We can see the remains of the road system of this former industrial site, now colonised by brambles and greenery, the imposition of earth mounds and fly tipping.
Heaton Lane car park is closed while demolition works take place.
Plans to demolish the car park were submitted by Stockport Council in September this year.
The plans propose removing the multi-storey car park down to ‘slab level’
The work itself will be carried out by removing floor slabs one by one from the parking bays, from the ground upwards. Contractor PP O’Connor has said it will take noise and dust into consideration when completing the works.
Dust suppression systems will be in place to minimise pollution.
Noise levels are not considered likely to be a nuisance, however the site manager will be able to review the demolition process if it’s deemed too high.
There car park is almost at the heart – on the edge of plans to regenerate the town centre.
The Strategic Regeneration Framework for Stockport Town Centre West set out how up to 4,000 new homes and 1m sq. ft of new employment floorspace and 5,300 new jobs could be delivered across Town Centre West by 2035.
In order to assess the overall economic benefit of an expanded Mayoral development area Stockport Council have developed an SRF for Stockport Town Centre East. This SRF sets out an illustrative masterplan to guide the creation of Stockport’s new neighbourhoods and achieve comprehensive urban regeneration by 2040. Together the SRFs for Town Centre West and Town Centre East will guide the development of a total of 8,000 new homes alongside services and amenities. The development set out in the SRFs will drive a transformational impact on the Stockport economy.
The Corporation is expected to be established in early 2026. It will provide a single, focused body for local decision-making; engagement with stakeholders including government departments, public agencies; private sector landowners, and developers; and to drive investment across the public and private sectors to realise the shared vision for the regeneration of the Area.
The iconic Rainbow Bridge on the A55 has been lit up to say thank you to NHS, social care staff and other key workers.
This well-known landmark lived up to its name on Tuesday night when it was bathed in rainbow colours alongside a thank you message projected onto the nearby cliffside.
This one-off tribute to staff from the health and care sectors and other key workers who are working tirelessly during the Covid-19 pandemic, was arranged by the North and Mid Wales Trunk Road Agent.
The walkway over the A55, colloquially known as Rainbow Bridge, is situated on the strategic road network which NMWTRA is responsible for maintaining and managing on behalf of the Welsh Government.
The A55 partly follows the alignment of the Roman road from Chester to Caernarfon, particularly from Junction 31 to 30 and Junction 13 to 12. Between Chester and Holywell the alignment of this road is uncertain and between St. Asaph and Abergwyngregyn, the Roman road followed an inland route, via Canovium Roman Fort at Caerhun, avoiding the difficulties of the crossing of the Conwy estuary and the cliffs at Penmaenbach and Pen-y-Clip.
On 1 April 1937, the route, as it was then, was classed to form the Chester–Bangor trunk road. By 2015, the Welsh Governmentwas also classifying part of the road as part of the London–Holyhead trunk road.
So much for modern motoring – I was walking from Rhyl to Colwyn Bay, so decided to walk back and forth across the bridge, before going along my merry way.
Steep and stepped, it certainly would not be described as accessible.
Other Concrete Footbridges are available – here in Durham and closer to home in Stockport.
Old Colwyn just short of the original Colwyn Bay station. In 1929 a pleasure boat is about to depart. Penmaen Head is still in one piece with its quarry jetty. The path can be seen leading directly from the beach to the platform and to the underpass which is still in use today.
It seems that you are not long for this world – destined for an ultra elevated multi-storey heaven.
An eyesore Northern Quarter car park is to be demolished to make way for a new development. Four new public squares will be built, the council has announced.
MEN
Glenbrook’s proposal for the 1.5-acre site, designed by Tim Groom Architects, will feature 20% affordable provision, in line with the city council’s aspirations.
The new neighbourhood will also feature four public squares and green spaces, a flexible community and gallery space, and commercial units for local independent businesses and food and beverage outlets.
“The Church St site represents a unique opportunity in the heart of the Northern Quarter, a neighbourhood and community that is alive with energy and creativity, and Glenbrook is delighted to play an important role in its future growth,” said Ian Sherry, director at Glenbrook.
An express bus ride away from Newcastle City Centre – arriving in Peterlee, with a clear intent to wander around and look at housing.
There have been many alterations and amendments made, in the short time since the inception of the Masterplan. Flat roofs have largely been and gone, timber replaced by uPVC, what remains is an interesting array of building types set in an attractive rolling landscape.
Stafford Station – Multi-Storey Car Park Station Road ST16 2AA
Arriving by train one Saturday morning at the Stafford Station, with time on my hands, I thought to take a look at the adjacent multi-storey car park.
As a pedestrian I found it to be first rate, clean and well signed and designed, easy access by both stairways and lifts, affording panoramic views of the town.
I have been here before recording the history ofManchester City FC on this site.
A football stadium surrounds by railways, roads, homes and industry.
The area is now much changed, though the railways and roads remain, the homes are in a state of flux.
Local Image Collection: Bennett Street with Heywood House 1972 – photo Anne Jackson.
Local Image Collection: Wenlock Way flats taken from Bennett Street – Photo Ben Garth 1972
Local Image Collection: Matthews Street from Bennett Street 1964 – Photo Thomas Brooks
The Gateway to the Simple Life is here.
Situated in Ardwick, one mile outside of Manchester’s vibrant city centre, The Gateway is a distinctive development offering a collection of homes and apartments to rent.
Enjoy living in the prime location of Manchester’s bustling city centre, where there is a vast range of employment opportunities, cafes, bars and restaurants. All year round, you can benefit from various fun days out with events and activities available on your doorstep.
In addition to the apartments there is a mixed development of terraced, detached and semi-detached homes.
We pride ourselves on building places you can call your forever home, knowing it won’t be sold from beneath your feet. We offer renters a whole new experience which brings together the best of both worlds – all the perks of a private rental with the added excitement for customers at the start of a development to choose their own plot and watch it being built.
With home ownership becoming unaffordable for some and an unappealing lifestyle choice for others, we meet the need for a high quality home which still feels secure in the long term.
In recent years these homes have been under threat of both demolition and refurbishment.
Rochdale Boroughwide Housing – RBH had sought help from a developer to pay for its £107m plans to refurbish the College Bank high-rise apartments, known in the town as the Seven Sisters.
But the social housing landlord has been unable to reach a commercially viable agreement to help improve the blocks where 250 people live.
Amanda Newton, RBH chief executive said the lack of a deal was disappointing but all options for the future of the site would still be explored.
Many of the apartments spread across the Seven Sisters remain unoccupied after a plan was announced to demolish four of the blocks in 2017, leading to an exodus of hundreds of tenants. RBH later reconsidered the plan, and instead signed a deal with developer Legal & General Affordable Housing last year, to find a viable way of refurbishing the apartments.
All 700 flats in the 1960s blocks were set to be redeveloped under the plans, but the pair’s agreement has now come to an end without a solution emerging.
So an unsatisfactory stasis prevails across the windswept piazzas, podium garages and towering towers.
Local photographer Ellie Waters has her pictures of the flats displayed in the underpass.
Notes From College Bank is an ongoing project which documents the College Bank buildings in Rochdale, Greater Manchester. Known locally as ‘The Seven Sisters’, College Bank is formed of seven high-rise social housing blocks, four of which have come under recent threat of demolition.
Drawing from found imagery and photographs taken by my late Grandfather – M J Burgess – who like me grew up in Rochdale, I’ve been working with past and present residents to create a collective record of life in and around College Bank.
This project is ongoing, if you would like to share your stories of College Bank please get in touch via email – notesfromcollegebank@gmail.com
Here is a recent post from Municipal Dreams outlining the history state of play – Rochdale Housing Part II.
Fast forward to the present, the Seven Sisters still stand – an impressive architectural statement in the heart of Rochdale and, to my mind, as powerful a testament to municipal endeavour and aspiration as the town’s nearby town hall. But much has changed. In the slow evolution that affected council housing more broadly, the flats became less desirable, even, in some eyes, a ‘sink estate’. In Robin Parker’s view, the Council started re-housing people in the blocks ‘not suitable for high-rise living’ – a typical occurrence when the most vulnerable on the waiting list and those with least choice are allocated to so-called ‘hard to let’ estates.
Well well here we are again, third time around following a visit in 2018 and later in 2021.
Almost inevitably, changes have taken place.
There is an almost constant tension between order and/or disorder.
Between those who prefer the shambolic aesthetic of the shotgun shack, and those whose hearts and minds are in the double spread of Homes and Gardens.
It’s also a question of economics, there are those with capital who may wish to make investments in property. Buy to let, second homes that yield a return above the current savings’ rates. Thus raising the cost of housing, both ordered and disordered.
The chalet is a unique wooden clad cabin painted in lovely complimentary colours of Cream and Seaspray Green. A porthole window peers into a generous open plan living room and adjoined kitchen with subtle seaside touches of stripes, driftwood, shells, all quality wooden furniture and large comfy corner sofa plus two relaxing reading chairs with plenty of blankets to snuggle up in.
So the march of big money heralds the arrival of complementary after dinner mints, uPVC cladding, tasteful nautical bric a brac, prohibitive signs, off road parking and a Hampton’s aesthetic – a little bit of New England inna little bit of England.
Despite the incursion of those folks on a week long excursion, there is still an air of lukewarm anarchy which pervades the Fitties. An array of wonky homemade fences constantly askew, refusing to be aligned to the orthogonal.
Mañana never comes here on this little stretch of the Lincolnshire coast, get it while you can.
Here we are again, six years after the first visit.
What’s been happening hereabouts in the interim?
The Abbey Walk car park was built in 1969 by Holst & Company of Scunthorpe at a cost of approximately £200,000.Whilst a key asset for the town centre, the car park was closed in May 2024, after structural defects were found. This was water ingress into key structural supports, making the car park potentially unsafe to use.
It has now been approved to proceed with plans to demolish the car park, and replace it with a 120-space surface car park, but with the capability in the foundations of being built on in future years if needed.
But what of the unique concrete relief panels, you may ask?
The four abstract concrete reliefs depict parts of a car, which were inspired by drawings in the handbook of the artist’s Austin Cambridge estate car, and were installed when the building was constructed.
Designed in the 1960s by artist and sculptor, Harold Gosney, having been asked to carry out the car park commission by the architects, Nicholson and Rushton.
These panels were cast in situ, with metal bars running through them, which were integral to the car park structure, which is likely to make removal of the artwork incredibly difficult.
Last month, it was confirmed conservationists from the University of Lincoln had 3D scanned the sculptures to create digital 3D models to preserve them.
Which is all well and good, but will they ever be really remade and reinstated anywhere?
Only time will tell.
In 2023 the car park stairwell was transformed by young people from the local area, as part of a project by North East Lincolnshire Council and local artist Lynsey Powles, to try to tackle graffiti and anti-social behaviour.
Abbey Walk multistorey car park in Grimsby has been the site of a number of incidents of anti-social behaviour and graffiti in recent years.
Burnley Central railway station is a stop on the East Lancashire Line, it is managed by Northern Trains, which also provides its passenger service.
Architect: RL Moorcroft of British Rail 1964-1966
Described by Claire Hartwell in the Buildings of England Lancashire: North as – of blue brick, bleak.
The station was opened by the East Lancashire Railway in 1848, as part of its route from Bury and Blackburn to Colne; here, an end-on junction was made with the Leeds and Bradford Extension Railway line from Skipton that had been completed several months earlier. The service from Colne through the station to Manchester Victoria, via Accrington and Bury, was well used from the outset by the owners of the local cotton mills, who travelled from their homes in the area to make their purchases of raw cotton at the Royal Exchange several times each week. It was also possible to travel from the station by direct train to Blackpool, Liverpool and Skipton and even through to London Euston, via Blackburn, Manchester Victoria and Stockport.
1964 Red Rose Collections.
However, the cutbacks of the 1960s affected the station badly, with through trains to Manchester via Bury ending in 1964 (two years before the withdrawal of the Accrington to Bury service) and those to Liverpool in 1969 whilst the line to Skipton was closed to all traffic in 1970. This left the station on a 10.5 km long dead-end branch line from Rose Grove to Colne.
The station was rebuilt in 1965, its ground floor is at street level and the first floor at platform level.
Health and safety regulations state that markings should be placed around obstacles or dangerous locations. This includes where any of the following present a risk:
people tripping or falling
objects falling
people or vehicles colliding with objects
These markings should be made up of alternating red and white or yellow and black stripes of equal size at a 45 degree angle. Barricade tape can be used to satisfy this requirement as long as the tape is “commensurate with the scale of the obstacle or dangerous location in question”
I hereby lay claim to this symbol, sign, icon, the combination of black and yellow, wherever it may appear, in this or any other world, in whatever shape, form, pattern or composition, be it civil or military. I hereby claim to be its originator and owner.
Designed by Ben Kelly, upon recommendation by Factory graphic designer Peter Saville, upstairs consisted of a stage, dance area, bar, cloakroom, cafeteria area and balcony with a DJ booth.
The Haçienda was opened on 21 May 1982, when the comedian Bernard Manning remarked to the audience:
I’ve played some shit-holes during my time, but this is really something.
His jokes did not go down well with the crowd and he returned his fee.
The black and yellow stripes on Manchester City’s away shirts were meant to be an uplifting homage to Manchester’s cultural heritage, but the choice of design now risks becoming a chip on the team’s shoulders.
The team’s jersey is embroiled in a controversy after Ben Kelly, the man who originally designed the stripes for famed Manchester nightclub the Haçienda, complained in a recent interview to Gaffer magazine that he was not credited or consulted by the creators of the football apparel.
When Manchester City and Puma launched the team’s 2019/20 kit last July, they said in a press release that the uniform paid tribute to the “Madchester” years of the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the city in north-west England became a hub of alternative music and dance culture.
The concrete and the clay beneath my feet Begins to crumble But love will never die
Doomed to face the demolition crew – the anti-social intrusions and falling masonry have enforced a fence, an impenetrable fence.
My requests for unforced entry were politely rebuffed by the hi-vis vest security guards.
A former police station could finally be demolished this autumn after closing six years ago when officers moved to new headquarters.
Blackpool Magistrates’ Court, which is part of the same complex, will also be bulldozed after crumbling concrete was discovered in the building in January.
In recent months, the empty Bonny Street police station has become a target for anti-social behaviour.
Clearance of the site will pave the way for investment in leisure facilities including hotels and indoor theme parks by developer Nikal.
The M62 is a 107-mile-long west–east trans-Pennine motorway, connecting Liverpool and Hull via Manchester, Bradford, Leeds and Wakefield; 7 miles of the route is shared with the M60 orbital motorway around Manchester.
The motorway, which was first proposed in the 1930s, and conceived as two separate routes, was opened in stages between 1971 and 1976, with construction beginning at Pole Moor near Huddersfield and finishing at that time in Tarbock on the outskirts of Liverpool. The motorway absorbed the northern end of the Stretford-Eccles bypass, which was built between 1957 and 1960. Adjusted for inflation to 2007, its construction cost approximately £765 million. The motorway has an average daily traffic flow of 144,000 vehicles in West Yorkshire, and has several sections prone to gridlock, in particular, between Leeds and Huddersfield and the M60 section around Eccles.
We were walking along Tunshill Lane on our way to the Piethorn Valley, our crossing of the M62 facilitated by this elegant road bridge.
A notable structure between junctions 21 and 22 on the uphill section towards Windy Hill is the Rakewood Viaduct which carries the road over the Longden End Brook.
The viaduct is 280 yards long and 140 ft above the valley floor. It was built in 1966 by Reed & Mallik and opened to motorway traffic in October 1971. It has a sister bridge, the Gathurst Viaduct in Wigan, which carries the M6 motorway over the Leeds & Liverpool Canal, the Manchester-Southport line and the River Douglas and was constructed before the Rakewood Viaduct.
The steelwork deck was subcontracted to Robert Watson Steelwork of Bolton.
Westmorland and Furness Council said Portland Walk car park will close from the start of July.
In a statement the council revealed the rooftop car park will permanently close from July 1 following a review which found said it had ‘very low usage’.
Multi Storey Car Park Rowlandsway Manchester M22 5RG
I’ve lost count of the countless times I have visited countless car parks.
I do have a fondness for ramps – particularly helical ramps, one of my most memorable early modernist encounters, was with Lubetkin’s penguin pool.
The cast concrete taking on a truly sculptural dimension.
There is also the Proustian recollection of a collection of geometry lessons and Helix instruments.
It has all left a lasting impression and I have subsequently taken every opportunity to waddle penguin like up and down several concrete car park ramps.
I was informed by the seriously erudite Christopher Marsden that the bus station and car park were the work of Derek C W Vane: Borough Architect 1972-1974.
Having visited and photographed the bus station in 2016 I thought that it was about time I went up in the world, to the top level of the car park.
Mixed opinions from Parkopedia reviewers – let’s take a look around.
There are plans for refurbishment outlined in 2022 in the Huddersfield Hub.
The bus station will undergo a major revamp both inside and out and the most striking feature will be a sweeping canopy with a living grass roof which will run right across the main frontage from Macaulay Square to Upperhead Row.
Also of note a project by Kate Matthews to seriously rethink the role and design of the space.
The starting point for this project was the Welcoming Water group scenario, involving the controlled flooding of areas of the town.
The new interchange includes facilities for cycling, walking, and public transit. The basin and marina on the new lake allow for an increased focus on water-based transport, including a new bus-boat. The main Transport Hub sits below an undulating roof and contains not only the bus bays and ticketing facilities, but also co-working and relaxation spaces. The curves of the roof, trying to confuse the binary of floor and ceiling, are just one example of the ambiguity throughout the scheme.
This project was nominated for the Architects for Health Student Design Award in 2021.
Shropshire Council Raven Meadows Shrewsbury SY1 1PL
Built by Truscon Ltd. – 1969
I am a disabled driver and found a lot of the direction signs worn away. When I came to leave I wanted to use the machine on the ground floor. This was out of order, as a lot of other people found. The office was empty as the staff were outside smoking. I then had to negotiate stars back to the 7th floor where the next machine was located. There was no sign on the ground floor machine telling it was out of use and where the next machine was located.
If staff want to have a smoke they should at least leave someone in the office.
Most of the parking spaces are very tight and I would not recommend the use of this car park unless you have a small car and a crystal ball to find the disabled parking and the payment meters.
The rudest man at the kiosk, that I have ever had an encounter with, over a ticket that was blurred. He had a go at me for not going to him straight away – I went when I went to leave and it wouldn’t work. He also had a go at me because I pressed the buzzer on the intercom. Very strange unhelpful man. Made an issue for no reason! Awful to deal with I never write reviews, but I hope this gets back to him and with hope he will gain some manners.
Being a pedestrian, I entered through the bus station on foot.
The station is considered to be dated due to its 1980s architecture partially under a 1960s multi-storey car park. There have been plans for the station to be modernised and rebuilt, or even demolished completely, as part of the town’s Big Town Plan. The demolition of the station would mean the town would not have a central bus terminus and would instead use smaller sites on the town’s Park and Ride routes.
Shrewsbury Bus Station is a disgrace. I am embarrassed to use it. I don’t feel comfortable with using it. Yet, it is the bus hub for our county. It is one of the main gateways into Shrewsbury and Shropshire for those travelling by public transport.
New bus hubs and interchanges have been developed around the country. Shropshire Council meanwhile ignores Shrewsbury Bus Station. It promises a new bus interchange, but that is in Phase 4 of its plans to redevelop Shrewsbury town centre between Pride Hill and the riverfront. In the current financial climate and with the council stretched to the limit on existing funding, Phase 4 is probably more than a decade away.
Modern Mooch 