However, it was a sort of dominant building for residents of Northampton yesterday, as around lunchtime anarchy descended on the users of the roads of the central area. Turning into an episode of On The Buses without the added seventies humour, roads around the new £7 million bus station (interchange) became gridlocked.
That place of modern talk Twitter became alive with activity about it, people trapped, people laughing, people saying I told you so.
For my part I had remained relatively silent on the ins and out of the situation as a relatively rare bus user due to my central location. However many knew better, this new building was never going to work they said. I saw a mention on Twitter that people stating "I told you so" was distasteful, a lot of people were seriously being inconvenienced. However what where they meant to do? They had put up for months the council saying it was vital and was going to work.
Many of these people knew it was not going to work because they were bus users. Much of this had been thrown up in a generally ignored public consultation anyway. Local people, the voting public were concerned that neither the size or location was correct. On first inspection yesterday, it appears they were right.
The old bus station is a mess and needed replacing. The first part is correct there, I have seen it. However if you have a building that you haven't touched for the best part of thirty years, its going to be a mess. Greyfriars problem wasn't the building, it was the countless administrations that had neglected it.
However we are now stuck with our new building, so somehow they are going to have to work out how to use it. On BBC Look East, Mr Hadland explained that they would work through the night to make sure the chaos did not happen again. With a latter statement, this turned out to be a trip to the DIY shop to buy a lot of yellow paint and even more oddly to enforce a law that should have already been active. We shall see today, if any of this works.
*
Last night Mr Hadland was incorrectly introduced as Leader of Northampton Borough Council, an interesting moment, whether mistake or intent. Maybe, quite rightly the BBC thought that such an important event would result in the Leader being the only person being put forward to speak and assumed he was? Turns out that on the very first day of proper activity at the station, Mr Mackintosh was unavailable mostly. Convenient? Couldn't possibly say.
*
Abington Street reopening, pray tell? Much like the bus station, the majority of responses have been against this taking place and with the cars driving up it and out of Wellington Street, they will be heading straight into yesterdays motionless Greyfriars. Maybe a quick rethink might be required for this? However on past experience, it doesn't look like Mr Mackintosh is a man for turning. Well except from turning away when the doo doo hits the fan, just ask Mr Hadland...
No comments:
Post a Comment