Blackpool Council says it remains committed to the Blackpool Central project amid the potential collapse of the developer leading the works.
But warning alarms sounded this week when Nikal – which was hired to oversee the project – filed a notice of intent to appoint administrators.
The £300m Blackpool Central development is billed as the biggest single investment in the town in more than a century and is planned to involve a “world-class leisure development” which would create 1,000 new jobs, bring an extra 600,000 visitors per year, and boost annual spend in the town by around £75m.
A spokesperson for Blackpool Council told the Blackpool Lead:
We have been working on the enabling phase of Blackpool Central over the last few years. The new multi-storey car park opened earlier this summer and we are currently completing preparations to demolish the old police station and courts building early in the New Year.
The proposals for the Bonny Street area can be seen here.
Plans for the area have hit further problems.
A new £40m magistrates courthouse is facing building delays after the project’s main contractor collapsed.Blackpool’s magistrates court was one of twenty two projects belonging to construction giant ISG, which was working on the scheme for the Ministry of Justice.
But the firm went into administration in September, leaving two thousand two hundred workers at risk of redundancy, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.
Work was due to start early next year with a completion date expected in 2026.
The town needs all the help it can get, time has not been too kind, whilst efforts have been made to invigorate the area around Blackpool North and the promenade, the back streets reflect the legacy of years of deprivation.
Blackpool ranks as one of the most deprived areas in the UK. Many people were already in poverty, and the cost of living pressures are having the biggest impact on this group, who need to spend a greater proportion of their incomes on household essentials. It is also affecting people on low and middle incomes, often surviving by having several jobs, who are being pushed into poverty. More people are turning to services for support, and as the winter progresses this is a serious concern.
I have no wish to poor scorn on the area – but a short walk around the streets approximate to the coast tells a tale of failed businesses, decay and decline.
Happily there are the seeds of recovery in evidence, in the form of newly built housing.
The executive report outlines an area of regeneration to the South of the town centre. It lies broadly between Chapel Street and Rigby Road, and the Promenade and Central Drive. These have been identified as the initial areas of focus for detailed scheme development, community engagement and property acquisitions in preparation for future development.
Like many of the original Odeon Theatres built by Oscar Deutsch, the site chosen was a little out of the main town centre – where land prices were cheaper, and the Odeon Morecambe is a good example of this. It is located at the corner of Euston Road and Thornton Road in this Lancashire seaside town. The Odeon was opened on 2nd September 1937 with Sandy Powell in “It’s a Grand Old World”. It had seating provided for 1,084 in the stalls and 476 in the circle.
Taken over by the Classic Cinemas chain in December 1967, it was re-named Classic Cinema, and was closed on 28th February 1976 with Kenneth Williams in “Carry On Behind”.
The stunning Moderne style exterior much of which including the projectionists walkway is now much deteriorated.
Next to the Police Station another Roger Booth building – recently seen on the small screen in The Bay.
Backtracking to take in the Crescent Café entrance.
Which became Hart’s Restaurant now trading as the Black Thai.
Into the town centre to look at the former Centenary HouseCo-op 1927.
Bought by the city council as part of the West-End Masterplan, the intention is to refurbish the building’s upper floors to provide affordable housing and accommodation for local arts businesses, retaining the Co-op late shop that occupies one-half of the ground floor.
Let’s take a look along the front – where we find a former Woolworths.
Along with other stores from the same period.
Alongside sits the former Littlewoods.
By 1939 there were 24 stores. A number of these were purpose-built for Littlewoods to designs by J S Quilter & Son. John Salmon Quilter – 1841-1907 was, in fact, long dead, but his architectural practice had been continued by his son Cecil Molyneux Quilter – 1879-1951. Quilter specialised in commercial architecture, notably public houses. He designed a new Blackpool store for Littlewoods, on the corner of Church Street and Corporation Street, which was faced in Empire stone. He also designed a store in Chester, and may have been responsible for the one in Morecambe. This faience-clad art deco building is the best surviving example of a pre-war Littlewoods store – indeed, it may be the best surviving Littlewoods of all time – even preserving diamond L motifs on the entrance lobby floors. These clearly copied Woolworth’s diamond W.
Finally to the Midland Hotel 1932-3 by Oliver Hill
Concrete and rendered brickwork, painted white. Curved plan, with convex side facing west towards the sea. Three storeys. Windows are steel-framed casements with rendered surrounds. Above each storey are projecting horizontal bands. The entrance front has a rounded left-hand corner, and a convex central staircase projection rising above roof level. This projection has a tall window of steel casements above the doorway, divided into three by mullions, both of which are capped by sea horses, painted red, which were carved by Eric Gill. Projecting at the right is a single-storey cafe of circular plan, now known as the Ravilious Restaurant. The west side has a single-storey projecting sun lounge, which is an addition, its windows replaced in PVC-coated steel. Between the solid centre and ends of the facade the 1st and 2nd floors have their walls recessed to form balconies.
Interior: above the cantilevered circular open-well staircase is a ceiling panel carved in low relief by Eric Gill and painted by Denis Tegetmeier. They were also responsible for the pictorial map of north-west England in what was originally the children’s room at the south end of the building. Also in this room is Eric Gill’s Portland stone panel, originally in the lounge, carved in low relief with a representation of Odysseus and Nausicaa. It was moved to its present position when internal walls were demolished during the 1970s. The cafe walls were originally painted with frescoes by Eric Ravilious, representing morning and evening in an idyllic seascape setting. These deteriorated rapidly because the plaster and paint used were incompatible and were obliterated within 2 years of completion, but were repainted in the late 1980s using photographic evidence.
The Super Swimming Stadium at Morecambe, Lancashire, was one of the grandest of the 1930s modernist seaside lidos. This massive structure measuring 396ft. by 110ft. was said to be the largest outdoor pool in Europe when it opened in 1936, accommodating some 1200 bathers and 3000 spectators. Unusually for an inter-war lido, it was designed not in-house by a Borough Engineer but by two architects, Kenneth MB Cross and Cecil Sutton, who styled it to harmonise with the Streamline Moderne of Oliver Hill’s adjacent Midland Hotel.
The stadium was closed down in 1975 on grounds of structural problems and demolished just a year later.
Charles Dreyfus was a French emigrant chemist and entrepreneur, who founded the Clayton Aniline Company on 29 May 1876. The company obtained a lease on a parcel of land in Clayton, Manchester, sandwiched between the Manchester and Ashton Canal and Chatham Street – later known as Clipstone Street.
1904
At its peak in the 1970s, the site occupied over 57 acres and employed over 2,000 people. However, due to the gradual demise of the British textile industry, most textile production shifted to countries such as China and India with the textile dye industry following.
1960
In 2002, the company made 70 members of staff redundant and in 2004 the announcement was made that the site would be closing with the loss of over 300 jobs. A small number of staff were retained to assist in the decommissioning of the plant. The last workers left the site in 2007 and the remainder of the buildings were demolished shortly afterwards.
Like much of the industry of east Manchester its tenure was relatively short – money was made and the owners departed, without wiping their dirty feet.
The site remained derelict until demolition, followed by extensive site cleansing – to remove the dangerous detritus of 200 years of hazardous chemical production.
Vincent Kompany had just completed his £6million move from Hamburg when he realised that Mark Hughes’ sales pitch about the direction the club was going was not entirely accurate.
They took me for a look around the training ground at Carrington – it wasn’t fit for purpose, it was a dump.
I remember there was a punch bag in the gym – and only one boxing glove. And even that had a big split in it!
Then in 2008 the corrupt boss Thai PM Thaksin Shinawatra is bought out by Sheik Mansour – the rest is history/mystery.
Mr Peter Swales makes no comment.
My interest lies in the company’s Ashton New Road offices – seen here in 1960.
Demolished and replaced by a distinctly Modernist block by 1964.
A flank was added on Bank Street along with a bank.
The office complex is still standing, now home to Manchester Police, I risked arrest and incarceration, in order to record the distinctive tile work, rectilinear grid and concrete facades.
Attracting several suspicious stares from the open glazed stairwells.
We were there at the behest of Esther and Leigh, gathering to say farewell to Alan Boyson’s Three Ships, as it transpired we were there to celebrate its reprieve, following their campaign for listing.
Over a million tesserae glowed in the low winter sun – so did we.
As Helen Angell read her poem – Christopher Marsden and Esther Johnson recording the performance for posterity.
The Three Ships are attached to a former Cooperative Store – complete with a formerly working Cooperative Store clock – where we meet at four minutes to six – forever.
We had previously encountered Hammonds of Hull/House of Fraser – soon to be a food court, artisan everything outlet.
And this Festival of Britain style functionalist council building.
Onward to the Queens Gardens the almost filled in former Queens Dock – forever fourteen feet below sea level.
We encounter Ton Liu’s Solar Gate – a sundial that uses solar alignment to mark significant times and dates in Hull. The super-light innovative two-shell structure is place-specific, responding to pivotal historic events and to the cultural context of its location in Hull’s Queens Gardens adjacent to the ancient site of Beverley Gate.
Carved stone panels Kenneth Carter 1960 – Ken’s art career began as an inspiring teacher, first at his alma mater, Hull College of Art, and later as principal lecturer at Exeter College of Art.
A number of decorative fountains featured in the ponds; those at the eastern end designed as part of the sculptured panels of 1960, by Robert Adams, described by Herbert Read as belonging to:
The iconography of despair. Here are images of flight, of ragged claws, scuttling across floors of silent seas, of excoriated flesh, frustrated sex, the geometry of fear.
Top of the shop William Mitchells relief – time to pause and reflect.
Paying homage to Frederick Gibberd author of the College and Queens Gardens scheme.
En passant catching a glimpse of this splendid non-functioning water feature.
I’ve been here before, innocently snapping – without incident.
A super-large Roger Booth cop shop and courts, concrete combo.
So why not go back just one last time, prior to demolition and redevelopment.
So I did.
Following the acquisition and demolition of Progress House the Bonny Street Station is to be relocated, and the former site, under the ownership of Blackpool Council, set to become who knows what – who knows?
Progress House, Clifton Road, Marton.
The Council knows, it plans to develop a new site for the defunct Central Rail Station
A giant of the steam age that became a car park
It is 50 years since Central Railway Station closed with the land being used for a car park ever since. It was proposed as the site for the super-casino until that bid failed to win government backing. Since then plans for an indoor snow-based attraction have also failed to make any progress.
Today happily, snow-based attractions are still failing to make any progress.
Blue skies and chill early March air greeted me, across the wind swept, precast concourses and piazzas – warmish grey, against brightish blue.
I simply didn’t expect the boy in blue – ten minutes of light/half hearted interrogation.
“Who, what, why, where are you?”
Responding in a clear concise and non-confrontational manner, I was free to go about my legal business, taking these pictures for you.
Modern Mooch 