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by Lib Dem team on 6 February, 2012
The covering over of the River Mersey in the 1930s has been a big problem for the town of Stockport. I can understand why people might have felt then that burying the polluted river was the best way to go, but now of course the Mersey is clean and could have been a real part of the town centre.
But it was done, first with a main road “Merseyway” and later with the Merseyway shopping centre. This short video has footage of both.
7 Comments
A shame now that the river be no longer a ‘feature’ of the town centre.
More shameful though be the tired appearance of much of Merseyway with only ‘pockets’ of improvements over the last ten years. As for the ‘outside’ of the precinct – UGH !
Chestergate – pitiful. Princes Street – shanty-town !
Stocky has more empty shops than any other town – according to news bulletins today. The solution ? – revamp/build Merseyway on all sides, then ‘discourage’ retail outlets from opening up in those areas where shoppers no longer bother shopping – Wellington Road, St Petersgate, Grand Central…
I must agree with the last post that the centre of Stockport is in disrepair and is a disgrace. Perhaps the council should forget lending money to a dying football club and redirect all it’s efforts to regenerating a tip. I took a visitor to the area recently and he was amazed at the state of a once wonderful shopping centre. Primark is the only attraction and without it Stockport might as well put up a for sale sign.
I’m going to stick up for Stockport.
I hope that investing over £16 million pounds in the town centre just in the last year alone counts as doing something!
We’ve been as frustrated as anyone that the previous owners of Merseyway saw little benefit in improving the shopping centre, but that’s now starting to change, I’m glad to say.
I disagree with you though: Stockport has a lot going for it. We have more people shopping in Stockport than we have for a few years, Merseyway is pretty much 100% occupied, as is the market.
The Council now owns Grand Central and within a year of the purchase has a development partner to transform the whole site, plus £5 million towards a new Multi-Storey car park (construction will start within months).
We’re in the process of buying the leasehold to the Debenhams store – which will be critical to developing the Bridgefield area between the town centre and the motorway. We’ve got interest from leisure providers (e.g. cinema, restaurants) to set up there.
In addition to attracting the big stores like Primark, we’re working to get more small independents into Stockport, including “pop-up” shops.
We’re investing hundreds of thousands into a refurbishment of the Merseyway Car Park.
In the next few months we’ll be introducing pay-by-mobile-phone as an option across the whole borough (Council car parks and on-street parking) so people won’t need to worry about having the right change or staying too long.
There’s a lot more too.
No-one’s going to claim that Stockport has a town centre of great beauty – sad to say – but when you go to the market, Underbanks, Merseyway, the Peel Centre and all the rest, you find a good shopping centre with an excellent range of independent and big name shops, all much more accessible than somewhere like Manchester where you’ll pay £6 for parking.
Councillor, hm, plans in the pipeline, HM !
Methinks there be too many retail units looking for a purpose – any purpose in Stocky. Quality not quantity should be the mantra. Meanwhile, why not encourage developers to rebuild or demolish and replace unsuitable and unsightly retail premises for other uses ? Have you not seen the dross of buildings that line Wellington Road on both sides just down from the Town Hall ? St Petersgate be no better barring maybe a couple of buildings.
Keep the best of the old (the Library and Unity Inn on W.R. + the old Post Office and Prudential building on SP) and encourage more exciting buildings (be they offices or apartments), something like the new office housing Sky on W.R. Stocky is not Chester or Buxton – no need for over-sensitivity methinks.
Glad we agree, Robert. The demolition of Grand Central is already in progress, and the demolition of several streets on the Knightsbridge site opposite the Peel Centre has been given planning permission.
Whilst most of the properties are privately owned, and many house running businesses, the Council has certainly shown it’s supportive of schemes to rebuild.
And, yes, there are plans in the pipeline as well as schemes currently underway (e.g. Grand Central) and of course schemes that have been completed (e.g. market refurbishment, the Sky building, St Peter’s Square).
Instead of the pretentious “Piccadilly” and “Knightsbridge” rename them with something local like “Driver John Axon GC”, “Private Wood VC” or even “Fred Perry”,. If you don’t know about the brave Messrs Axon and Wood, Google their names and you will read about two brave local men whom we should be proud to honour.
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