The Council are aware of the problems with unauthorised vehicles using Lower Hillgate and Little Underbank and will shortly be installing new rising bollards to control traffic flow. There will follow a programme of repairs to the paving and stone setts. This work is being funded from the Town Centre Access Plan, more details of this can be found at https://goo.gl/O0ssZ2
Overview
Scheme overview: The Town Centre Access Plan is an ambitious vision and development plan seeking to improve access to and around Stockport town centre by all methods of travel and ease congestion for buses and general road traffic.Benefits: Investment in transport is needed to tackle congestion within Stockport and remove barriers to movement between town centre areas, particularly caused by the A6 and M60. This investment will address these issues and transform access to, from and around Stockport town centre for all.
Timescales: The scheme proposals will be delivered in two distinct phases, see Key Plan (PDF 7Mb).
Construction of the Phase 1 schemes is expected to take place from 2015 to late 2017.
The Phase 2 schemes were subject to a further phase of consultation in Autumn 2015. The feedback of the consultation will be considered in the development of the scheme designs.
Subject to approval, construction of the Phase 2 scheme is expected to take place from 2017 to 2020.
Key partners: Stockport Council and Transport for Greater Manchester.
Funding: Funded by the Government’s Local Growth Fund, the Stockport Town Centre Access Plan is part of the Investing in Growth component of Stockport Council’s Investing in Stockport Programme. Investing in Growth will see a range of ambitious projects launched across Stockport, aimed at ensuring the town continues to grow and meet the needs of modern day life.
No mention is made of any public response to the development plans because the zone was comprehensively depopulated in the 1950s and 1960s, so lacks an effective "voice". Chestergate is not linked in the report but is the key to success of the Underbanks because it is the terminus piazza for Little and Great Underbanks. A new architect designed structure at the junction of Mealhouse Brow and Little Underbank (on the site below) will serve coffee and compete with the coffee bars that have already built a client base. So may ruin them. Currently this proposed redevelopment site retains a flourishing music shop in a shabby 2 storey terrace that actually functions well (but is just not pretty)......
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| The proposed area for demolition eclipses a beautiful view of the 19th century Bank Building above it. I refer to this as one of the acropolis brows of the Underbanks. A "temple" on a hill. The proposed building will mostly screen off the promise of this part of the upper town. |
Without the planning for a total traffic ban, the Underbanks, Chestergate, Royal Oak Yard, High Bankside and the future of the brows there can be no economic improvement. The advising clients swerved the creation of a York type "SHAMBLES" pedestrian place although it is clear they are heritage professionals and their instinct was heritage conservation led. They were clearly warned off from shutting any streets. But this is precisely how the economic life would have taken off without spending any money on the area. Commercial clients would have flocked in if tables had been sited in the middle of the road.
Merseyway Shopping Centre demonstrates its (limited) economic success because it is traffic free. A textbook example to follow, surely?
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