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Best sited stations for town/city centre.

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FGW_Lad

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Slough has had its direct route by subway into the central shopping area and the High Street cut off, and now takes double or more the walking time to get there, needing to cross the busiest road in the town on the level, and getting wetter when raining.

Believe me it's better getting wet than using the old subway. I wouldn't have even let Anthony Joshua walk down there alone!
 
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tsr

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St Austell, Penzance, Camborne, and St Ives are all close to the town centre and nearby for shopping or a drink. Much further afield, I seem to recall, Wymess Bay, West Kirby, Norwich, Melton Mowbray are all within a couple of hundred yards of the local station.

The hub of Norwich city centre (ie. for shopping, useful stuff like council offices, and the one or two touristy bits) is quite a bit of an uphill walk from the station... not something I mind myself as it’s fine before or after a long train journey, when I probably would like to have a bit of a walk after sitting down for a bit. But it’s not great if you are elderly / in a wheelchair / have luggage and so on.

There are some smaller offices, the stadium and several supermarkets near the station (although it beats me why you would bother going to a Norwich supermarket by train unless you happen to live in Brundall Gardens and not have a car).

Interchange with the bus station is most exceptionally poor at Norwich - it’s actually better to wait for a once-a-day boat service... I am barely joking.

It’s actually quite a good inverse example of a parkway station for some of the surrounding villages, being as it is an easy drive onto many of the local A roads, if not a quick or quiet drive, especially on match days.

Can I venture London Fenchurch Street? Not much shopping to be had in the City, but FST is very handy for those who work there (lawyers, bankers etc.).

Cannon Street is also pretty good for this, especially with recent construction efforts in the area. Probably still rather underrated off-peak, in particular.

Guildford - as correctly identified, has a horrible walk down one of the most polluted, and accident prone, one way systems in the country. Guildford Station is a example of how not to do Station planning. Network Rail, Surrey Council and Guildford Borough Council have failed to work effectively together to plan the station as a proper transport hub - e.g. Heathrow Southern access coming. Network Rail are redeveloping the town side of the station (Solum Scheme) in a manner that does little to solve access issues including promoting better links between station and town centre. The new Footbridge proposed across the Wey lands pedestrians in a sea of car parks.
So you can have a station near the town centre but if access by foot is ghastly what is the point - time to access AND quality of access are key.

Off topic - Network Rail have now dropped Platform 0 at Guildford on the east side - effectively limiting new line services to current frequency for foreseeable future?

Guildford already has a relatively little-used footbridge from the station over the river, which is a much quieter walk until it also hits the apocalyptic rat run that is the aforementioned one-way system. The problem with it being so little-used is that it tends to attract fairly unpleasant characters at times. The offices around the bridge seem to be vandalised, at least with graffiti, as soon as they are smartened up.

The actual station concourse and taxi area / front car park seem to mainly have suffered from low-quality, cheap-looking materials, poor drainage controls and a rather tedious design. It would be possible to tidy it up quickly and relatively easily. Money also needs to be spent creating some warmth, some more light and better toilets within the station.

The Solum development at Epsom only focussed on the station facade, everything else (literally) being left to rot, so sadly I wouldn’t hold out much hope there.
 

Meerkat

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Guildford station is getting flattened and replaced with identikit big blocks of flats.
Hopefully the station entrance will be brighter and more welcoming
Edit - nope, just bland standard modern drivel
Link to photos of indistinguishable modern development CGI
http://www.guildfordforward.com
 

MarkyT

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Guildford station is getting flattened and replaced with identikit big blocks of flats.
Hopefully the station entrance will be brighter and more welcoming
Edit - nope, just bland standard modern drivel
Link to photos of indistinguishable modern development CGI
http://www.guildfordforward.com

No aesthetic masterpiece perhaps, but I'm sure it will be a brighter and better quality than the current building. The new station square replacing many of the current car parking spaces is a welcome development as well as improvements to the pedestrian bridge route over the Wey. The route into town along the narrow pavement along the Bridge Street gyratory is just horrible with heavy traffic rushing past just inches away and the air quality there must be very poor. I'd close Bridge Street to all traffic, except buses and bikes perhaps, widen the pavements and divert all general traffic in both directions across Friary Bridge.
 

marks87

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Dundee is a 5-minute walk from the main shopping centre (not including waiting for traffic lights).

If/when the waterfront regeneration is complete, it'll be right on top of whatever shops and (other) attractions they put down there (it's already only a 2-minute walk from the V&A and RRS Discovery).
 

duffield

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Yes I will give you Leicester isn't too bad. Nottingham only has one shopping centre now - on the opposite side of town. The old Broadmarsh shopping centre currently has about 6 open stores and is a joke. And it's uphill to the square from the station. Newark Castle not too bad but again like Leicester involves crossing busy roads to access the centre.

I'd agree that the Broadmarsh is currently pretty useless; however, both it and the 'main' Victoria shopping centre are owned by the same group (Intu) and currently they have plans to transform it as part of the area's redevelopment. Unless they end up effectively writing off the Broadmarsh due to the general non-internet retail decline I expect it to be bought up to a similar (or possibly higher) level than the Vic centre within 5-10 years. So I would have been more accurate to say that Nottingham station is currently not very well sited but may become much more so in the near future without it actually moving. :E

Here's some up to date info from Intu - should be a Cinema and 10-pin bowling soon (both apparently 'signed up'): https://intu.co.uk/broadmarsh/news/intu-broadmarsh-is-transforming
 
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I haven't looked at the most recent plans, but understand that the number of retail units has again been scaled back due to the plan to resite the Central Library at Broadmarsh. The redevelopment has been in line for 20 years & we are still waiting.
 

sprunt

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I'd agree that the Broadmarsh is currently pretty useless; however, both it and the 'main' Victoria shopping centre are owned by the same group (Intu) and currently they have plans to transform it as part of the area's redevelopment. Unless they end up effectively writing off the Broadmarsh due to the general non-internet retail decline I expect it to be bought up to a similar (or possibly higher) level than the Vic centre within 5-10 years. So I would have been more accurate to say that Nottingham station is currently not very well sited but may become much more so in the near future without it actually moving. :E

Here's some up to date info from Intu - should be a Cinema and 10-pin bowling soon (both apparently 'signed up'): https://intu.co.uk/broadmarsh/news/intu-broadmarsh-is-transforming

They were planning the Broadmarsh redevelopment, complete with Cinema, bowling alley and a major department store when I moved out of Nottingham. In 2004. Berlin Brandenburg airport will be finished before the Broadmarsh.

That said, there's more to Nottingham City centre than the Broadmarsh and the Victoria Centre. The shopping area starts immediately north of the Broadmarsh,
 

47831

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The entrance to the shopping centre at Eastbourne is now directly opposite the station entrance....
 

duffield

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The redevelopment has been in line for 20 years & we are still waiting.

True, but at least the eyesore car park and bus station has been demolished, so something is happening in the area! (And yes, having lived in Nottingham since 1985 I remember when the 'Broadmarsh 2000' development was announced; perhaps it was a typo for '2020' :E). Anyhow, I fear we're veering too far off-topic now so I'll stop.
 

Silver Cobra

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Skegness is well situated for the main town centre. It's just a short walk over a pelican crossing in front of the station, with the seafront itself around another 5 minutes or so down the high street. The main bus interchange is also just round the corner from the station.
 
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Mikey C

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Edenbridge is well served. Edenbridge Town is very convenient for the town, while you live to the north, the other station is then convenient!
 

61653 HTAFC

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Skegness is well situated for the main town centre. It's just a short walk over a pelican crossing in front of the station, with the seafront itself around another 5 minutes or so down the high street. The main bus interchange is also just round the corner from the station.
It's all very well being handy for the town centre... but largely academic when the town in question is Skegness! ;)
 

Nick Ashwell

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Chepstow is quite literally two minutes walk from the town centre if you don't walk at a snails pace. Admittedly not a major town
 

Lucan

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I vote for Rannock. Everywhere in Rannock is within 100 yards of the station :)
 

sarahj

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Some folks said Newcastle, but it's a plod along Grainger St with the shops becoming more naff the further down. One of the ideas for the metro was better connections as the commercial area moved further north
 

satisnek

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It's actually possible to get from Guildford station to the town centre without crossing any roads, using the subway under Bridge Street/Farnham Road, Friary Bridge and Friary Passage.
 

tsr

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It's actually possible to get from Guildford station to the town centre without crossing any roads, using the subway under Bridge Street/Farnham Road, Friary Bridge and Friary Passage.

Well, yes, if you’re insisting - but it’s not the most attractive route, not especially visible and, well, I wouldn’t do it after dark if I were you...
 

satisnek

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Well, yes, if you’re insisting - but it’s not the most attractive route, not especially visible and, well, I wouldn’t do it after dark if I were you...
Aha, the popular aversion to subways again. Yes, there have been numerous incidents over the past 50 or 60 years, but in this age of daylight LED lighting and inexpensive CCTV there's really no excuse for subways to be in any way foreboding or unsafe. But no, local authorities don't invest in them, their reputation is consolidated and so is created the justification to fill them in and force pedestrians to stand and wait at at-grade crossings. Guildford is guilty - there used to be a subway under Millbrook, with an entrance into Debenhams' basement (complete with emergency flood doors!), Birmingham has raised the elimination of subways into an art form, and don't start me on Leicester! Sorry, but it really grinds my gears.
 

Andyh82

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I wouldn’t say Norwich was that well sited, it’s a good 10min walk from Castle Meadow

Bath Spa is well located, cross the road and you are in Debenhams
 

Deepgreen

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Charing Cross (London) has been mentioned, but I would add that it is actually defined as the centre of London (or rather the actual Cross in the station forecourt is), with all national road distances to London measured from it, and therefore I nominate it as the winner!
 

Deepgreen

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No aesthetic masterpiece perhaps, but I'm sure it will be a brighter and better quality than the current building. The new station square replacing many of the current car parking spaces is a welcome development as well as improvements to the pedestrian bridge route over the Wey. The route into town along the narrow pavement along the Bridge Street gyratory is just horrible with heavy traffic rushing past just inches away and the air quality there must be very poor. I'd close Bridge Street to all traffic, except buses and bikes perhaps, widen the pavements and divert all general traffic in both directions across Friary Bridge.
If other recent such projects are a guide, it will be dire. Take Epsom, for example - not only unnecessarily ugly (in my view anyway) but very poor build quality, with some snagging items STILL not finished many years later! Heavy rain sees the ticket hall entrance flooding badly - scandalous.
 

bastien

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Chippenham is situated pretty much above the High Street, for what that is worth.
 
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