Bretonside Vs Brentonside (topics Merged)

It could be argued that money spent on public amenities IS public money, regardless of where it's come from.

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

The new Mutley junction was a waste of money whoever paid for it.

That's what you said. No mention of how it was built.

Les Miserable wrote:

It could be argued that money spent on public amenities IS public money, regardless of where it's come from.

Can't agree with that. It's from Aldi's profits surely.

98% pork sausages, mashed potato, egg and beans.

Rollo Tomasi wrote:

Sir John Hawkins wrote:

The present Charles Church disaster is totally due to the approach to the Drake Circus car park. Nothing else. I no longer use Royal Parade and onto the viaduct. Only the uninitiated go that way.

I can see the logic of having an above ground pedestrian thoroughfare to the new complex. Far more people friendly and makes those businesses in the development accessible.
The aim is to create a REAL coherent pedestrian connection between the centre, Bretonside, and as important, the Barbican. Not some 80s dystopian underground wind tunnel. The Royal Parade zebra crossing works far better than the underpass it replaced. It just needed suitable traffic calming measures.
As for Mutley, yes, what a ludicrous waste of money, and an accident waiting to happen.

You were going along so nicely until the end and then the politics kick in. You just can't help yourself can you.
For your information the Mutley Plain junction scheme was paid for entirely by Aldi. It was part of the planning deal that enabled them to build their place in Greenbank.

You consistently spout "facts" which are anything but. They are your interpretation of them.

Can't see anything overtly political in my Mutley comments, but hey ho. As it happens, I don't care where the money came from, all money is community money in the end, public or private ( that bit's political in a mild holistic sense ).
The point I was making re the Mutley junction is it's dangerous, and doesn't improve the traffic flow one iota.
As it happens, I'm a big fan of Aldi, as supermarkets go, despite the gathering bad press their establishment competitors are now trying to throw at them. What a pity whoever came up with the design doesn't have a clue, and probably doesn't use the junction, and what an outrage it took nearly 3 months to complete. Still, Aldi's paying, no sweat. The whole thing stinks.

PS And thinking about it, the likes of Tesco have long been complaining Aldi and Lidl are just profiting as late comers to the market by following the wake of other supermarkets, after they have supposedly paid the large overheads of being the first on the scene, incurring large planning/traffic/asset bills. Maybe the establishment are starting to penalise the likes of Aldi with their new stores. A sort of planning toll gate to pay for sainsburys/tesco' previous expenditure. They have a lot of powerful friends in this country. Maybe they're just clawing a bit back from the germans through fair or foul methods. These things do happen. Aldi and Lidl, and their new user friendly cheaper model are under attack from the lardy overweight old boys.

Now that's what I call political, Rollo, since you decided to bring politics into an innocent public safety/waste of money comment.

Maybe just a touch of political there Sir John. I'm pretty sure not many people will notice.

SJH, I agree with you.

But that's not what you said originally.

In fact a month or so ago you took the trouble to find out who the CEO was of the construction company and what money he earned. A rant in other words.  You clearly didn't know the Aldi was paying and not the taxpayer.

But I say again, you turn every thread into a profit bashing political excercise.

And if you read that post, that's exactly what I thought then, and now, has gone on. An underemployed corporation with assets idle, looking for anyone to give them the ok to do their stuff, even if it's not needed.  And if it helps dent Aldi's profits, so much the better.
Again, I see ALL money as community money, that's my long held view. What is spent on useless projects can be spent elsewhere, public or private is irrelevant in that sense.
I can't believe people think I put political thought into some of my posts. Just where do they get that idea from.  

I'm not sure what people have to say about projects like Bretonside etc and city planning, if it doesn't involve at least a bit of politics.
Of course, now silence is being taken as a measure of guilt these days across the board, maybe those who haven't commented on this thread at all should be questioned as to their loyalties, and whether they have extremist leanings that need attention.

Sir John Hawkins wrote:

 And if it helps dent Aldi's profits, so much the better.

Nice. Jeremy will be proud of you.

You're missing my point again. It's as if you're looking for the tackle.
I've already said I like Aldi and their particular supermarket model, hence I wish them well and good luck to them. My comment above was meant to describe how certain friends in high places would feel while giving the german upstart competitors a right royal seeing to through the planning wheezes that their mates could profit from. Is that clear enough ?
I don't mind you holding my opinions to account, Rollo, and no, I didn't initially know that Aldi footed the bill. But it's all still publicly sanctioned and tolled money, and all our wealth in the end, and it's still going to corporations with questionable CEOs that would put traffic lights in Central Park if they could. These people have no shame. Every 10 years they come out with another design of traffic light, and everything has to be uprooted and replaced. It's corruption, regardless who is the proxy payer. We all pay in the end through prices, as well as taxes.

One more thing. If they had delivered that junction in 4 weeks, and hadn't set out those dangerous chicanes, then maybe people wouldn't be so upset, smelling a rat, and looking up just who was involved.
The were taking the piss. And they just left a half finished dangerous pedestrian option for later on. Of course, that'll be put down as the fault of the council, who we know are rolling in money, and should be on the case yesterday.

Sir John Hawkins wrote:

 And if it helps dent Aldi's profits, so much the better.

I'm scratching my head as to how I've misunderstood your quote.

I would like to ask how your economic view of the world would work but to be honest I've lost the will. Your nearing one thousand posts and you only joined in July!

Rollo Tomasi wrote:

Sir John Hawkins wrote:

 And if it helps dent Aldi's profits, so much the better.

I'm scratching my head as to how I've misunderstood your quote.

I would like to ask how your economic view of the world would work but to be honest I've lost the will. Your nearing one thousand posts and you only joined in July!

Yours doesn't seem to be doing much better....

Rollo Tomasi wrote:

Sir John Hawkins wrote:

 And if it helps dent Aldi's profits, so much the better.

I'm scratching my head as to how I've misunderstood your quote.

I would like to ask how your economic view of the world would work but to be honest I've lost the will. Your nearing one thousand posts and you only joined in July!

For the last time, I was phrasing what the enemies of Aldi, the advocates of Tesco/Sainsbury, might be thinking. Not me.

I have accumulated 1000 posts in short order, yes. Is that a crime ? On Pasoti, it's positively a reason to buy the forum.
In a short while, when I am no longer posting here, just perusing on occasion, I will look at your latest contribution, and smile.

It was Aldi funded alright but delivered to a council design, which is fecking awful but it's well known this council has a penchant for fecking up the motorist

Yep, it's all the councils fault, all the fault of Adams and Sheridan.
God bless the Amey Corporations, and all who feed like them.
Graiser. History tells us the car was very popular post war, hence the new American designed Plmouthcity centre with the car foremost in the mind of developers. And very car friendly it was too, up until the 90s.
These days, cars are not so welcome in city centres, and hence developments will reflect that. Pedestrians are emerging from their dystopian underpasses, and taking their rightful place. There's nothing that will stop that trend.
I use my vehicle, my feet and my pedals.I prefer feet and pedals while in town and not carrying weight, and a vehicle out on the trunk roads and motorways.

I just use the bus for town, but the council planners are a complete contradiction, Drakes Circus has a whacking great Car Park which creates traffic nightmares, it's regular now for Saturday traffic queuing from the entrance to that CP right through to the Plain and up to Mannamead Road, which comes first, the infrastructure or fecking great traffic jams, I think we kno the answer to that.

Plymouth has an unusual problem geographically. It is hemmed in by two rivers and, as the council would have us believe, one ocean. There is no magic pill to ease the traffic chaos.

The vast majority of cities have a motorway network that can carry transport close to the centres. We have no such luxury and it's clear that traffic bottlenecks are created further out.

The hills and general layout make a simple solution impossible.

Instead of bellyaching why don't some of you come up with some ideas.

What?! So if we want to criticise the Trust we need to stand for election or shut up and now if the traffic is bad we need to get a degree in town planning.

A predictable response. Why the need to have a degree? Point me to where I've said that.

For what it's worth, I think the problem with Mutley Plain is at the other end. The Hyde Park pub layout has always caused chaos. And there's too many traffic lights from there into Drakes Circus.

Maybe there's just too many cars.

Maybe there are too many people.

It is as simple as that - there are too many cars. Councils need to be coming down on one side or the other - either ban cars entirely from the City Centre, or build feckin great car parks and allow free parking. Heresy, I know.

Here in Spain there are no traffic problems as there are in the UK - Madrid excepted, but that's the same as all capital cities I guess. Our nearest city is Murcia, about the size of Plymouth and with a lot of traffic, but it flows because it has a decent infrastructure - south and north ring roads and the city centre itself has a number of huge underground car parks surrounding the shopping area. Traffic is led to the parking areas and not left to fend for itself trying to find somewhere to park. There are traffic lights but not every 100 yards.

Could they do underground car parks in Plymouth given the proximity to the sea? Probably too difficult for the highly qualified town planners. Let's build student accommodation, much easier.

Bingo ! |The new Mutley junction is all uprooted again. Back to the queues heading into town. There's a couple of gangs laying what might just be the pedestrian part of the masterpiece. I reckon ATD have spurred them on to finish the job. If I were Aldi, I'd have been tempted to sue the contractors for loss of trade.
As it happens though, being student land, 80% of it's customers are a pieds. I find it astonishing that such road shennigens were deemed necessary to cope with all that non-existent extra traffic going to Aldi. I shall be interested to try out the new pedestrian crossing when it actually opens. I don't fancy POI's chances of collecting his pension, stumbling out of the Fortescue after a skinful.

They have being doing this since last week on the other side,  rubbish tarmac as been laid on the Junction side to replace the paving slabs and the  channels along these slabs have not been replace, which takes the rain water coming from the building down pipes to the gutter.

Welcome to Plymouth, spiritual home of the bodge job.