Friargate development

I've been reading some interesting reports about Coventry railway links. They're generally pretty poor, especially to other cities such as Leicester and Nottingham and even to the city's own 'sub region' considering the links that do exist. The numbers of commuters who use the trains to get to work in Coventry is *very* low, something like 2.5% percent of the city's commuters. (CF 30% in Birmingham). Most of the employment zones in Coventry are not served by railways - and generally are on the outskirts of the city. Due to the change in the local economy Coventry has had to look 'elsewhere' for people to fill its jobs markets, and out of town parks are perfect for this as these skills are generally outside the city and commuting to out of town business parks is better for these people. Better rail links and Friargate will provide a central businesses district. There are, it appears, ideas to improve links to Warwickshire and hopefully Leicester/East Midlands and also create Rapid Transit systems to link up the city's out of town business areas with a hub at the station. According to the government stats, Coventry's going to experience fairly strong growth up until 2021 thanks to the 'London effect' and the constraints on places like Milton Keynes - Coventry is predicted to be the largest (And maybe dominant?) city out of the group consisting of Leicester, Milton Keynes, Northampton, Rugby. There may be some interesting times ahead... Also plans to generally improve the station, which is deemed as being too anonymous.

Hi all & Hi Flapdoodle History has a habit of repeating itself. Just as now, HS2 is not wanted in so many areas, Coventry business & trading community did not want the Victorian railway anywhere near, so the station was built outside of the original boundary. The London & Birmingham Railway Company, along with the Birmingham & Derby as well as the Midland Counties railway, all separate companies, had planned that Coventry would be their grandiose meeting point. As our city rejected any notion of having a railway, Rugby became the main junction, along with Hampton in Arden. Many people have no idea that Hampton in Arden was once a junction station. That had all originally been planned to be one comprehensive junction, right in the middle of Coventry. I hope that helps.

Thanks Philip, some interesting facts there. I seem to recall Bodmin resisted the railways and as a result the station was built some way out of the town and it suffered a decline as a consequence.

Bodmin has its own station - but now it is not part of the main network. I was on a branch line which went to Padstow as far as I can determine. The main line drops passengers off at Bodmin Parkway. Distance from Bodmin? Don't think Tile Hill: more like Berkswell, and buses about as frequent. I went to Bodmin for the day about 10 years ago. I was staying in Taunton and I always get confused with distances down that part of the country. I had agreed to meet up with a severely disabled friend whom I'd met on a photographic forum. It's a long way.

Hi, I've just re-read all this thread and am confused. I realise that the site is at the bottom of Warwick Road and covers an area beween the station and the ring road but how far does it spread? What are its limits? Can anyone point me to a plan? Also if people are working that far away from the centre how do they do their lunch-time shopping in the centre?

I think this gives you some idea

That clearly is not in the plan

Have you seen it?

see post 150 above

That's just a masterplan to show layout and massing, though.

A "masterplan" which shows no main entrance to the station on Warwick Road It makes little sense not to have the main entrance on the same level as the station itself if that is possible, which it is

I thought I'd heard somewhere that "The Rocket" was being demolished to provide an entrance to the station? BTW, the image shown on the link in post 150 doesn't even appear to show Warwick Road! There looks like there's a mono-rail running across the right-hand end of Central Six

"There looks like there's a mono-rail running across the right-hand end of Central Six" I took that to be the Spencer Park footbridge TonyS.

Yes it does It's got trees in the middle of it! It's almost at the centre across the bottom of the image, continues 11 o'clockish over the ring road and through Greyfriars Green! And yes, that's the Grosvenor Road footbridge

It does, though. It shows new station buildings flanking the bridge - on the RHS it appears to be linked up to the main station building. On the LHS I assume there's what appears to be an entrance to the new platform planned for local trains.