Regeneration X

There are a number of strategies that can breathe life into a dying town. Sadly, the bozos of Walsall council cabinet seem to think that the resuscitation of a stagnant local economy will come about by building a multi-storey car park. The plot, along with any credibility, has clearly been lost.

Figures published by the Local Data Company suggest that one in four shops in Walsall town centre lies empty making Walsall the seventh worst town in the country for vacant retail units. Portfolio holder responsible for degeneration, councillor Adrian Andrew was quick to rubbish the data as “potentially misleading”. Lumping in warehouse and office accommodation, he claims that vacant shops represent only 20 per cent of capacity. Presumably this includes the horticultural goings on at an empty carpet warehouse not a million miles from the cabinet table and the empty rooms above empty shops containing imaginary illegal immigrants being offered postal votes in council elections.

Interestingly, the Tory regeneration member for Pheasey Park Farm suggests that the good news is that the figure of one in five empty shops is nearer to what passes for truth in this sorry borough. This is a little like asking the captain of the Titanic if he would like ice in his gin and tonic.

It is surprising that straw-clutching, blue sky thinking denialist councillor Andrew did not point out that Wolverhampton has 27.3 per cent vacant shops compared to Walsall’s meagre 26.9 per cent making Wolverhampton the fifth worst retail experience in this nation of shopkeepers. Bottom of the heap are Dudley and West Bromwich. It is good to know that a long wait and a short bus journey can convey us to other dying towns using a dying public transport system. The growth regenerating czar then offered a list of businesses who have upped sticks and left town realising that in the hands of the current administration, Walsall is a basket case. But, be of good cheer. HS2 means that we can travel from London Euston to Darlaston in three days rather than four.

Rather than the familiar drone of blaming the previous government, Tory MP for Wolverhampton South West, Paul Uppal has concocted an ingenious rationale that blames charities for the retail blight in town and city centres. Chuggers, it seems, are turning people away from high streets. If you have never heard of chuggers, they are the people who shake collection tins for the likes of Macmillan Nurses, Lifeboats, Air Ambulances and a variety of other worthy causes and are, seemingly, the very basis of Cameron’s Big Society. Mr Uppal wants them banished from the streets. Extensive research involving asking a few of his mates, has convinced the successor to Enoch Powell than chuggers are a bigger problem than extortionate parking charges. Powell died 14 years ago today. If you have never heard of Paul Uppal, you are not alone.

The good and the great around the cabinet table in Walsall will, no doubt, take note of this new excuse for failure. Hmm…charities. That’s good. Yeah, with everyone hard up let’s encourage them to kick beggars. Any other ideas? What? A multi-storey car park? Brilliant. Let’s vote to increase our allowances.

Parking in Walsall town centre is a disaster. Having been out smarted by supermarket giants offering free parking, the nice little earner of council run car parks is a golden goose that now needs therapy and the possible attention of a crash trauma team. As ever with this incompetent cabinet, there is very little in detail, transparency, consultation, accountability or common sense. Scratching in the dirt for anything that remotely resembles a plan, our civic leaders say a multi-storey car park is now the answer.

No site has been identified, no costing proposal has been formulated, no time scale is offered. The need for private sector investment is mentioned as is the possibility of selling off council car parks that are “underused”. The mighty intellect that is Mike Bird, who incidentally made his money by specialising in insolvency, said: “We have got car parks in areas that are no longer used.” Does that mean the car park or the area? An underused car park because of empty shops or empty shops because of an underused car park? It’s difficult to know which came first, the chicken or the golden egg.

Cabinet meet tonight (Wednesday) to discuss, amongst other things, the “redevelopment” of the Old Square shopping centre. The proposal is to hand over the land to property developers Zurich Assurance who will then evict and pay off the current landowners and businesses. For good measure, a huge chunk of space used by market stalls will disappear. The genius of this strategy is that we will be able to enjoy yet another supermarket and, joy of joys, Primark. Should cabinet wish to see supermarket regeneration in action, a quick stroll along nearby George Street will reveal a row of boarded up shops in the shadow of Asda.

There are, however, a number of other strategies that can breathe life into a dying town. Sensible parking charges and the dismissal of a private enforcement company intent on profit rather than service. Waiving business rates for the first year of any new small retail enterprise. Start up grants and, if necessary, loans to small retailers and an end to bowing the knee to multi-national high street giants and property developers. Encourage a diversity of retail outlets that bases a local economy on more than supermarkets, pound shops and purveyors of junk food.

Walsall cabinet, along with other local authorities and the likes of Paul Uppal MP, should have a quiet word with Gideon Osborne and request an immediate cut to the rate of VAT, the reversal of sacking public sector workers who will now be forced onto benefit rather than paying taxes and buying stuff and, if they have the backbone, tell the Chancellor and his millionaire friends to pay their own taxes.

If these radical ideas seem alien to Bird, Andrew and Uppal, perhaps the should consider it as a PFI outsourcing deal with the public. They provide the shops, parking and transport infrastructure and we spend money. It might just work, unlike the ruinous deals with APCOA, Amey and Tarmac.

There is, though, one PFI scam that will induce tremors around the cabinet table. Whisper the name Serco and our civic masters will retreat to a darkened room, place a blanket over their heads, reach for the Prozac and wonder if their reserved parking space in front of the Council House will still be there in May.

Cabinet will discuss the mess left by Serco behind locked doors, well away from the irritating attention of those made to pay the bill. It could be a good night for Prozac shareholders.

Where`s the bin?

First it was Birmingham and then it was Liverpool who had the honour of hosting an annual party political conference. Now Manchester has to endure the hot air, tub-thumping, back-slapping, back-stabbing farce. Surely these cities have suffered enough.

In Birmingham, the Diet Tory leadership of the Liberal Democrats ignored the party membership and told each other how wonderfully they are doing in government. So well, in fact, that yet another “ring of steel” had to be placed around the ICC to protect a very small group of parliamentarians from the very people they claimed to represent. The cost of the police operation was eye watering. The party grandees partying on the top floor of the Hyatt fully support cutting police budgets and workforce yet next year will no doubt expect the same level of protection from the attention of the public. For the public of the West Midlands, however, who paid for the police operation, times are hard, kids, you’re on your own.

In Liverpool, the Labour Party decided to all but remove any reference to people with disabilities out of the conference agenda when discussing welfare reform. Ed Miliband delivered a “risky” speech that managed to annoy just about everyone on the planet and the response the poor sap gave about being “weird” made him seem, well frankly, weird. His advisers should really tell him to blow his nose before he speaks and make some attempt to remember people’s names.

Ed certainly caught a cold when challenged in a Q and A session by the inspirational Kaliya Franklin, also known as @BendyGirl on Twitter. Ed, in an attempt to defend his suggestion that people who are ill and even suffer a disability are “scroungers”, managed to come across as both weird and shallow. No mean feat for an adenoidal light-weight. And Ed, her name is Kaliya, not Harriet. For an insight into the day-to-day reality of living with disability under the coalition and the betrayal of those who should and are able to stand up against discrimination, Kaliya`s Broken of Britain blog is essential reading.

So now the three ring circus has moved on to Manchester and even before the first champagne corked has popped at the Midland Hotel, the Conservatives are celebrating a hugely successful conference. Two carefully placed “announcements” prior to conference ensure standing ovations from the party faithful and acres of front page attention.

Secretary of State for Transport, Philip Hammond, not to be confused with Dr Phil Hammond who actually does make a living as a comedian, announced a proposal to raise the motorway speed limit to 80mph. Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Eric Pickles, not to be confused with another Yorkshire comedian by the name of Wilfred Pickles, announced the miraculous discovery of £250million to empty bins. The good people of Bradford still shudder at the thought of Eric and Wilf.

Now there will be some that might suggest that these proposals are a cynical attempt at placating white van drivers, travelling salesman, curtain twitching Daily Mail readers and Neighbourhood Watch busy bodies and a strategy to ensure the votes of “middle england” that Ed Miliband so covets. This might be so but the Conservatives are smarter than that. By announcing these non-policies prior to conference, the Tories have managed to deflect scrutiny of more serious issues that face the nation and threaten the very viability of society, broken, big or not, and also allow for vanity ovations to grotesques like Hammond and Pickles. More importantly, critics of this hopeless coalition have been duped into turning their fire onto these stupid ideas and are not concentrating on the important threats. The parlous state of the economy under the tutelage of the hapless Osborne, the destruction of education under the idiot Gove, Iain Duncan Smith threatening to withdraw benefits from the terminally ill and Andrew Lansley`s murder of the NHS have been on the back burner for the last few days. Clever, huh?

The arguments against an increased speed limit and weekly bin collections have been well documented and are fairly damning. Hammond, not to be confused with the equally annoying little one with brain damage from Top Gear, claims that most people flaunt the speed limit anyway and so the law should be changed. Using that weird logic, if the coalition is correct in suggesting that most benefit claims are fraudulent in direct contraction to all the evidence, then the law should be changed in favour of claimants and the most vulnerable in our society should not be left to die. With the likes of Cameron, Osborne, Gove and Lansley tailgating their Audi, Merc and BMW nonsense at 100mph in the outside lane with the rest of us stuck behind two lanes of trucks doing 56, it will take more than a mothballed air ambulance to sort out the inevitable mess.

Pickles, not to be confused with the stuff that accompanies pork pies, wants local authorities to be more accountable to their council tax payers and have more independence from central government. He then forces town halls to spend money on emptying bins rather than social care. Nice one Eric, keep taking the tablets.

There is a probably apocryphal story of a newly qualified teacher from the home counties taking up her first teaching job in a village primary school in Yorkshire. At the end of her first day, she sweeps the classroom after a successful craft lesson. The Head Master, a local of literally the old school, enters the classroom to see how she got on. With a dust pan full of litter, the NQT says:
“Where’s the bin?”.

The Head Master, with a face suddenly turned purple, replies:
“Ah`ve bin in`t bloody office. Yerl get nowt round ere lass wi that kind a attitude.”

Perhaps it’s time we showed Eric and his chums exactly where the bin is.

And the winner is…

“The award for best supporting role in a horror journey undertaken by public transport goes to…the plastic hippo.”

Cue applause, standing ovation, follow spots, glitter cannons and Tina Turner singing Simply the Best.
“Wow! Oh My God! I cannot believe it, thank you, thank you. This is the happiest moment of my life. There are so many people I would to thank, all the little people that helped to make this possible. I would like to thank God, my parents and Centro, without them I would not be standing here tonight.

It would be impossible to thank everyone, but there are are those that deserve a special mention. To the driver of the 529 bus from Walsall to Wolverhampton who couldn’t add up the correct fare for me and my travelling companions, thank you. For slamming on the brakes for no apparent reason as we left the bus station, thank you. The bruise on the small boy’s head is now receding. To the two teenage girl passengers loudly arguing over the affections of some slack-jawed youth, thank you. The swearing was magnificent. To the young man smoking dope at the back of the bus, thank you. Respect again for the driver. For waiting for two minutes at every bus stop and driving like a maniac between stops, thank you. For parking outside Wolverhampton bus station and refusing to let us off even though we told you that we had a train to catch, thank you. For entering the bus station at two miles an hour when the speed limit is ten, thank you. For explaining the regulations to us before finally opening the door of the bus, thank you.

To the smokers congregated outside Wolverhampton railway station who, seeing us running down the ramp to catch the train, refused to get out of the way, thank you. To the passengers on the platform waiting for a later train, blocking access with your heavy luggage to the train about to depart is nothing short of genius. To the fellow travellers occupying our reserved seats, booked weeks in advance, “f**k off, sit somewhere else” is not the correct response. To the young man playing car alarm hip hop on his phone, thank you for the audio toothache. To the fat man in a vest who sprayed me with Special Brew as he opened one of his cans at ten in the morning, thank you. To the beautifully dressed middle-aged lady who decided to leave her suitcase on the table rather than in the luggage rack and so left us unable to play travel chess, travel backgammon and travel connect four, thank you. To the train guard who failed to grasp the meaning of a family rail card, thank you. To the operative dragging the refreshment trolley, £1-80 for a cup of tea and £1 for a packet of crisps, no thank you very much.

The return journey featured a broken toilet full of vomit, four old people eating fish and chips and about eight young people throwing bits of pizza at each other. Thank you, one and all. Back at Wolverhampton bus station, special thanks must go to a different driver of the 529 bus who, seeing us rush to the stand with our luggage, closed the door as the small, bruised boy attempted to board. To the driver, for his cheery smile as he drove away, thank you. Thanks as well to whoever decided that it should cost 20p for a small boy to go to the toilet. No wonder your lovely new bus station stinks of wee.

Okay, I know, I know I’m running far too long, but there are some more people that need thanking. To the architects of the Walsall and Wolverhampton bus stations, thank you. Keep trying to walk upright, you may achieve something. To the decision makers that approved the designs, thank you. You can find the number for the Samaritans in the phone book. To whoever decided to cut the direct rail link between Walsall and Wolverhampton, I wish you a slow and lingering death and whoever decided to privatise public transport, well, you are the true stars tonight. My achievement is absolutely nothing compared to your hard work, talent and ability in turning something that was reasonably adequate into something that is dreadful. Thank you. And finally, to my fellow nominees. I am not worthy to be up here tonight. This award is dedicated to those who have to use public transport to get to work, to hospitals, to schools and then get back again. Thank you.

I’ll see you at the after show party. Good night Burbank and thank you.”

Cue applause, laser beams, a hug from Martin Scorsese and a kiss from Rene Zellweger.

Surf`s up

Heavy rain, delays, aquaplaning cars, near misses, dangerous overtaking and the ever present threat of death or serious injury. The Montreal Grand Prix? No, for sheer excitement, try the Arboretum junction on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

The Japanese have more than 40 words that describe rain. This poetic language with its rich vocabulary is able to define precipitation with nuances derived from time-of-day, location, season, intensity and duration. This precision would have helped Kamui Kobayashi, who eventually finished seventh in Montreal, to communicate to the pit lane the nature of the challenge caused by the wet stuff falling on the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. For visitors to the Pelsall Canal Festival, the Cosford Air Show and hungry hippos heading to Morrisons for snacks and booze, it was, however, simply chucking it down.

Negotiating our wonderful ring road is fraught with danger even at the best of times. Be it on foot, bicycle, Ferrari, canal barge or vintage Spitfire, the transport artery that was supposed to save Walsall is not for the faint hearted. Add a bucket full of rain, and it becomes lethal, particularly at the Arbo junction. Having cost £23million, £5million over budget and delivered very, very late, you would think that someone would have thought about draining rainfall from the carriageways. Sadly this is not the case.

Whenever it rains, a stretch of open water forms at the gates of the Arboretum and lies in wait beyond a blind bend ready to swamp unwary motorists approaching from the direction of Rushall. Needing all the skill and concentration of Michael Schumacher simply to find the correct lane, the last thing a driver needs is to run into an unplanned extension of Hatherton Lake. Pedestrians too, take their lives into their hands, or rather their waders, when crossing the junction. Avoiding the considerable bow wave created by an amphibian 4 x 4 and the walls of water thrown up by every other vehicle is all but impossible. Adding to this the treacherous alluvial slime deposited on the pavements which remains even after the floods have receded, the junction requires a fleet of safety cars and a large team of marshals waving yellow flags.

If the regular flooding at the Arboretum gates is the result of a single blocked drain, then a quick Fix My Street report should solve the problem. Sadly, a Fix My Town website has yet to be established. When it rains, and it does quite often rain in England, the entire length of the new ring road is punctuated with pools of standing water, particularly around pedestrian crossings. Helpful “Look Left” signs painted on the floor are barely visible under inches of murky rain and the latest must-have fashion statement for any walker or cyclist is to wear a designer Walsall puddle kicked up by passing cars.

When the ring road “improvement” was being proposed, an amusing urban myth developed suggesting that the head honcho of road planning in Walsall did not have, and had never had, a driving licence. That might explain the design of the Arbo junction but it is clearly preposterous and a mischievous myth. Or is it?

Desperate to justify the wasted millions, over the last couple of years the good and the great at Walsall council pop up every so often to tell us how great the ring road is. Drivers commuting from Land’s End to John o`Groats via Walsall have seen their journey time slashed by up to three seconds, they say. There is nothing wrong with the construction of the road, we just keep digging it up because we are looking for a second Staffordshire Hoard. The Arboretum junction is safe and has eradicated congestion. It’s true, honest. It has to be true because traffic flow was modelled by computer. Ah ha, so the head honcho that designed the ring road is not only devoid of a driving licence, but also lacks any possibility of cognitive reasoning.

The ring road is a disaster and is an accident waiting to happen. Quite how two or even three lanes of traffic are supposed to merge into a single carriageway without warning over a distance of about 20 yards is proof that the computer, if not having full artificial intelligence, at least has a sense of humour. When the Arbo junction was a humble roundabout, walking from the town centre to Walsall’s green lung took about five minutes and involved two pedestrian crossings. Now it takes 10 minutes, seven crossings, stress and uncertainty and, on a bad day, a lake. The computer seems to have broken the first rule of Isaac Asimov’s three rules of robotics, namely: “A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.” Naughty computer.

Amazingly, the firm responsible for constructing the water gardens, Norwest Holst, are demanding yet more money from the council for their shoddy and inadequate work and Tesco, for whom the ring road was constructed, are doing very nicely thank you. As for the fibre optics buried beneath the tarmac intended to feed the white elephant Gigaport; they are being turning into a dish of sushi and noodles.

To experience the excitement, spectacle and, more importantly, cars out of control in the wet during a motor race, there is no need to travel to Montreal. Just pick a rainy day, wear a wet suit and stand at the gates of the Arboretum. Thrill seekers wishing for a further rush of adrenaline might even risk driving across the sheets of surface water.

The Japanese, of course, have a word for this this kind of activity; “seppuku”, or in its debased form, “harakiri”.

Hold fast that which is good

There are very few examples of architecture that can provoke stunned open-mouthed amazement. The Trafford Centre in Manchester is one such building, but for all the wrong reasons.

A recent visit to Manchester required enduring the “quality retail experience” of the sprawling mega-mall between the Bridgewater and Manchester Ship canals. The Lego Discovery Centre might lie within the boundaries of the vast shopping complex, but the building shares none of the charm and all of the pain of an unseen Lego brick encountering the sole of a bare foot on the upstairs landing in the dead of night. Quiet understatement is not an epithet attributable to the Trafford Centre.

The notion of a gargantuan, out-of-town űber plaza is a curious concept. On the one hand, placing a variety of retail outlets in one location would seem to make sense if a canny developer was intent on catering for the day-to -day needs of the consumer. On the other hand, however, accessing the goodies on sale is only possible by car or the poorer relation that is public transport. Car parks outnumber the shops and it is impossible to reach the treasure on foot. There are no pavements or pedestrian crossings on the six lane highways that encircle the drive-in superstores designed, it seems, as a kind of moat to keep the shoppers in rather than keeping marauding bandits out.

The idea of everything close together is not new; it’s called a village or a town centre. The point that the developers have missed is that the needs of consumers cannot be imposed because needs constantly change as communities evolve. Gathering together for communal protection against wolves, bears and foreigners, people needed to buy stuff like food, woad and sacrificial goats. Luxuries like soap would have to wait until the blacksmiths became a garage, the bank became a wine bar, the school became a detention centre, the church became a ruin and the pub became a bonfire. Huge supermarket chains, who seem to think that their brand name should end in a vowel to induce familiar joviality, opened massive aircraft hangers filled with dubious provender on ring roads and near to motorway junctions. Traditional and ancient market squares evolved into urinals ringed by charity shops and mobile phone outlets and occupied by surly youth and bewildered dossers.

The Trafford Centre is of a different kidney than the bland missile silos of out-of-town hypermarkets. Costing £600million to build, it opened in 1998 and is characterised by a rather strange mock rococo architectural style. Along with murals depicting Mediterranean scenes, there are portraits of the developers in the garb of Roman emperors and a vast replication of the deck of an ocean liner in the cavernous food hall. Subtle it is not and the place displays the crass ornamentation of lottery winner chic. If it had a soul, the Trafford Centre would be delighted to be described as a Temple of Mammon. With a 20 screen cinema, 60 fast food outlets and acres of prime retail floor space, everything on sale is a luxury. An attempt to buy a bag of apples ended in fruitless failure.

As ghastly as the interior is, it was left to the exterior main entrance of the grandly named Great Hall to take the breath away. A centurion, flanked by a Gryphon and a Unicorn sat atop the pillared entrance. Reclining pert trumpeters, full size plastic palm trees and fibre glass “Roman” statues completed the scene. Strangely, each statue had the same title according to the plaques at the base. “Children must be supervised. Do not climb”. The artists remain uncredited.

Above the main doors, the borough motto of Trafford has been chiselled, or more probably moulded, into the pre-stressed concrete. “Hold fast that which is good”. For some reason, the hoards of shopper decided to ignore this advice and were not attempting to pull down this monstrosity using only their bare hands.

After escaping the temple and travelling past the boarded up shops, derelict pubs and abandoned cafés of Trafford and Hulme and beyond, at least local people unable to find apples will know where they can get their hands on some good quality sushi, some Vivienne Westwood haute couture and something cuddly from the Disney store. All major cards accepted.