Preston Bus Station to be demolished

[snail]

*Demolish the covered market

About time too. The bus station is simply too big and expensive, the covered market is a dump.

 

[PR1Berske]

I hope this "mystery man" (the businessman was not named) has deep enough pockets to overturn both council's decisions. One lives in hope.

The covered markets are not a dump, snail, and you know they're not. As with the bus station, they must be safe and sound enough for the Council to allow them to remain in use. The escalators aren't out of service, the doors aren't off their hinges, the lights aren't dropping onto peoples heads, it's a perfectly functional building.

It's historic vandalism of the highest order to demolish so much of the council in what is supposed to be Guild Year.

 

[MidnightFlyer]

Can someone remind me what / where the covered market is? My mind's gone blank

 

[snail]

The covered markets are not a dump, snail, and you know they're not.

I am talking about the indoor market, I presume that's what the council mean as well as the outdoor canopies are protected structures. It's another legacy from the 60's. Horrible concrete and metal, low ceilings and harsh lighting. Hard to get from one level to another without using stairs or an old escalator and topped off with a grotty car park.

If they can get Heritage Lottery funding or similar to enclose the canopies that would make a wonderful space and is probably big enough to fit most of the stalls.

They should, though, take a close look at what has happened in Lancaster where the council borrowed far too much money to rebuild their indoor market and it's now had to close because tenants couldn't afford the rents and moved out in droves.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Can someone remind me what / where the covered market is? My mind's gone blank

It's the indoor Market Hall, adjacent to the outdoor market canopies. The other side of the canopies is the Town Hall. The proposed demolition site includes Lancastria House, which is next to the Market Hall on Lancaster Road.

 

[MidnightFlyer]

Cheers, I'd completely forgotten about the indoor Preston market, I was thinking of the one under the old canopies.

 

[PR1Berske]

The story from the LEP. I assume that not putting an opinion to this won't break forum rules, given that my opinions are very much known

Published on Monday 17 December 2012 18:59

Town Hall bosses in Preston have agreed “in principle” to demolish Preston Bus Station.

The six-man cabinet of the city’s council debated whether to progress with plans to demolish Preston Bus Station and press ahead with the redevelopment of Preston’s historic markets at its monthly meeting on Monday night.

And after a discussion lasting more than 30 minutes, cabinet bosses agreed at just before 6.50pm to demolish the bus station “in principle” and build a new station for the city.

Council leader Coun Peter Rankin outlined a number of “caveats” to decision, including that the authority is happy to talk to anyone who wants to invest in the existing building - but stressed they must have a sound business case.

He also wants a Preston Council-backed study of the station to get a second opinion on a £17m refurbishment figure arrived at by consultants engaged by Lancashire County Council.

Councillors also heard that the design of the new station would need to be negotiated and agreed with Lancashire County Council.

Coun Rankin said the authority had already been approached by one wealthy individual about investment.

And the decision is likely to be called in by the council’s scrutiny panel, meaning there will be more discussions.

The matter will then likely come back before cabinet in the new year.

The debate on the future of the station started at just before 6.20pm.

Preston Council deputy leader Coun John Swindells told the meeting demolition of the station would “be like ripping the heart out of Preston”, but he still believed it would be the “right decision”.

City Council chief executive Lorraine Norris told the meeting discussions have been held with land owners and developers to find a solution but there has been no interest from the private sector.

She started discussions by outlining five options for the bus station - refurbishment, replacement (two separate options), demolition and decommission.

She also told the meeting the station currently operates 80 bays - but could operate with 36 or fewer.

The meeting also heard Lancashire County Council has reached the conclusion that the cost of refurbishment would not be value for money. It would cost £17m to refurbish it according to consultants appointed by County Hall, councillors were told.

Coun Rankin suggested the authority should get a second opinion on the costs being quoted and another survey should be carried out.

Resources chief Coun Martyn Rawlinson said he was “sceptical” about the £17m figure, but suggested it could still be at least £10-12m.

He added the council “could not take the risk” and only Lancashire County Council could.

Cabinet member Coun Robert Boswell told the meeting he felt it would be “grossly unfair for people of Preston to pay so much to bankrupt Preston” to pay for the building.

He claimed many people would suffer if council decide to keep bus station and it would saddle Preston with massive debts.

Earlier in the meeting, a recommendation to demolish Preston’s markets and redevelop them were also approved by the cabinet.

Ms Norris told the meeting the recommendation was that the market hall should be demolished with the car park and the markets should be relocated.

She said a condition survey of the market hall in 1999 showed £9.5m of investment required over 10 years but there is only £5m available to spend.

She explained there is “no business case” in investment in existing building and so the recommendation is demolition.

Coun Rankin said there was a report due at the end of January with regard to plans for the market and traders would be consulted.

He said the markets were “central to regeneration” of the city.

Deputy leader Coun Swindells said it was important to have a viable solution adding that the Town Hall cannot afford repeat of Lancaster markets which has closed due to high rents.

The cabinet voted in favour of the recommendation to demolish the markets and move to a redevelopment before moving on to the bus station.

If the cabinet votes in favour of all the proposals, the council will have decided in principle to raze the building, widely considered one of the country’s best examples of post-war brutalist architecture.

The council has said it would then open talks with Lancashire County Council, the authority which runs buses in the county, about the future of bus provision in the city.

But, in an opinion piece written for the Lancashire Evening Post, council leader Peter Rankin said the door was still open for a last-minute investment package to save the building, which the authority has said costs it £300,000-a-year to keep open.

He said: “We have talked to developers and they could not make it pay but we are happy to talk to anyone about investing in the current bus station building - as long as they are serious investors with money.

“But they need to be quick.

“The declining state of the building and moreover the diminishing state of the council’s finances mean that a decision has to be taken soon.”

Around 15 members of the public were in attendance at the meeting, with almost 50 more following proceedings on a live webcast from the Town Hall.

 

[snail]

Cheers, I'd completely forgotten about the indoor Preston market, I was thinking of the one under the old canopies.

It is very forgettable!
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Around 15 members of the public were in attendance at the meeting, with almost 50 more following proceedings on a live webcast from the Town Hall.

Interesting numbers, given the apparent massive interest in this decision. What happened to the protest?

 

[PR1Berske]

From BlogPreston

"

Speaking after the meeting, Cllr Rankin said: “Our preferred option would be to refurbish Preston Bus Station. We have spent time and effort looking at refurbishment as an option. But at up to £23m it is simply beyond what the Council can afford. Although we have asked for a second opinion on these costs to be sure before any final decision is made.

“We are in the age of austerity and are facing huge cuts to our budgets and services. In this climate, we cannot even afford to fund all the repairs that are needed at the Bus Station. The building is also expensive to run – costing taxpayers £297,000 a year just to keep open.

“We do understand that many people are passionate about the Bus Station and there is no doubt that it is a striking building – so it is very much a heart and a head dilemma that we face.

“But at the end of the day we have to vote with our heads. It is cheaper and better value for money to taxpayers to demolish the building and then work with Lancashire County Council to build a new modern, smaller and fit for purpose Bus Station in its place.

“That is not to say that the bulldozers will arrive tomorrow, next week or indeed next month. We’ve already had some private developer interest in the building. We will talk to any serious investors with a proposition to invest in it for the future.

“However, we cannot wait forever. The deteriorating state of the building and moreover the Council’s finances means that we must move ahead soon.”"

 

[90019]

Accura - your post is expansive but filled with a personal bias which negates most of your points.

 

[Accura]

Accura - your post is expansive but filled with a personal bias which negates most of your points.

Erm...

Now I am reminded that this forum requires OPs to put forward their views to encourage debate.

Now then...

Further, you say it's too big and in the wrong place. You'll be pleased to know, then, that the replacement (at £15m cost, at the least) is set to be at the same place as the current bus station. So 12 years of saying "It's in the wrong place" now fades to nothing, they're building it at the same location.

Funnily enough I'm not a member of a council, and I don't simply channel their views. I do believe the bus station is in the wrong place, and demolishing the existing one to replace it with another in the same place would be a wasted opportunity IMO... not the tragedy that some people in Preston seem to think it is.

 

[stanley T]

My only reaction is purely visual - that is hideous, the worst sort of brutalist architecture, and surely will not be missed.

Can't they find somewhere to put a replacement next to the rail station, though, and create a proper interchange?

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Accura - your post is expansive but filled with a personal bias which negates most of your points.

The 'bias' in Accura's post appeared to me to be his perceptions based on actually using the bus station (and as it happens his experiences match mine: Preston bus station is not in my mind a pleasant place to use as a passenger). Surely the experiences of people who use the bus station are extremely important to deciding whether the bus station is worth keeping.

Further, you say it's too big and in the wrong place. You'll be pleased to know, then, that the replacement (at £15m cost, at the least) is set to be at the same place as the current bus station. So 12 years of saying "It's in the wrong place" now fades to nothing, they're building it at the same location.

That is to some extent a fair point. My view too is that the bus station is too far from the shops. However, I think that's not so much to do with the location of the bus station with its design as an island. You probably could put a new bus station in roughly the same place, but if you put the bays along the Western edge of the site with direct access to the shops, it would become much more convenient to access, largely removing the 'wrong location' objection to the site. Of course whether a new bus station is designed in that way remains to be seen.

 

[WestCoast]

What always strikes me is that the whole Preston Bus station complex just seems less well-used and more neglected these days. I also include the adjacent Guild Hall Shopping Arcade in that, which is connected via the Skywalk to the car park. I can't remember whether the Subway from the Centre to the station is still open. I vaguely remember that place being so much busier with a Morrisons (?) store generating more foot traffic through to the Bus Station. These days it's in a sorry state.

Of course, there's an arrangement with the crossings which negates having bridges and subways (although I don't blame users as they are rather grotty)

I wouldn't say Preston Bus Station was ugly, it's a surprisingly streamlined Modernist building. Compared to Blackpool Bus Station, which has been closed to local buses for so many years (recently NX have been relocated as well), locals just can't wait for the council to finally demolish it and get started on the new interchange!

 

[Class20]

Both subways are still open for use. As mentioned many times already, very few people use them due to their condition. As a result people chose to risk it by crossing the bus apron. Something that was made semi-permanent with the creation of the three pedestrian crossings. But even these are not great, they help you to access the bus station but you're still left with having to cross the roads with circumnavigate it.

I think there are more empty shops in the Guild Hall arcade then there are open. The old Morrisons store has been through a number of different identities but has been empty for a number of years now.

 

[WestCoast]

I don't have the need to go near Preston Bus Station very often, but I do remember the crossings being set-up, essentially as a safety measure.

My point about the Guild Arcade was that when the area was much busier (i.e when Morrisons or whatever came next were still open), that subway was a lot busier and people felt comfortable using it.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Apologies if these points have already been clarified previously, but....

1)...Why was there a need to have so many stances when Preston bus station was first constructed.

2)...What has been the maximum number of stances that saw regular daily service provision and in what year was this.

 

[radamfi]

Does the large size of Preston bus station have anything to do with wanting to maximise the car park capacity? If the bus station was half the size then there would have needed to be twice as many storeys to the car park to accommodate the same number of cars.

Having buses arriving perpendicular means you can cram in the maximum number of stands. Given the size of the place, you would have thought it would have been possible to design it so that buses don't need to reverse. For example, Stockport bus station is vast but has far fewer stands than Preston. I wonder how much bigger Preston bus station is compared to the one in Stockport in actual surface area.

Nearly all bus stations in London and Greater Manchester that I can think of don't require buses to reverse. I can only think of Kingston Cromwell Road and part of Middleton bus station that require reversing in those areas. Reversing also doesn't seem to be popular in mainland Europe. The usual design is to have little islands meaning that buses can drive right through without reversing, like this:

http://www.nlwandel.nl/Album/NS-Tongelreep (Waalre-Heeze)/slides/01 Busstation Eindhoven.html

 

[Deerfold]

Interestingly, all the new bus station in West Yorkshire require the bus to reverse - the benefit is that passengers can enter the bus station and get to their stand without the need to cross (m)any roads (depending where they're coming from there may be some on the way, obviously) and never any within the bus station.

Bradford is a mix, with most services reversing out but a few services (including those run by bendybuses) drawing up parallel.

Bradford Interchange used to have an enormous number of stands. I believe there used to be 7 structures the length of the current one with about 12 stands on each (all with the bus drawing up parallel to the building).

There was lots of room, but there was a high chance if you wanted to change buses you'd have to use 2 escalators/stairs/lifts.

The land for four of the structures was sold off to Alliance & Leicester (now Santander) and later the remaining three were demolished and replaced by the current much wider structure. Fewer services use the bus station than used to at its peak in the late 80s (since then many cross city services have started to use city centre stops such as Hall Ings instead , before then many NBC services used to terminate at Forster Square). There are now about 30 stands.

The downside with the current building is that there is limited scope for adding additional services which use the bus station (and they don't have a map of where services go from so if the system which shows which buses are due next fails you have to go round looking at the timetable at each stand).

 

[snail]

Did anyone hear the woman on Radio 4 last night going on about the bus station being one the last examples of Brutalist Architecture in the country? Emphatic that the bus station should be saved but no offers of contributing anything towards paying for it.

 

[radamfi]

It sounds like that the Get Carter car park in Gateshead should have been preserved to enable the demolition of Preston bus station.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Nearly all bus stations in London and Greater Manchester that I can think of don't require buses to reverse. I can only think of Kingston Cromwell Road and part of Middleton bus station that require reversing in those areas.

The modern bus and coach station at Manchester Airport Interchange is of the "reversing" type.

 

[radamfi]

The modern bus and coach station at Manchester Airport Interchange is of the "reversing" type.

Also just remembered the Trafford Centre bus station. Trafford Centre bus station is not managed by TfGM and presumably neither is the airport one. I assume GMPTE had limited input into the designs of these facilities given how different they are to other bus stations in GM.

The old Manchester Airport bus station was typical GMPTE fare.

 

[tbtc]

The bus station reminds me of Park Hill Flats in Sheffield - something that was a good idea at the time but doesn't meet what is required in 2012.

Did anyone hear the woman on Radio 4 last night going on about the bus station being one the last examples of Brutalist Architecture in the country? Emphatic that the bus station should be saved but no offers of contributing anything towards paying for it.

It sounds like that the Get Carter car park in Gateshead should have been preserved to enable the demolition of Preston bus station.

Hence my mention of Sheffield's own "brutal" slab of concrete - an interesting idea architecturally (like Preston), but that doesn't mean we should be forced to live with it today.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Also just remembered the Trafford Centre bus station. Trafford Centre bus station is not managed by TfGM and presumably neither is the airport one. I assume GMPTE had limited input into the designs of these facilities given how different they are to other bus stations in GM.

The old Manchester Airport bus station was typical GMPTE fare.

Macclesfield and Burnley bus stations are another ones to consider and perhaps the one outside Nelson railway station.

 

[PR1Berske]

The 20th Century Society are to make a third bid for listed status, the local paper reports today.

 

[MidnightFlyer]

And are they going to actively help maintain it or do what so many do and get it listed but then contribute in no way whatsoever to its maintenance, and expect someone else to foot the bill for their efforts?

 

[90019]

And are they going to actively help maintain it or do what so many do and get it listed but then contribute in no way whatsoever to its maintenance, and expect someone else to foot the bill for their efforts?

Considering that all they seem to have done so far is make a lot of noise, try and disrupt council meetings and not actually do anything proactive to try and save it, I'd say it's the latter.

 

[tbtc]

And are they going to actively help maintain it or do what so many do and get it listed but then contribute in no way whatsoever to its maintenance, and expect someone else to foot the bill for their efforts?

Considering that all they seem to have done so far is make a lot of noise, try and disrupt council meetings and not actually do anything proactive to try and save it, I'd say it's the latter.

Sounds about right, and means that Preston will be left with an awkward ugly building that isn't really fit for much purpose. We've had similar problems with English Heritage here in Sheffield with them trying to "list" some ugly lumps of concrete - leaving the council trying to find a way of accomodating such monoliths that it cannot bulldoze...

It's a bit like preserving rail locos - easy to "save" something from the scrap, a lot harder to maintain it with any real modern function!

 

[6Gman]

Apologies if these points have already been clarified previously, but....

1)...Why was there a need to have so many stances when Preston bus station was first constructed.

2)...What has been the maximum number of stances that saw regular daily service provision and in what year was this.

1) I rather suspect there was no need!

2) On my early visits I suspect something like 60-65 had some theoretical use. By 'theoretical' I mean that some of the uses were pretty limited. For example a couple of stands were designated for use by local independents' excursions - so half an hour's use a couple of times a week. Maybe!

 

[starrymarkb]

Sounds about right, and means that Preston will be left with an awkward ugly building that isn't really fit for much purpose. We've had similar problems with English Heritage here in Sheffield with them trying to "list" some ugly lumps of concrete - leaving the council trying to find a way of accommodating such monoliths that it cannot bulldoze...

It's a bit like preserving rail locos - easy to "save" something from the scrap, a lot harder to maintain it with any real modern function!

And the Plymouth Civic Centre. Public wants it knocked down as it's a hideous monstrosity. Council want to rebuild it as it wasn't built very well and is falling apart. Plus the sale of the prime city centre land would pay for a lot of council services.

English Heritage then go and list it (after a lot of noise from a few architects) so the city is stuck with a badly built monolith that needs about £20m of rennovations