Pedestrian underpasses and safety/desirability

[peteb]

Of course! I forgot that as I would be driving from Bromsgrove to Ludlow -- A448 then A456 -- and wouldn't need to go all around it. I remember that the roads got badly clogged, and I found it slightly easier to go via the south of the town centre on the A451 and cut across to the A456 on the B4549.

Yes that's the short cut

 

[satisnek]

Kidderminster's town centre is cut off from the rest of the town in the east, north, south directions. Only from the west can you access it without having to use a subway.

Crime, whether actual or fear of, is the major disincentive to use the subways after dark or indeed on lighter evenings.

It's a shame that the responsibility for these falls to the Worcestershire County Council who basically doesn't give a fig about the issue. They cite clog ups on the ring road if they were to put pelican crossings in.

Meanwhile the town deteriorates, most shoppers drive in or, due to silly parking prices, shop elsewhere.

But I'm sure with hundreds of thousands of visitors to both the Severn Valley Railway and Safari Park an easily accessible town centre for pedestrians would arrest and maybe reverse the decline.

I don't think that Kidderminster's deterioration can be entirely blamed on the subways, except perhaps for right at the beginning when the 'concrete collar' was first constructed (or not completed - I believe it was a process which took approximately 15 years from the late 1960s onwards). Kidderminster is a 'has-been' town - once its identity as a carpet manufacturing centre had been destroyed it became a faceless dormitory area which couldn't compete with the superior retail experience at Merry Hill, Redditch, Worcester etc. The Weavers Wharf development of the early 2000s was intended to be an expansion of the existing retail facilities but the plan was banjaxed by the economic downturn later in the decade, leaving the once-bustling Worcester Sreet as a ghost street. As you know, it has now been de-pedestrianised and the former Woolworths and Littlewoods stores have been demolished.

Would Safari Park and SVR visitors ever go to the town centre on foot? The former is some distance out of town and the latter, even with no ring road, is still at least half a mile away.

When I've visited the Severn Valley Railway, I've never been tempted to go up the road to the town centre.

You wouldn't find much if you did - the town centre is down the hill

 

[peteb]

I don't think that Kidderminster's deterioration can be entirely blamed on the subways, except perhaps for right at the beginning when the 'concrete collar' was first constructed (or not completed - I believe it was a process which took approximately 15 years from the late 1960s onwards). Kidderminster is a 'has-been' town - once its identity as a carpet manufacturing centre had been destroyed it became a faceless dormitory area which couldn't compete with the superior retail experience at Merry Hill, Redditch, Worcester etc. The Weavers Wharf development of the early 2000s was intended to be an expansion of the existing retail facilities but the plan was banjaxed by the economic downturn later in the decade, leaving the once-bustling Worcester Sreet as a ghost street. As you know, it has now been de-pedestrianised and the former Woolworths and Littlewoods stores have been demolished.

Would Safari Park and SVR visitors ever go to the town centre on foot? The former is some distance out of town and the latter, even with no ring road, is still at least half a mile away.

You wouldn't find much if you did - the town centre is down the hill

Well, as a resident, I know that most people in my road (1/2 mile from town centre) drive into the centre, particularly if they go out in the evening. Fear of crime whether real or imagined is the primary reason people don't use the subways. I've lost count of the people I see leaping over the crash barriers on the ring road rather than chance the subways in these lighter evenings. The full-face covered scarf wearing youths hanging about the subways don't help matters. Whether they are really up to no good or not they are a good deterrent to residents using those subways.

 

[satisnek]

Well, as a resident, I know that most people in my road (1/2 mile from town centre) drive into the centre, particularly if they go out in the evening. Fear of crime whether real or imagined is the primary reason people don't use the subways. I've lost count of the people I see leaping over the crash barriers on the ring road rather than chance the subways in these lighter evenings. The full-face covered scarf wearing youths hanging about the subways don't help matters. Whether they are really up to no good or not they are a good deterrent to residents using those subways.

Crikey, which one is your local subway? My nearest ones are the Comberton Hill 'complex' and Coventry Street. They're grim, definitely, but I can't say I've ever seen any 'full-face covered scarf wearing youths' or people crossing the ring road, except, perhaps, the type of person I wouldn't want to meet in the subway anyway!

I've lived in Kidderminster for 36 years and the 'fear of crime' is definitely more imagined than real today. Back in the 1980s the town centre was bustling during the day but almost deserted in the evenings - the visible effect of the 'concrete collar'. There were just a few rough pubs inside the ring road and violence and thuggery was much more prevalent back then, but thankfully I managed to avoid it. Rough pubs of that ilk have pretty much disappeared nowadays.

But yes, we're stuck with those grim subways because the money to do anything about them simply doesn't exist. Why that money doesn't exist is a whole other off-topic discussion...

 

[peteb]

Crikey, which one is your local subway? My nearest ones are the Comberton Hill 'complex' and Coventry Street. They're grim, definitely, but I can't say I've ever seen any 'full-face covered scarf wearing youths' or people crossing the ring road, except, perhaps, the type of person I wouldn't want to meet in the subway anyway!

I've lived in Kidderminster for 36 years and the 'fear of crime' is definitely more imagined than real today. Back in the 1980s the town centre was bustling during the day but almost deserted in the evenings - the visible effect of the 'concrete collar'. There were just a few rough pubs inside the ring road and violence and thuggery was much more prevalent back then, but thankfully I managed to avoid it. Rough pubs of that ilk have pretty much disappeared nowadays.

But yes, we're stuck with those grim subways because the money to do anything about them simply doesn't exist. Why that money doesn't exist is a whole other off-topic discussion...

Coventry Street; saw people crossing the road Monday evening about 8pm, saw mask wearing teenagers Monday lunchtime.....agree the roughest pubs are gone (well most of them!). I recall the town centre before they knocked half of it down c.1982 to build the Rowland Hill centre (now virtually deserted sadly).

 

[satisnek]

Coventry Street

Ah yes, that's the grimmest of them all. For others reading this thread, think of a pedestrian subway suffering an arson attack and getting well blackened. All the local authority did in response was to install some new light fittings. Eventually.