[photoguy]

Surprise surprise! the LEP article on the markets tells us nothing new. However, I do find it distasteful what Crellin is reported to have said: 'no objection' from the traders - in my experience its just a load of spin! Its certainly not the reaction I got when I spoke with several traders who work the Covered market. You can get a taste for their reaction in my account at http://www.photonorthwest.co.uk/Projectspage1024.html - sorry to post the link again but Crellins comments are just not consistent with what I was told by the traders.

[Riversider]

Photoguy has done some incredible work here: http://www.photonorthwest.co.uk/Projectspage1024.html - I recommend everyone in Preston studies it.

Thank goodness there are still a few people like Photoguy around.

[photoguy]

Thanks for that Riversider.

I understand planning has been approved - and now it goes to Westminster for final approval!

[captainjason]

Will be interesting to see how much notice is taken about Blackpool and Blackburns objections. Does anyone know how much all this will take?

[captainjason]

http://www.lep.co.uk/news/Blackpools-craft...rail.5459595.jp

Well its official. Like we didnt expect it anyway, Blackpool have objected. I wonder if this will create a tit for tat culture between Preston and Blackpool. Each opposing anything the other tries to do. Lets face it, Blackpool is redoing their Tram system, we would like a tram system. Lets object. Though from this it would seem that Blackburn are keeping quiet.

Personally global warming cant come quick enough then we will be rid of the 'resort'.

[Riversider]

Blog post about the recent report on the threat to Jalgos and the Nguzo Saba centre: http://riversstream.blogspot.com/2009/08/p...s-ahead-of.html

[photoguy]

Riversider, I have just read your blog, thank goodness somebody is saying something. I called in the Jalgos centre when I did my 'Heroes & Villains' project, it was only April 09 and they were still in the dark about their future from this wonderful council we have, it looks like they are being evicted after all these years of loyalty to the town. No doubt their neighbours in the old Shepherd Street Mission building will face a similar plight - we should remember why the mission started back in the 19th C, starving children on the streets of Preston and the wealth in the town for some was just obscene - now't changes.

Your reference to Anna Mintons paper 'The Privatisation of Public Space' is excellent, everybody should read the Executive Summary at least. Here is the link again: http://www.annaminton.com/Privatepublicspace.pdf Excellent research River, and anyone who cares about their grandchildrens future in Preston should stand up and be counted.

I have just realised Lancaster is going through a similar process with gentrification and private-public space, lets hope they get the right result from their public inquiry. http://www.itsourcity.org.uk/

[captainjason]

http://www.lep.co.uk/news/Battle-over-city...gets.5547617.jp

Very promising article in the LEP. Will be interesting if Blackpool cuts its nose off to spite its face on this one.

[Riversider]

Unsurprisingly, the whole scheme has been called in for a public enquiry, meaning even more delay.

I blog about this here: http://riversstream.blogspot.com/2009/09/t...s-or-petty.html

[edwalker86]

I often got confused by all the various things that have happened during the Tithebarn development so I've trawled the web and come up with these key events during the Tithebarn timeline: http://blogpreston.co.uk/2009/10/preston-t...pment-timeline/

If I've missed any dates out, or you know of any other Tithebarn resources that I can link to let me know.

[localmuppet]

Interesting points on whether urban areas should be revitalized with big plans or rather with attention to small details:

Small changes are appealing for many reasons. They’re cheap, for one thing. Also, what works can be easily expanded, and what doesn’t work can be as easily terminated or altered. One successful food concession can become two; an unsuccessful stall selling local crafts can be replaced; a planter made from a material that discolors or chips can be replaced with a better one. Contrast that with grand schemes, which can attract broad opposition and be subject to complex political, logistical, and financial obstacles. Once an elaborate design has been committed to, backing away from it — or even altering it — becomes both politically and mechanically complicated. Further, planners have a limited capacity to predict how people will respond to their designs. The larger the project, the more likely unintended consequences become, and the more difficult it is to change course.

Interesting article by Andrew M. Manshel (Manshel is executive vice president of the Greater Jamaica Development Corporation and was previously the general counsel of Bryant Park Restoration Corporation/Grand Central Partnership/34th Street Partnership. He is a director and the treasurer of Project for Public Spaces).

[Riversider]

I think it's entirely wrong to blame the people of Preston for the Tithebarn problems.

From the start we were cut out of the loop, treated as ignorant and with low horizons and lower brows by people who thought that billionaires held all the answers to our problems. If there is one lesson the council should learn, it should learn that high-handed secretive undemocratic elitist planning does not work, especially in today's post credit-crunch society where the so-called 'experts' stand exposed as fools.

If Tithebarn does fail, it will be an opportunity to start again, but this time PROPERLY. Involving local people from the start, developing a 'Vision' together about what our city COULD be like, somewhere that is great to live and work.

If our leaders were brave enough, we could use all kinds of new technologies to wikify and 'open source' our city centre, and allow a bottom-up, democratic redesign, that gives everyone who actually uses our city a chance to make a real impression on what it looks like and how it works.

I've no idea what such a process would come up with, but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't look much like the current Tithebarn proposals.

[johnr]

interesting programme on bbc radio last night about the current slump in the commercial property markets, perhaps this might have a link to the reluctance of big companies to commit to tithebarn at the moment, as it seems the bottom has fallen out of the commercial market, with some interesting statistics about just how much they are losing offloading big shopping developers in these hard times.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00qh...n_4_09_02_2010/

you can listen again to it for the next week or so.

[Riversider]

It would explain the consequent recycling of excuses for ever more delays. After a decade of such excuses, credulity becomes strained to the limit.

[Chris]

Hello all.

Long time reader, first time poster.

Just got a quick question about the planning process - in July 2009 the PCC Planning Committee resolved that 'it was minded to approve the application for the redevelopment' - does anyone know what this is subject to?

[Riversider]

I think that's a question only the council can answer Chris.

The possibility of Tithebarn happening is still hanging in the balance - I think ultimately the only way it can practically happen is if it will be much smaller than the overhyped original scheme. This is not preventing Preston City Council spending £hundreds of thousands on trying to push it through.

[Chris]

I think that's a question only the council can answer Chris.

The possibility of Tithebarn happening is still hanging in the balance - I think ultimately the only way it can practically happen is if it will be much smaller than the overhyped original scheme. This is not preventing Preston City Council spending £hundreds of thousands on trying to push it through.

Interesting stuff, I thought that all planning applications were subject to rules and regs - however the PCC website doesn't have any information about the necessary criteria.

[UCLanresearcher]

Given how tight is money these days presumably the Tithebarn project will be at the mercy of financial markets and what kinds of local guarantees and spending projections can be acquired/projected. I don't have a vested intererst one way or the other but I would really like to see a development that was sensitive to people's memories of Preston. UCLan has done a few of these kinds of projects. There is one running (well, a bit dormant, in fact, because the money has dried up!) called Memory City. It has a web address that I reproduce below. It is intended to collect people's memories of Preston and map them so that what people remember and where they remember it has a place where it can be looked at and recorded. OK: vested interest; I am involved in the Memory City project but I think that any new city development ought to be sensitive to what people remember about the city they grew up in, or visited, or studied in. The idea that a whole 'new' city centre might sweep away people's memory traces seems odd to me. Any new development ought proudly to proclaim what people remember of their own city - warts and all.

Obviously, the problem with these kinds of projects (both the Memory City project and the Tithebarn project) is that money matters - so maybe they are reflections of just how difficult times are for cities like Preston (but not only Preston, of course) in thede straitened times.

Anyway, as I said, the address fopr the Memory City project is below - but do please have sympathy if what you contribute, should you decide to do so, is very slow to appear: we've run out of money (just like Tithebarn, really)!

The web address for the memory city project is:

http://www.memorycity.org