Did anybody else see this?
http://www.shropshirestar.com/2007/09/16-m...lief-road-bill/
Regardless of whether or not you think the relief road is a good idea, how can they justify spending £1.6 million if they know it may not actually happen? I know you have to spend a bit to investigate whether an idea is feasible, but £1.6 million!?

Do the council have to make all their spending public knowledge?
I would love to have a flick through their accounts.

It would be interesting reading to see how much has been spent on Severn Theatre with the first design by top architects Levitt Bernstein for over the bus station being aborted then the present design being taken over in the later stages by a developer architect the orginal architects having had enough of SABC so I believe.

The Shrewsbury in Bloom contests must take considerable funding too.

Do you think Telford will have a 1200 seater theatre now they are in line for a whole load of investment in the town centre? That could be bad news for Shrewsbury.

No disrespect to Telford but I doubt apart from Ironbridge it doesnt have and never will be able to touch Shrewsbury culture and indeed architecture funding or no funding. Very little thought has been given in its overall design apart from too many roundabouts, I feel :lol:

And Ironbridge isn't really Telford anyway...

Give Telford a bit of credit; it takes care of a lot of the concrete monstrosities and bad people who would otherwise be spread all over Shropshire. :)

About three months ago, and I can't remember the name, someone wrote an angry letter to the Star in defence of Wellington, raving about its wonderful history and culture and how it was an amazing place to live, and how we should all be so lucky. The letter concluded "Fred Bloggs, Shrewsbury". :) :) :)

In Telford they are aiming to pull people into the town centre and address some of the not so good 70s planning. They are racing ahead with educational links, maybe a possible Art gallery and attracting more businesses to their modern buildings which are hardly concrete monsters but are necessary for todays technology.

Shrewsbury meanwhile shunts all the young people away to unis far and wide or encapsulates them like inmates at a zoo safely out of town.

Meanwhile the obselete architectural assets in the town are converted to residential apartments which results in the nightlife being restricted to entertainment aimed at the more mature residents anything else impinging on the quiet rural small town dream.

I have friends who lived in Wellington and still feel it is a friendlier place than Shrewsbury and I really think this looking down on other towns is something that lets Shrewsbury down as a place to live.

There is a lot of growth inline for our town and we should be making sure that we actually get the eco houses that were originally proposed for Underdale Road instead of the ghastly Wimpy development just built.
Just think how good it would have looked for Shrewsbury now if it had gone ahead. Instead Craven Arms was in the for front of future eco friendly housing and innovative design during the recent Heritage weekend.

Yes Shrewsbury does have a wonderful architectural heritage but surrounding it with poor quality houses of mediocre design and not establishing a balance of young and old residents is a terrible waste of its assets IMHO.

Mostly it was a piece of flippancy on my part, but I'm still not personally fond of Telford or Wellington.

Of course, it's all a matter of taste, but from my own aesthetic sense improvements to Shrewsbury should really begin with demolishing the Market Hall, the Shirehall, Princess House, the Raven Meadows car park over the bus station and the old Post Office building opposite St. Mary's (or possibly begin with an act of public penance for the town planners, then do the demolition :)). Telford has more of those monolithic concrete-monstrosity buildings than Shrewsbury does, which is what I was referring to.

It's difficult to escape the accusation of modern-day bias, but more recent constructions do seem to have been designed with more of an eye towards look and feel than before (the new Guildhall is much, much, much, much nicer to look at than if something that looked like the Shirehall had been built on that spot).

Personally, I feel I benefited from the fact that I lived in Bridgnorth, Taunton, Keele, Bristol, London, New Jersey, St. Petersburg and Birmingham (okay, not the last of these so much :)) before I moved back to Shrewsbury rather than spent my entire life, including university, growing up in the one place. A lot of the more disreputable element I read about or have met are people who've spent their lives on council estates and turned into inward-looking & rather dodgy characters. Shrewsbury folk have to travel to gain higher education and experience, but if (when?) they move back then what they bring could be seen to benefit the town if you take a longer-term view.

The Market Hall, Shirehall and the building opposite St Marys Church are all architect designed buildings.
The Market Hall and buildings opposite St Marys Church are well thought out and respect the streetscape.
The almshouses should not have been shipped off to the United States and maybe the old market hall would have been kept today (my sister in law lost an uncle when that was demolished. At least H&S is more controlled these days though after the Flower Show accident you wonder has Shrewsbury caught up with that concept?)
The Shirehall is more stuck out on a limb and its mass is too much for the context a bit like the Guildhall and the new theatre which are all too large for their sites.

Some of the attempts to accommodate the growing problem of the car resulted in some ghastly multi storey car parks or the innovative effort to hide them in the Princess House building.

I have put a couple of links on to show how contemporary and genuine period buildings can work well.

Theatre in Hereford

new community hall Alvechurch

The controversy caused by the Ark was unbelievably bitter, the vicar was told it was unchristian and he even had nails put on his drive one morning!!! :o
Now the locals love their inspiring space and exciting architecture. It works because it respects the ancient church it links with by not being built with modern materials trying to look old.

Here is an opinion of a young person who lives in Shrewsbury about his town LS some of its dated but it gives you another idea what some young people think

Favourite Building

* Morris Lubricants, the best firm in town, and suppliers of quality lubricants for over 100 years!!
* Dont make me laugh, there all falling over or crumbling to peices, and that is supposed to be attractive. Everyone knows glass and metal is where its at, like that great (big) town down the road!!!
* Exploring the ancient shuts and passages sounds almost too good to miss. (Is this some Shropshire metaphor..?)
* The Old town hall in the square
* Darwin Centre & Mr. Nudge Amusment Arcade
* Most of the timber framed buildings are attractive, but is is the ancient shuts and passages that have to be explored.
* The castle/some of the old timber framed buildings.

Demolish It Now Building

* the old British Telecom building in Smithfield, horrible Sixties towerblock that even BT moved out of so its been empty for years
* It Has to be the castle, what a waste of space. Build an indoor shopping centre in its place.
* The Market Clock - Big ugly orange brick 'thing'... not nice.
* The Priory school Now!!!!!!
* The Market hall
* Meole Brace school
* The Multi-storey Car Park, & Sixth Form College
* Lloyds Bank, the NCP Car Park (this is underway), Shrewsbury Ambulance Station (slowly crumbling anyway), Whitehall DSS Offices.
* The market, ugly and 60's ish

The Best Things

* It's not Telford
* The pubs; oh Lordy, the pubs! Hello to everyone in the Loggers, from an ex-regular visitor. (PS: That's why people walk into each other all the time. They're inebriated!)
* so many pubs , so little time.
* Mr Nudge, Shipleys, Gees Newsagents on Wyle Cop
* The Shrewsbury Bypass
* The Stone Roses playing at The Fridge in April 1989. the whole "inna gunna, dunna wanna" Shropshire accent - beautiful!
* The inside market is a asset under used, it has character and more, it needs advertising, I wish it well. The Square is by the old county court. It is not by the market and never was, sorry about that. However its all a nice place. I am 18 years old and Shrewsbury is my home town. I visit at least once a year, I make a point of going to the cafe in the indoor market. I hope the ladies keep up the good work.
* Even if there isn't much to do we will find a way to have fun take the quarry or Copthorne park they are my fave things.
* Not spoilt by new buildings like Telford and a cracking footie team!
* The Pubs. It also floods every now & then. Has more pubs per square mile than any where else in Britian.
* Peace, quiet and tranquility. A beautiful town surrounded by beautiful countryside.
* The Natural Health Centre, a couple of miles outside the centre. Wonderful relaxing atmosphere for people in need of therapy!

The Worst Things

* The fact that every driver in to town has their indicators removed as soon as they pass their test "WiNKERS".
* The EBF, the constant and real threat of violence, and the birds in the clubs.
* It's only ten miles from Telford
* Homeless ppl, beggers, drunks, teenagers, security cameras
* the fact that ive been stuck here my whole life and nothing seems to have changed
* The tramps that come up to you begging when you're trying to cross the Portland Bridge, the amount of Toffs.
* None really.
* And of course there's always the EBF (English Border Front). Shrewsbury's own rather ineffectual neo-nazi morons. Fortunately they're so useless they don't get much past beating up Welsh football fans and people that look at them funny (which is pretty much everyone else really)
* The feeling of inferiority the locals have to the new industrial town of TELFORD, they have to compare EVERYTHING, like its some competition. Shrewsbury was important once - ONCE - I'll Say it again ONCE - Get OVER IT And Stop STABBING people from Telford
* Snobby people (which makes up a frighteningly large number of the people there.
* Fox hunters and snobby rich country mansion types.
* Everyone knows each other
* The way the locals walk into you, what they're like in cars I can't imagine.
* Unfortunately, yes, if you're a young resident and into the club scene then Shrewsbury's not for you. The train service from London is a bit slow.
* The bad side of town - Sundorne, Harlscott etc...
* Town full of foxhunting types.

:D :D :D

Have to agree with quite a lot of that myself. I'll get my younger son to read it (if I can find some super glue to stick him to the chair) and see what he thinks. :)

"Town full of foxhunting types."

:rolleyes:

Good to hear positive comments about the shuts though!

He agrees with some stuff but likes Telford, goes on the train with friends occasionally. Town Park is good except for Chavs and more to do there.
The big bridge from train station to Asda is fantastic to skate on.

Likes Old Market hall esp glass lift and clock lit up at night.

Wyle Cop great street, old buildings great to cycle down.

Quarry, great to chill out, skate without being told off, places to explore on the boat club side.

Dingle is shite , made for old people.

Library cool great view from top windows.

Shuts and passages are great.

Graveyard good place to escape from Chavs

Shrewsbury train station building is great, tiled floor cool etc

Bridge from Wilkinsons to Guildhall and Frankwell field and woods.

Hate the beggars who are scary and threatenng

The Mardol, The Market Hall passage to Shoplatch. Likes the sculpture (unlike Mum) but not the sandstone boulders which are cold,damp rocks covered in bird poo.

Mansers building is cool.

Priory and Wakeman are ok but the others should all be 'nuked'.

If there was an emoticon for "incredulous look", I'd be using it in response to complimenting the Market Hall and the buildings opposite St. Mary's :) As I said, each to their own, but I find it impossible to see where you're coming from on those two fronts. As would the youngster Andy quoted too. Nobody likes 'em and I still say the MH that was levelled in 1968 should have been kept. But that's me. If it was anything like Bridgnorth's market hall, which is contemporary but still survives to this day, I'd have much preferred it to go on. Without an orange clock.

With regard to the second point, there's no multistorey inside Princess House, is there? The same Princess House that contains the JobCentre, on the Square?

Yeah Princess House has car parking built within it (it can just about be seen through the "upper floors" from High Street). It is accessed from Princess Street and is for staff only. Frankly, Princess House is an abomination to Shrewsbury and should be demolished. I doubt that will happen for a long, long time however. They also managed to delete a shut when it was built, the one that ran from High Street to Princess Street which was, I believe, called Phillip's Passage. If they do ever comprehensively rebuild that site I want it restored!

I've got a copy of "Shrewsbury: A Miscellany" somewhere which shows that angle of the Square as it looked beforehand and it was much more pleasant....actually, thinking about it, Crown House can go too and that side of the Square should get a Time Team reconstruction.

We already have too much 'Disneyland' in Shrewsbury.

How many developers have you seen who use real stone for lintels and sills?
Handmade bricks with lime mortar?
Welsh slate?
None that I have ever seen in Shrewsbury unless you are talking about restoration.
What you get is PVCU slates as on the Pride Hill shopping centre, mastic filled expansion joints on walls, pseudo timber frame decor, artificial 'blind' windows, pretend ventilation turrets, reconstituted stone or even resin pillars with plastic seams! etc etc.

Some of the materials have to be modern to comply with modern building regs but most development use low quality materials to create a poor pastiche of mixed up period styles.

What buildings you want to magic away are part of the evolvement of the town over decades and centuries, some are good some not so good. Most of the rubbish buildings don't survive so you get left with the more quality buildings of all eras.
Some ancient buildings can be adapted to modern day needs well others not but their provenance is such that they deserve our protection.

When we build now we should put design and context top of the agenda and not pursue a pointless ambition to recreate the past which tends to demean genuinely good older buildings while compromising the possibility of great new ones.

Exactly so, since my contention was that those buildings named (to reiterate: the Market Hall, the Shirehall, Princess House, the Raven Meadows car park over the bus station and the old Post Office building opposite St. Mary's, and also Crown House and Telephone House now I think about it) are the rubbish buildings which do not deserve to survive. I certainly don't see them as "genuinely good older buildings".

Rhassaris, I was referring to the many gerry built Victorian slums that are now gone.

The Victorians had a bit of a problem building multi-storey car parks, namely that there was not much call for them at the time.

The Victorian Market Hall was loathed by those who used it due to it not meeting the needs of a post war increasingly car orientated Britain.

What the Victorians did build with proliferation were railways which caused a lot of angst at the time for raging through virgin countryside with belching smoke and noise.
We then had the what turned out to be poor decision to cut them in the 1960s in the mistaken belief they were no longer needed due to the more convenient car.
We look back today and wish we had kept all those lines and stations open but also with nostalgia at steam trains as if they were the best thing since sliced bread. In reality if you are old enough to remember them they were filthy monsters (allbeit attractive in their own way) thankfully superseded by modern engines.

I'll be thirty-two in November, but I was born and raised for part of my life in Bridgnorth & Highley. I'm fairly sure there's a steam railway near there somewhere, I just can't remember what it's called... :)

With regard to your suggestion the Victorian Market Hall being cut because it didn't meet the needs of a postwar car-oriented Britain...how does the 1960s replacement improve on that scenario? For one thing, the old version was at ground level and the present one isn't - and like Daleks, cars aren't too good with stairs. Because of traffic problems? Same query applies; the High Street / Shoplatch / Mardol / Claremont area isn't exactly tolerant of cars today.