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New £5m bus station for Blackburn

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MidnightFlyer

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http://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.u....Blackburn_s_new___5m_bus_station_move_is_on/

THIS is Blackburn’s new £5million glass-fronted bus station which will welcome passengers from autumn 2015.

The covered complex, which will take 18 months to construct, will be sited on part of the town centre’s old market site following a decade of searching for the necessary cash and best location, the Lancashire Telegraph can reveal.

Council bosses said the enclosed, airy, warm and secure Ainsworth Street building will include a cafe and be equipped with the technology for London Transport Oyster-style cards to speed passenger boarding and real time information screens.

...

The first stage of the long-awaited redevelopment of the former Blackburn market site, the bus station will have a single central concourse with direct access to 14 bus boarding and alighting bays.

There will be a staffed travel information office, cafe, cash machines and public toilets with a disabled access WC and baby change facilities.

It will be closely linked to the new £8 million indoor market and Mall shopping centre while a new smaller bus interchange will be built next to the railway station as part of the town’s £30 million Cathedral Quarter development, with most main services stopping at both places.

The new plan, scheduled to start in April next year and due to take 18 months to complete, is one of the key parts of unlocking the further redevelopment of the town centre.

The bus station plans will go on show for two weeks from today on a special stall next to the visitor centre.

(For more prose and images see link, I tried to make it as brief as possible.)

I'll admit Blackburn bus station is poor, however I'm not a fan of this. The railway station and bus station are, as things stand, a 3 minute walk platform-stand, they are on opposite sides of the road. The only reason this is happening, forget the drivel Mrs Hollern speaks in the link, is the CoE wanting the land back, which the bus station is built on. The way of 'small interchange' I suspect that means a stand and a timetable, and not much more, certainly there won't be room after the church has built apartments and shops on the land, as they plan (even though there's already empty shops and flats in town waiting to be filled, 2 minutes away). As for the new site, I'm sick of these modern designs. All it needs is a concourse, info office and buffet, which could be provided on the current site, not a glass and steel tumour like they built at Newport (South Wales) railway station. It would destroy the interchange at Blackburn, which many use, making rail-bus (for the destinations the new smaller current site couldn't provide) a 5 minute minimum walk over two relatively busy roads or through a dark subway.
 
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Xenophon PCDGS

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I'll admit Blackburn bus station is poor, however I'm not a fan of this. The railway station and bus station are, as things stand, a 3 minute walk platform-stand, they are on opposite sides of the road. The only reason this is happening, forget the drivel Mrs Hollern speaks in the link, is the CoE wanting the land back, which the bus station is built on.

Can you clarify your point with regard to the Church of England wanting the land back. Under what terms was the land transferred and when did this occur. Were any special clauses written into the legal documents concerning reversion of ownership. (The Church of England have a large portfolio of land).

Use your learning as obtained from your law studies to investigate these matters and come back on the thread with your answers to these points.
 

radamfi

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In countries that understand public transport integration, there are rarely 'palaces' for buses. Buses almost always stop right outside the rail station. I don't mean across a busy road, or even across a taxi rank. I mean right outside the station. Because of that, you don't need a great structure with comprehensive facilities for bus passengers. These facilities already exist at the rail station.
 

Ivo

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http://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.u....Blackburn_s_new___5m_bus_station_move_is_on/

I'll admit Blackburn bus station is poor, however I'm not a fan of this. The railway station and bus station are, as things stand, a 3 minute walk platform-stand, they are on opposite sides of the road. The only reason this is happening, forget the drivel Mrs Hollern speaks in the link, is the CoE wanting the land back, which the bus station is built on. The way of 'small interchange' I suspect that means a stand and a timetable, and not much more, certainly there won't be room after the church has built apartments and shops on the land, as they plan (even though there's already empty shops and flats in town waiting to be filled, 2 minutes away). As for the new site, I'm sick of these modern designs. All it needs is a concourse, info office and buffet, which could be provided on the current site, not a glass and steel tumour like they built at Newport (South Wales) railway station. It would destroy the interchange at Blackburn, which many use, making rail-bus (for the destinations the new smaller current site couldn't provide) a 5 minute minimum walk over two relatively busy roads or through a dark subway.

How could it possibly have taken so long to claw together £5M? More than half of that time was spent under booming conditions, during which I am sure it couldn't have been that hard. I cannot help but feel that such a project will become a bit if a "White Elephant" for the town - or, if it doesn't, is there are chance of vandalism and the like?

Thinking back to Southend, their new bus station is a failure - but the Interchange outside Victoria station is pretty good, considering its awkward location and the fact that it is very much the "secondary" site.

In countries that understand public transport integration, there are rarely 'palaces' for buses. Buses almost always stop right outside the rail station. I don't mean across a busy road, or even across a taxi rank. I mean right outside the station. Because of that, you don't need a great structure with comprehensive facilities for bus passengers. These facilities already exist at the rail station.

Integration? What is that? :lol:

Oh wait - like my SOV example.
 

MidnightFlyer

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In countries that understand public transport integration ... I mean right outside the station. Because of that, you don't need a great structure with comprehensive facilities for bus passengers. These facilities already exist at the rail station.

I agree, however Britain demonstrates this brilliantly in places such as Hull, Bradford and Sheffield Meadowhall (shopping centre), plus Bury has done this for bus and tram. Bolton is spending millions as we speak building a bus station next to its rail station, and I'm sure most towns in the country would give a lot to have them even on the same side of town.

Before buses, the current bus station was the tram terminus in Blackburn, so it has been an interchange of sort for well over a century. Blackburn is the only town that I can think of that has / wants to scrap its main public ttransport interchange. Idiots.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
How could it possibly have taken so long to claw together £5M? More than half of that time was spent under booming conditions, during which I am sure it couldn't have been that hard. I cannot help but feel that such a project will become a bit if a "White Elephant" for the town - or, if it doesn't, is there are chance of vandalism and the like?

It will be across the road from a multi-million pound new 'mall' (which is awful), however I think the glass and steel approach is likely to target vandalism, unless CCTV and staff are extensive, especially in the night. If the current characters who inhabit the bus station migrate to the new site, then I expect it to look worse for wear quite soon after being built.
 

Ivo

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Blackburn is the only town that I can think of that has / wants to scrap its main public ttransport interchange. Idiots.

Believe me - they aren't alone. A few places have done it over the years; Southport for instance built one on the site of Lord Street station and then did away with it about 30 years later.
 

Xenophon PCDGS

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Believe me - they aren't alone. A few places have done it over the years; Southport for instance built one on the site of Lord Street station and then did away with it about 30 years later.

At Southport, the idea was to utilise the former Southport Lord Street CLC railway station, but this is right at the top end of Lord Street, far removed from what is the main part of the town, which is now so very well served by the existing Southport station.

Events convinced the transport mandarins that the Lord Street reconversion was not a success and this site is now part of a large retail complex, which lends itself to being there rather than to impose itself in the centre of the town, which would destroy the carefully preserved image of a genteel shopping experience that is so well marketed by the town-fathers.
 

MidnightFlyer

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Can you clarify your point with regard to the Church of England wanting the land back. Under what terms was the land transferred and when did this occur. Were any special clauses written into the legal documents concerning reversion of ownership. (The Church of England have a large portfolio of land).

Use your learning as obtained from your law studies to investigate these matters and come back on the thread with your answers to these points.

I cannot answer that fully; I'm not trained in contract law or land law. I don't know whether it was a covenant or contract, however as far as I know it was church land (as in greenery) until the arrival of trams back in the late 19th Century, when the terminus for them was built on it; I can only assume the CoE let the land go on condition that they could claim it back when they wished to. It is very hard to obtain 140 year old contracts (that may or may not exist), I'm sure you'll agree.
 

VTPreston_Tez

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I agree with everyone who's posted negatives about this proposal. I don't even think Blackburn needs a new bus station, just covered bus stops outside its railway station (to fit in with the rest of the town :lol:)
 

MidnightFlyer

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I agree with everyone who's posted negatives about this proposal. I don't even think Blackburn needs a new bus station, just covered bus stops outside its railway station (to fit in with the rest of the town :lol:)

What?! 'covered bus stops outside [the] railway station' is the current (covered) bus station!
 
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