The Year Of The Fox Posted 28 July 2015 Posted 28 July 2015 https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10155858011570344&id=667895343&ref=fbwaexpcopy
purpleronnie Posted 28 July 2015 Posted 28 July 2015 They need to completely overhaul the main shopping area, it needs kncking down and starting again, no council will have the funds to do that.
The Year Of The Fox Posted 28 July 2015 Posted 28 July 2015 They've knocked the Pick n Shovel down as well as where Wise Plaice and Connextions used to be on Hotel St. Looks a damsight better already. I heard rumours about a new shopoing center on said location on hotel st. And the old pick n shovel site is going to be flats
DB11 Posted 28 July 2015 Posted 28 July 2015 saw it on facebook through their page. think its due to open next month. Emporium opens next month pal https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10155858011570344&id=667895343&ref=fbwaexpcopy There's nothing on their official Facebook page. And that video is just a load of images doesn't have any date plus who is 'Bradley Bates' ? Still not convinced
The Year Of The Fox Posted 28 July 2015 Posted 28 July 2015 Dunno. House music is the rumour I've heard. As long as Decades comes back I'm happy
Guest Col city fan Posted 29 July 2015 Posted 29 July 2015 What's the appeal of Blaby? (even if it still had free parking) Blaby is a great place to live IMO. Nice little shopping precinct. Near the M1 and very near the South Leics countryside. Not far from the KP either! The Great Central Way on your doorstep and some nice housing estates. I'd recommend living in Blaby District to anyone.
Unabomber Posted 29 July 2015 Posted 29 July 2015 Spent a lot of time in blaby recently it's nice. The bakers arms is decent, and I'm playing adventure golf there on Thursday.
Guest Col city fan Posted 29 July 2015 Posted 29 July 2015 Spent a lot of time in blaby recently it's nice. The bakers arms is decent, and I'm playing adventure golf there on Thursday. The Bakers was my teenage pub matey. Every Fri night till late..
Rincewind Posted 29 July 2015 Posted 29 July 2015 Usedto go there a bit in the late 70's 80's as well as Whetstone with a few others including one of my first loves. I was a lot younger and more foolish but it was fun while it lasted.
davieG Posted 27 August 2015 Posted 27 August 2015 The County Council must really hate Coalville COALVILE - unfortunate error in town centre sign By danjmartin | Posted: August 27, 2015 Ooops - Coalvile Comments (0)Highways bosses are looking into how a sign with a spelling error labeling Coalville as Coalvile was put up in the town centre. The mistake has appeared on a sign pointing the way towards Coalville Town FC's Owen Street ground. It is so far unclear when the sign was put up but Coalville Town fan and Labour County Councillor for Whitwick and Thringstone Leon Spence was sent a picture of it last night. He told the Mercury: "My first thought was "That can't be right. It has to be photo-shopped.". But I immediately got on my bike and went to have a look. "It was real. "It's crazy. You have to ask how this could happen. It must be a mistake and not something deliberate but surely there were many points where someone could have spotted the typo - when the sign was made or when it was put up for example. "I don't know when it put there but I hope it will be sorted soon. "It's on the way in to the town centre from Mantle Lane which is a main route into Coalville. It's not the greatest advert for the town. "Mistakes to happen on signs. Things get misspelled and capital letters end up where they shouldn't be. "It is unfortunate this mistake is actually makes a word in itself and not a very complimentary one." A County Hall spokesman said the authority was aware of the sign and looking at what had gone wrong. Read more: http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/COALVILE-embarrassing-error-town-centre-sign/story-27688052-detail/story.html#ixzz3k0LPsnV1 Follow us: @Leicester_Merc on Twitter | leicestermercury on Facebook
DB11 Posted 27 August 2015 Posted 27 August 2015 "It was real."It's crazy. You have to ask how this could happen. It must be a mistake and not something deliberate but surely there were many points where someone could have spotted the typo - when the sign was made or when it was put up for example. "I don't know when it put there but I hope it will be sorted soon. "It's on the way in to the town centre from Mantle Lane which is a main route into Coalville. It's not the greatest advert for the town. "Mistakes to happen on signs. Things get misspelled and capital letters end up where they shouldn't be. "It is unfortunate this mistake is actually makes a word in itself and not a very complimentary one." A County Hall spokesman said the authority was aware of the sign and looking at what had gone wrong. The irony
RobHawk Posted 27 August 2015 Posted 27 August 2015 Saw this the other day too................http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-34050583
Parafox Posted 28 August 2015 Posted 28 August 2015 The County Council must really hate Coalville COALVILE - unfortunate error in town centre sign By danjmartin | Posted: August 27, 2015 Ooops - Coalvile Most peeple in Coalville thorght it was spelt correclty
Parafox Posted 28 August 2015 Posted 28 August 2015 I liked Snibston It was Ok. Trouble is, if you'd been there once there was no need to ever go again. Nothing changed, there were never any new exhibits or themes and lacked any real pulling power.. They really should have made more of the mine and the workings to attract more people. Geenvor tin mine in Cornwall is a good example. It's been left as if the miners finished work yesterday and the place has the eerie feel of being recently abandoned. Lockers with work clothes left, flasks and mugs, clocking in cards, machinery, graffiti in the toilets... well worth a visit if anyone is down that way.
ozleicester Posted 28 August 2015 Posted 28 August 2015 It was Ok. Trouble is, if you'd been there once there was no need to ever go again. Nothing changed, there were never any new exhibits or themes and lacked any real pulling power.. They really should have made more of the mine and the workings to attract more people. Geenvor tin mine in Cornwall is a good example. It's been left as if the miners finished work yesterday and the place has the eerie feel of being recently abandoned. Lockers with work clothes left, flasks and mugs, clocking in cards, machinery, graffiti in the toilets... well worth a visit if anyone is down that way. very true... i liked it, when i visited in..... 1991 Mind you, the travellers in the car park when we came out was also part of an entertaining day
The Year Of The Fox Posted 28 August 2015 Posted 28 August 2015 That's right, I remember Dad taking us in the mid 90s and the cycling skeleton was there. It's there now still!
davieG Posted 9 November 2015 Posted 9 November 2015 Coalville: More big plans for the town that never regenerated By Leicester Mercury | Posted: November 09, 2015 Welcome to Coalville Comments (0)In 2010, the Tory-controlled North West Leicestershire District Council unveiled a comprehensive plan to regenerate Coalville. Vibrant streets. New shops. A new town centre square. Cycleways and improved entrances to the town, which would not only look good but reduce congestion. And then… a monorail system. No, really – a monorail system linking one end of town to the other. It was a comprehensive blueprint, the culmination of two years' work, writes Lee Marlow. "We know Coalville is failing to fully meet the needs of residents and visitors," said deputy leader Matthew Blain, who was given the title Coalville Champion. "We need to build a new town with a stronger sense of identity, rooted in the town's rich heritage and capitalising at the heart of the National Forest." That was the dream. Except the dream did not come true. Instead of new firms coming in, many old ones left. A three-way store war between Sainsbury's, Tesco and Asda resulted in the council giving planning permission to Tesco, who promptly did nothing. A new elevated walkway and train track to link the town with Snibston Discovery Park never materialised. Instead, the museum – described in the report something Coalville could be rightly proud of – was closed down this summer. And the man who helped to close the museum, the Tory-lead for heritage, libraries, museums and planning at Leicestershire County Council, is Councillor Richard Blunt. Coun Blunt is also the leader of North West Leicestershire District Council. Today, Coun Blunt is spearheading another consultation process to improve the town. "We'd like to hear your thoughts about Coalville and your ideas on what should be done," he said last week. "I'm very excited about the possibilities of this project and looking forward to making a real difference in Coalville." If you listen closely, that's not excitement on the streets of Coalville, it's weary scepticism. In Coalville, they've heard this song before. Over the past 25 years, there have been numerous "exciting" and "ambitious" plans which promised much and delivered next to nothing. The scepticism surrounding the latest plan didn't just appear. It's hard won. Town centre resident Helen Lee Smith remembers receiving the Coalville Regeneration Strategy document a few years ago. It looked impressive, she says, if fanciful. A monorail? In Coalville? Really? "I wish they would just do something," she says. "Coalville is similar in size and demographic to Hinckley and yet so different. Why? It needs to change." Coun Blunt says he understands people's scepticism. But this time, he insists, it's different. The world is waking up. The last plan didn't work because it was shunted off course by the recession. "We're giving it a go. Believe me," he says. "We are." Decline is not a new thing in Coalville. It's a long, old story dating back 30 years. In the '60s and '70s – and for decades before that – it was a prosperous mining town. The shopping precinct, opened in 1963 by TV star Noelle Gordon, was always clean, busy and full of successful independent retailers. People came to Coalville from Leicester, from South Derbyshire, Loughborough and beyond. In Coalville and the surrounding district, nine collieries – Snibston, Whitwick, Bagworth, Ellistown, Desford, Nailstone, New Lount, South and Merry Lees – offered well-paid employment to thousands of miners. Large factories – such as Grieves, Palitoy and Eatough's – also thrived. The town – its many pubs, its nightclub, The Grand, the precursor to the Emporium which attracted youngsters from all over the East Midlands – did well. Coalville was arguably Leicestershire's most prosperous county town. All that changed in one decade. One by one, the pits closed; a few before the 1980s, a couple after, but mainly between 1983 and 1987. And then the factories, too. In a traditionally hard-working, blue-collar town, the jobs disappeared. And when the jobs disappeared, the money ebbed away, too. And when the money ebbed away, the shops moved out and the pubs closed. It wasn't all one way. Thanks to its location, the town re-invented itself as a warehouse destination. But the new jobs were neither as plentiful or as well-paid as the jobs in the mines or the factories. They were dark days in north west Leicestershire. Yet throughout this bleak period, Coalville survived. It clung on. There was help from Europe, grants from bodies with ungainly synonyms such as RECHAR, RECHAR II and the Government's Single Regeneration Budget, which was set up to help struggling pit towns. It wasn't much and, in truth, it didn't do much. It didn't pay for the widespread regeneration of the town centre, but it prettied up some entrances and it paid for some traffic calming and some hanging baskets. The town's main car park was needlessly and expensively redesigned into a slalom-cum-car park, making it unnecessarily difficult to navigate. Twenty years later, the car park was redesigned again. It was returned to how it was originally. Today, that money seems to have dried up. The big three supermarkets – Tesco, Sainsbury's and Asda – all put forward plans for a big store. The council approved the Tesco plan. And then... nothing happened. Tesco banked the land and sat on it. Asda and Sainsburys took their money and their grand plans elsewhere. And yet housing estates continue to be built. About 12,000 homes are set to be built around Coalville in the next decade. The perimeter of the town is dotted with well-off families in three and four-bedroomed homes who shop in out-of-town supermarkets and go to Leicester or Loughborough at the weekends. They might live near Coalville, but they don't think of themselves as "Coalville". "This is one of the single most important challenges facing the town," says Coalville Labour councillor John Legrys. "Coalville was built on community spirit and camaraderie." In one generation, that's virtually all gone, he says. Coalville needs to get that back. But how? It won't come back by itself. There has to be something to do, something to see, something to visit, something to be proud of, first. The council's own regeneration plan contained an admission that the town was "failing to meet the needs of its residents and visitors". In the five years since that plan, it's hard to see where the town has moved forward. There's a new, and barely-used, cycle lane on the A511. But that's it. It is one of the few Leicestershire towns without a railway station. "I would say not one single thing of that plan has been implemented," said Coun Legrys, who, when pressed, admits previous Labour councils "could have done more" to regenerate the town. Big stores have left Coalville shopping centre. Curry's, Woolworths, The Baker's Oven. The cinema closed down years ago. One by one, the pubs have vanished. The Pick and Shovel, a landmark pub in the middle of town, stood derelict for 10 years. It is now being converted into a block of 14-one bedroom flats. "I think the flats will be good for the town," said Coun Blunt. Not everyone, it's probably fair to say, feels that swapping a pub for some one-bedroomed flats will do much to attract people back to the town centre. The town's showpiece attraction, Snibston Discovery Park, closed in August. It's difficult to calculate the wider economic benefits it brought. It's certainly true a good number of visitors drove in, went round the museum, and then drove home, without setting foot in the town. But not all of them, says Coun Legrys, who said the closure of the museum will cost Coalville £4 million a year. What throws this into sharper focus is that while Coalville struggles to find a way forward, neighbouring Leicestershire towns are moving on. Loughborough, a prosperous university town, is to benefit from a huge new development in Baxter Gate, creating eight restaurants and a cinema. Loughborough will then boast two cinemas. Coalville's art deco Rex cinema closed in the 1980s. It is now a Dunhelm store. There have been two decades of debate about bringing a new cinema for Coalville. That seems to have stopped. "I'm not working in fairytales," says Coun Blunt. "It's difficult to attract cinemas to small towns like Coalville. Fewer people are going to the cinema. I'm working on things I think we can achieve." To the west, Hinckley is to benefit from a £60 million regeneration scheme which includes a big new Sainsbury's, a new cinema, a gym, various shops, bars and restaurants. Coun Blunt says Coalville is not being left behind. "That's why we are making this, the regeneration of Coalville, our number one priority," he said. This time, he says, they mean business. "It will happen." He's a contradiction of all sorts of things, Richard Blunt. A softly-spoken Conservative and an admirer of Labour city mayor Peter Soulsby – "what he has done for Leicester, I'd like to do for Coalville" – he is both the leader of North West Leicestershire District Council and the county councillor in charge of Leicestershire's diminishing museums offering. This means, ultimately, and perhaps inconveniently in these circumstances, his fingerprints are all over the controversial closure of Snibston. That's an awkward juxtaposition isn't it – now that you're supposed to be leading the drive to improve the town? He sounds wearied, almost, by the question. "I don't go to County Hall to speak as leader of NWLDC. That's not my job," he says. "I think it should be said that you do not need a vibrant museum to build a successful town centre." He reels them off. Loughborough doesn't have one, nor does Ashby. Coalville can manage, and thrive, without Snibston, he says. He doesn't want to point the finger at previous Labour councils that didn't do enough to regenerate Coalville. "That's not what I'm about," he says. So what is he about? His critics say he is so laid-back that his unruffled exterior is often mistaken for aloofness. "I think he does care," one rival councillor told the Mercury. "But it often looks like he doesn't. I don't think that helps him." This is Coun Blunt's third term as leader of NWLDC. He is determined, he says, to get this right. But another consultation? You did one five years ago – and nothing happened. "Well, yes, but the recession brought an end to that one. This is a different time. We're sitting here with a blank piece of paper. We're realistic, too. We're not setting the bar too high. I am not promising cinemas and shopping centres. That's not on the agenda." What he wants to do is make the essence of Coalville better, he says. There are three public squares. He wants four. "I want four little town centres, all of them linked, where, if you didn't know the town, you could be dropped off there and think, 'Well this is the centre of town, surely…?' Missing out on the big supermarket development could be a blessing, he says. "I think the big town supermarkets have had their day. Who would have thought, five or six years ago, that little Co-ops would be so popular?" Trends are changing, he says. "I want Coalville to be a town where you can work, rest and play. That's the key." Talks are ongoing. Developers. Stores. Highways bosses. He wants to give pedestrians the right of way on some of the main roads – take away the traffic lights, install zebra crossings, narrow the carriageway. Bring the people back. It's not about his legacy as a politician, he says. It's about the future of the town. "The mum of one of my friends – she's 86, she goes into Coalville twice a week – and every time I see her she says, 'When are you going to get that town right? Please hurry up – I won't be here much longer'." That's what makes it worth doing, he says. People like her. Come back and see me in four years' time, he says. "We'll walk around Coalville. If I can't show you the good things we have done, things that are better, then I won't have done my job." Read more: http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/Coalville-big-plans-town-regenerated/story-28025715-detail/story.html#ixzz3r0V7cf4k Follow us: @@leicester_Merc on Twitter | leicestermercury on Facebook
yorkie1999 Posted 9 November 2015 Posted 9 November 2015 Come back and see me in four years' time, he says. "We'll walk around Coalville. If I can't show you the good things we have done, things that are better, then I won't have done my job." No, but he'll still have it!
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