is all the old codgers on the Facebook heritage sites moaning about the destruction of our city's look and heritage, and then you get pictures like above where a significant portion of the damage was done when they were likely young adults.

[davieG]

5 hours ago, Footballwipe said:

One thing I do enjoy reading is all the old codgers on the Facebook heritage sites moaning about the destruction of our city's look and heritage, and then you get pictures like above where a significant portion of the damage was done when they were likely young adults.

Even to this day they are still pulling down well designed and attractive buildings and replacing them with bland boxes. Sadly money talks, as it always has some have been saved but it's a losing battle against the tide of big business money. Council's struggle to deny them because if they lose an appeal being overridden by some faceless central government quango they have to pay all the legsl cost with council tax payer's money. So you carry on enjoying your reading whilst others continue with the fight to save what little heritage we have left. 

[Dr The Singh]

4 hours ago, davieG said:

Even to this day they are still pulling down well designed and attractive buildings and replacing them with bland boxes. Sadly money talks, as it always has some have been saved but it's a losing battle against the tide of big business money. Council's struggle to deny them because if they lose an appeal being overridden by some faceless central government quango they have to pay all the legsl cost with council tax payer's money. So you carry on enjoying your reading whilst others continue with the fight to save what little heritage we have left. 

We're just a poor man's Coventry, even Oldham is more pretty

[Langston]

The DMU building where the Fletcher building and old SU once stood is bloody excellent.