Broadgate

Thanks Paula What year would that have been, do you know ?

The little girl in the picture is my wonderful mum in law who was born in 1947 if that helps

It's a view of Smithford Street looking towards Broadgate. The temporary wall is to prevent people falling into the basements of the bombed-out shops that were once in Smithford Street.

Just looking at the artists impression of the new pedestrianised Broadgate and it HIT me. what a wonderful big space to fill up with more shops OR another huge tatty market.

I think you mean a big space to fill up with more 'empty' shops. And chewing gum. And patches of tarmac when it breaks and they can't be bothered to repair it properly. It's a large space, quite dreary, and sitting in Starbucks this weekend I realised that no one actually seemed to be walking into Cathedral Lanes (which looked closed.) I'm sure the artists impression of Ironmonger Square/The Burges had people sitting outside cafes. All that's there is a Greggs and about five bookies. I visited a German town recently where they are pulling down some of the post-war mistakes and reconstructing the old streets. I'm not a huge fan of things like this, but I'm seriously beginning to think that Broadgate pre-war was a far more interesting looking place than the horrendous space we have now.

Sadly Cathedral Lanes has never turned out to be filled with the upmarket individual shops that was first invisaged. Perhaps this is a reflection of the the kind of shops that Coventry citizens actually want! I think that Wilkinsons should move to the empty TJ Hughes shop in the Lower Precinct which is a much more suitable site and then perhaps they might think of bulldozing Cathedral Lanes and giving us back the open aspect to the cathedrals. I had a conversation with the person in charge of the construction site a couple of weeks ago when I expressed my doubts about what had been done. He said that there will be a noticeable improvement when Godiva is surrounded by flowers. I asked about the patches of tarmac that are scattered about and he said they are a temporary covering for electrical points for market stalls. I guess we will have to wait and see if his optimism about the square is justified.

The lack of decent shops in Cathedral Lanes is a reflection of the deterioration of the city centre that has been happening over the last 20 years or so. There were some excellent ones when it first opened, but now all we see around Coventry are charity shops, pound shops, tat shops, phone shops and boarded up shops. Most people have abandoned it all because of difficulty accessing and parking cars. Used properly, Cathedral Lanes could be a focal point of the city centre.

The main reason, in my opinion, why Broadgate is in rapid decline is because of lack of through traffic. I can remember when the city was heaving with shoppers, we had the best pedestrian shopping centre in the Midlands. We had roads to access the city. When they blocked off Hertford St, it removed a vital link. The same can be said of Corporation St, Trinity St, High St and Earl St. It's no coincidence that all out of town shopping centres are busy, people want access to the shops, not blocked roads.

You might be amazed to hear (or you might not!) that market stalls are nothing new for Broadgate. The 1860s photograph below is from David McGrory's "Coventry: Then & Now" book, and shows the area that is now exactly where the front of Cathedral Lanes stands. The view was taken from roughly where the original Coventry Cross once stood - between Broadgate and Cross Cheaping - another word meaning market.

Hear hear.

I remember some years ago, an academic criticised Coventry council for 'planning the life out of the city centre', and they have continued to do so - Ironmonger Square, Millennium View, The Burges are all lifeless, empty open spaces linked up to another vast open space (Broadgate) which is part of a dreadful precinct complex that people don't seem to like much. I just can't be bothered to go to Coventry city centre anymore. It's a dreary, depressing place, and there's little reason to go there. I tend to go to Leamington for shops and Birmingham for entertainment. Coventry is a dead city, run by a council who seem to be patting themselves on the back at winning an election, but have presided over a failed reconstruction, and continue to inflict huge damage on the fabric of the city - it has no urban grid, no flow of people, just a series of dead ends, a ring road that's become a bypass, and a planned precinct that shrinking under the onslaught of out of town shopping. Mistake after mistake have taken their toll on this city centre, and there's been no attempt to fix them - just endless attempts to bodge and fudge it, going back to Gibson's pathetic attempt at recreating 'Chester' in Coventry, and the subsequent tatty bits of canopy and metal that have been bolted onto it... Now we have ghastly paved areas with nothing in them.

Hi all How often do we hear that the decline of trade in our city centre is as a result of 'out of town shopping or malls'? Whilst some of our shopping malls are linked by public transport, the days of whole families going to do a week's shopping using public transport as might have been the case fifty years ago are just a no no. Even I, a staunch user of public transport, would be hard pressed to carry a week's shopping onto a bus, that takes up most of the space even in my estate car. What the shopping malls provide at present is good car access, and until the city planners wake up to that, in ways which are more convenient than just two park & ride bus schemes that we have in Coventry at present, our city centre will be void of the kind of shopping trade that it once enjoyed. The pattern of our lives has changed so much. When I was growing up, my school chums poked fun at me because my mum went to work. Most mums it appears were housewives in those days so the pattern of shopping reflected that. There was always the local Co-op, Pearks or Maypole for the mid-week shopping after a weekly Saturday shopping spree in the city centre. My Pam and her sister will be going shopping together this morning for the main weekly shop at the Ricoh (sorry Coventry Stadium) or whatever it is going to be called - the Ricoh sign is still in place at this date. Ten years ago, they still shopped in the city centre, having to pay for parking in the multi-storey. The Ricoh is nearer and the parking cost is zero, and most of what is needed is there, including car fuel. The major changes in lifestyles that have such a factor on this are: The motor car, the family unit itself and the internet. We almost have a divided shopping society where the people who are still shopping in Coventry centre are those who can't afford to shop anywhere else, whilst those who have access to car transport go elsewhere. The number of times that I have heard this as a conversation on the bus where an elderly person struggles to carry their two shopping bags or trolley. I love strolling around our market and often pick up an item or two, but at the back of my mind I know that what I have bought is an extra, not main-stream shopping

Its too late to do anything about it, but its my view that classic cities like Coventry which were so badly damaged in the war should have been rebuilt back to their original streets and buildings. I know this sounds crazy, but some damaged towns in Europe were rebuilt that way and they are delightful today as they have continued to adapt yet keeping their character. The reason is that those old towns and cities developed because the people that lived in them and used them found it suited them. As time went on, so they altered these places bit by bit to change with their circumstances. When city centres are rebuilt as Coventry was, all in one style, the buildings become far too 'corporationist' and spectacular instead of what the people who used them probably really wanted. Were they asked or was it imposed on them? Will the 1950's/1960's architecture attract visitors and/or students of architecture to view it as something special or classical to be studied?

Good points Philip, well made I am also of an era when mums didn't work. They brought up the family and dad went to work to earn the money. Also in those days 'the school run' had not yet been invented. Most mums didn't drive! So it was walk to junior school and bus to senior school, meeting up with mates en route - much more fun!

I agree entirely. A city centre may just be able to get away with public transport and very little access for cars etc if it predominantly sells itself on entertainment, as people won't be carrying much around and money will be spent on things like food, consumed as they go along. But to obsess with shopping, as Coventry Council has, you HAVE to have loads of easily accessible parking for the plethora of bags etc that people will accumulate, or it becomes unmanageable. To try and become a shopping destination whilst reducing access for private transport is utter utter madness. But they get away with it by constantly asking loaded questionnaires about "do you want less smelly, poisonous vehicles that might run you over in the city centre?" and every time people answer yes. So the council say the measures aren't working because there isn't ENOUGH pedestrianisation despite it being the thing thats killing the place off. They completely twist the causal effect.