On Mon, 26 May 2008 13:40:07 GMT, wensleydale@pacersplace.org.uk (Neil
Williams) wrote:


>The move will make a different set of shops easily accessible,
>but still shops.
Bus most of the middle aged to old do not use most of the shops that
are situated along Fishergate except for the banks and building
societies  most tend to use the market, Orchard St and St Georges
center.
>Exactly where is it proposed to go?  The railway station itself (or
>the side entrance by the shopping centre that most people use) isn't
>at the bottom of any hill.
I gather that the bus station is going to be built somewhere between
Theater St and Butler Street both of which are on a hill or if you
don't like the word hill try a downward slope. Theater Street is
defiantly a hill I know I use it for a short cut from Walton le Dale
via Avenham to the Station on occasions I know I would not like to
have to walk up it anyway. And for  your information if you don't
beleive me come and have a look ALL the roads that lead off Fishergate
to the left all have hills/slopes down to the Avenham area I have
lived around here for 60+ years I should know .
What should happen but it won't is the old bus station should be
flattened and the new one built in exactly the same place, building a
bus station where it is proposed to be built is going to mean yet
another change to the one way systems in Preston city center . The
total cost and inconvenience to members of the public will be
considerable but the Duke of Westminster wishes to have a new shopping
complex  and God knows what else in the Tythbarn St area
so the good people of Preston will again have to suffer and more
IMPORTANTLY PAY for the privilege as is usual .
Thank God my council tax does not go to Preston city council even if
it is now Tory controlled .

On Mon, 26 May 2008 17:59:22 GMT, mymail@hotmail.com wrote:

>I gather that the bus station is going to be built somewhere between
>Theater St and Butler Street both of which are on a hill or if you
>don't like the word hill try a downward slope. Theater Street is
>defiantly a hill I know I use it for a short cut from Walton le Dale
>via Avenham to the Station on occasions I know I would not like to
>have to walk up it anyway. And for  your information if you don't
>beleive me come and have a look ALL the roads that lead off Fishergate
>to the left all have hills/slopes down to the Avenham area I have
>lived around here for 60+ years I should know .

<looks at a map>

If you mean in the back of the Fishergate Centre, I expect it will be
possible to use the lifts/escalators in the Centre to get up to the
level of Fishergate.  You already can do this from the car park which
is already in the location you describe.

I still think the idea of bus station and railway station being in the
same place will give the most overall benefit.  I don't think I'd
travel by a combination of train and bus half as often as I do (which
is quite often) if it wasn't for the fact that practically every local
bus service in Milton Keynes served the railway station, as indeed
they do.

Actually, thinking about it, Preston city centre is similar to Milton
Keynes[1] in some ways (in an infrastructural sense).  It has a
railway station at the bottom and shops at the top[2], and it has a
single road going through the middle of it, accessible to buses, that
is close to most of the shops.  It also has a similar population, so
at a guess this might mean a similar number of bus routes.  Could
Preston do without a bus station altogether and run everything as a
cross-city service, with layovers being outside the city centre, as
Milton Keynes does[3]?

[1] Which is where I've lived since 2001, but before that I grew up
for the previous 21 years in the West Lancashire/Manchester areas,
visiting Preston very frequently in both cases.  Not quite as long as
yourself, granted, but I would consider I know the place ;)

[2] Milton Keynes is somewhat more of an issue in that the hill
between the railway station and the shops is far steeper, is about a
mile long and doesn't contain any shops itself - it's a business
district.  This means that the train is used for very few local
journeys even though it isn't badly placed to serve them otherwise.
In any meaningful sense, the location of the railway station means
that it is only really used for travel to London and the north.

[3] Actually, MK does have a bus station, but it isn't used as one;
there's a cafe where local bus drivers congregate if they have a break
in the centre (as opposed to an on-vehicle layover), but no buses
actually serve it; it only really gets used as a handy base for
one-off hired coaches and the likes.

Neil

-- 
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the at to reply.

On Mon, 26 May 2008 20:45:17 GMT, wensleydale@pacersplace.org.uk (Neil
Williams) wrote:


>If you mean in the back of the Fishergate Centre, I expect it will be
>possible to use the lifts/escalators in the Centre to get up to the
>level of Fishergate.  You already can do this from the car park which
>is already in the location you describe.
No obviously you know the entrance to the center from the car park
right you are standing at the entrance walk across the car park in the
opposite direction to the rail station you will come to three or four
bollards blocking what was a second entrance to the CP . Go through
those bollards onto the street turn left and maybe ten yards along is
the end of that street turning right along a short street will bring
you up onto Winkley square go straight ahead and you are walking UP
Mount Street  and up onto Fishergate . Has you go up Mount St you come
to a small car park on the left and on the right is Mount St (Catholic
owned) Hospital private I think . Having just refreshed my memory of
the area all I can think of is that they are somehow going to
compulsory purchase orders buy up the properties on the left of
Theater street including a nice little cafe . If that is the idea it
is only going to be a small bus station because Theater Street is a
dead end with part of the center running across the bottom .  
>I still think the idea of bus station and railway station being in the
>same place will give the most overall benefit. 
Maybe Neil but not in Preston  with Preston planners running the show
seen to many of their cock ups in the passed I mean what other
city/town in the UK as a "ring road" running more or less right
through the center of it ? for starters !! .
I was so pleased that Preston did not get their hands on South Ribble
council a little while ago our councilors turned it down, if they had
they would have milked SRBC residents dry to pay for more of their
idiotic ideas . 


> I don't think I'd
>travel by a combination of train and bus half as often as I do (which
>is quite often) if it wasn't for the fact that practically every local
>bus service in Milton Keynes served the railway station, as indeed
>they do.
You are talking here about a comparatively new town compared with
Preston and would hope that the bus station would be close to the rail
station .On the other hand there are buses from the bus station every
two or three minutes that go passed and stop at Preston Station .  

>This means that the train is used for very few local
>journeys even though it isn't badly placed to serve them otherwise.
>In any meaningful sense, the location of the railway station means
>that it is only really used for travel to London and the north.
I have only been on MK rail station once when a friend of mine who
lives in Luton arranged to came to pick me up from there, passed
through it quite a few times in the last few years on Virgin in either
direction .