Canals around Coventry

Yes I have been to Brindley Place. Quite often in fact, and it formed the basis of my vision. Until the redevelopment it was an unused eyesore, and two things brought more people in. 1. The alterations to the Birmingham ring road that helped it connect much better to the central Birmingham area, and the train station especially. 2. The venues like the NIA, the ICC and Symphony Hall, whenever I go the people around the area are invariably there for one of the shows/conferences. All the other businesses, the restaurants especially, trade off this and without them most wouldn't survive. These are the main points that need to be addressed, and are far more important than any changes to the structures. I'm not saying raze the entire thing and replace it with painted concrete walls and glass everywhere - the brick structures are fine and suit it well, adding a sense of sturdiness and even grandeur if kept clean. I just don't think the layout makes it a particularly welcoming experience or helps draw people in (something the post-war redevelopment and the ring road especially have caused or exacerbated). Now the ring road itself is a problem, not due to the size/width of it but merely the way it is used - as a mini motorway with pedestrians pretty much told not to even think about trying to get across it. Change that perception and it isn't a massive obstacle at all, and something as simple as a pedestrian crossing could start that change - more so than fancy bridges and decking. The A45 through the built up parts of the city like Tile Hill is no different in speed or size, but people cross over that all the time because they are given the opportunity to do so and don't feel they're doing something 'forbidden', which is how the ring road makes you feel . The Broad Lane crossing actually has NINE lanes of traffic to cross from my side. Yet people cross it walking their dogs, even with kids on bikes, and yet none are pedestrian crossings, just traffic lights that change on a sequence. They wouldn't dream of doing such a thing with the ring road, because of the way its perceived. You talk of dead ends and weird spaces, but the entrance to the basin feels weird IMO. You look inside the entrance off the side of what is now quite a little used road out of curiosity and the small paved area right in front of you leads up to the waters edge and just stops. You can't go to the right hand side as Leicester Row is built right up to the waters edge due to its original industrial purpose. You can walk along the left hand edge, but from the entrance its really not clear where it goes, if anywhere, or what benefit you would gain from doing so. It feels like the only way out is the way you came in, and its enclosed nature means no-one can see you - common themes used throughout the horror genre to create a feeling of fear and foreboding. Then there are the coal sheds set back from the rest of the buildings which comes as a surprise as well (and provides a great cover for would be muggers). You keep on talking about this massive open space, but the NIA fills its space well and the area around it certainly doesn't feel like a vast windswept square like Broadgate. It feels developed and built up, but not enclosed, and that is how I envisage that space being used. As I left the basin and out into St Nicholas St/Leicester Row, I turned to make my way towards the bridge and I could see two of the spires over Bishop St and thought how nice it would be to be sitting looking from a restaurant window or apartment in the basin across the canal and over that view. The Royal Mail building would prevent it (but this may be going, alas to be replaced by something worse), but Leicester Row does as well. This, and having an entrance that related directly to the city centre rather than off the side of a road that is now itself completely disconnected from the city centre would just make the entire area much more welcoming and inviting IMO. I know I'm not explaining this very well and as I said in my original post it would be unpopular anyway

I appreciate your viewpoint and the history the basin holds for you, but to say the canal basin is too far from the city centre is factually incorrect - Birmingham New St to Brindley Place and Coventry Train Station to Canal Basin are both 0.9miles - I checked when I first had the thought of it and was surprised because like you I thought it was much further away than in Birmingham, but the reason it feels so much further is because of the need to traverse the ring road. Not once but twice. And the reason Brindley Place relates better to its city centre than ours is BECAUSE of the redevelopment - the removal of barriers like Birmingham's ring road making it more accessible, which as I've stated above is the major problem of connectivity of our centre to our basin. For decades we've had the preserve the industrial nature of the canal and the basin and for pretty much all that time it's continued to at best stagnate, at worst decline further. The canal historians/enthusiasts aren't going to generate the business needed to make it viable. The waterways that have a new lease of life are based around waterside residences and entertainment. Look at the things that have made our canal relevant in modern times - Electric Wharf, the apartments in the basin, the reuse of the coal sheds as a small entertainment/community venue. The massive old unused industrial units further out are doing nothing to rejuvenate it, or the surrounding communities. In a time with chronic housing needs, using such massive sites for properties seems not just reasonable, but sensible. Waterside properties can be very desirable, and could be used to attract a more affluent population into the north of the city and help reduce the economic and social disparity within this city.

I don`t see the relevance of railway stations to this topic. As for Brindley Place it is a 17 acre site in the centre of Birmingham, redeveloped in the 90s with the canal running under Broad Street, one of the main thoroughfares in Birmingham, so to compare Coventry basin to this is to say the least incomparable. As I stated in my second post on this topic, in the 60s/70s when the ring road was built, Coventry Council would have had no idea the canals and waterside properties would become as popular as they have. As for the enthusiasts who renovated the canals, if they had not done what they did we would probably not be having this conversation, as the Coventry arm of the canal would more than likely have been filled in long ago. The only reason any development at all has taken place in the basin area is because the canal was kept open, also waterside properties in Drapers Fields, Hawkesbury Junction, Swan Lane, to name but a few

Always wondered why like Birmingham the council didn't make use of the canal system, it would make a lovely setting for town centre instead of big concrete buildings etc, anyone else think the same???

No, I don't think the same. Cities are supposed to have big buildings. Birmingham has some concrete, but it also some great new stuff and also whole areas that weren't ruined by the planners and recent developments that have been a huge boost to the city. The canal basin in Cov is a perfect place to develop around as it forms a focal point, but they never do enough to draw people in and then wonder why these developments end up failing and can't attract businesses - a couple of shop units somewhere that's not really got footfall won't work. That phoenix Initiative (Priory Place/Millennium Square) is another example - no one can make a go of the businesses there so they end up closing and reopening all the time, and the last time I went there (in summer) it was just full of junk food joints & closed units (the ones that were open were empty). It's been tinkered with and messed around since it was finished and no one seems to know what to do with it... It doesn't help that they keep doing bits and pieces all over the place and leave them half finished - Even Spon Street feels unfinished to me. Didn't they build another pub unit in the Basin that's been empty for years?

It seems to me the reasons that the canal basin is poorly visited are i) on foot, you have to go up Bishop St which isn't particularly attractive; ii) it's uphill from the city; iii) the ring road is obviously a barrier; iv) it's not directly accessible from Foleshill Rd, Radford Rd or even the ring road; v) it needs more convenient free parking; vi) there isn't anything there really worth visiting, probably due to the above. Perhaps when and if the Bishopgate project gets off the ground, some of these obstacles will be overcome.

Hi mcsporran, I think you`ve hit the nail on the head there, particularly about Bishop Street. Unless you are an asylum seeker or want to book a funeral or buy tools, that's it. It looks fine at its start with Corporation Street, but within yards you are confronted with a large lump of derelict, boarded-up, overgrown land across the road, the Diplomat pub which to say the least has been classed as dodgy for as long as I can remember, then more empty buildings till you reach the old Frettons showroom which is now a help centre for overseas people, the Stag was closed down the last time I visited Machine Mart, and between these, Pargetters, that's the lot. It has gradually died over the years, the Bishopgate project looks interesting though - let's hope they actually build it to breath some life into a very depressing street. As for the businesses at the basin, some years ago I attended a boat rally at the basin, there was a nice ice cream shop there at the time doing a roaring trade, along with the craft shops. I saw a lot of people trying to get into the Admiral Codrington without success, when it did finally open we went in, I asked the guy behind the bar why it opened so late - to my shock, his answer was, he looked out of the window, saw all the people at the boat rally and, in his words, said he couldn't be ars*d to open. So there you go, no wonder it closed down. This is why I said in my previous comment that there was a good opportunity missed with this pub

Coventry city centre will never get back what it had, i e big stores, thriving businesses, because 1) the rent (set by our beloved council!!) is miles too high and 2) businesses are better off at these big retail parks where there's free parking and space. So going back to my previous point, make the centre more 'attractive', the canal could be a focal point with cafe bars, restaurants etc Go with the times, Coventry!!!!

Hi stevie g, agree with you entirely about the rents and rates driving businesses away from town but I`m sure you must agree with mcsporran and myself that Bishop Street does nothing to entice people up to the basin

Yes I agree mickw, the 'Bishopsgate' project might improve the outlook but I have my doubts, it needs a project big enough to transform that side of town and somehow think the councillors haven't got the brains for that. Totally disagree with the view that a town centre should be 'big buildings' as said before, extend the canal into and around Bishop Street and one side of Corporation Street, make it somewhere where people want to come and spend time at, then you could still waste money with redeveloping the centre with big buildings!!!!! (sorry, wasnt having a dig!!)

Interesting idea, to extend the canal down Bishop Street - it would take quite a few locks to drop that far! What would there be at the bottom of the staircase?

About a decade ago, maybe more, the council came up with the idea of extending the canal from the canal basin, not down Bishop Street, but under the Foleshill Road and down through the hospital grounds (hospital due for demolition) to create a new canal basin at the Swanswell, with a development of apartments and canalside retail outlets. I think this idea may have been at the same time as the proposal to drop the ring road to ground level between the Foleshill Road and Sky Blue Way interchanges??

Hi MR & stevie g, that's why the canal stops where it does as the navvies said when they got to Coventry over 200 years ago, it's all downhill from now on....!!!!!!

Harrier, yes that's a good idea, must admit hadn't seen that post, it would take a lot of working out, planning etc but would benefit the area immensely (sorry spelling not my strong point!!) but are the council educated enough to even think about it!!! As you can tell I've lost a lot of respect for our beloved council leaders etc!!!! This is after years of fighting them on various topics

Hello all I apologise for not getting my ideas across well, as they start with small nuggets and gradually grow into something which bears little semblance to the reality now. When this idea started, it was more of a city centre wide urban planning and regeneration scheme, with various destinations, but looking more at the journey between those destinations rather than the destinations themselves. I looked upon the basin as a potential arts/entertainment district, due to spending a great deal of time in Birmingham and seeing a lot of Brindley Place, but how exactly to lay that out wasn't my major thing. It was how to make the journey to it both interesting and legible. As part of this grand scheme, a recurring problem is always the ring road. It's far too compact to be used in the way it is, and I eventually foresee it as a levelled road, with pedestrian crossings, pavements and buildings built up to it, rather than a mash of over/underpasses, massive junctions, slip roads and empty spaces. I know full well that is some way off (especially given the council change towards Concrete Collar Conservation ahead of fairly decent plans like the Swanswell Initiative) but with this in mind, eventually I see the ring road around the basin as being more like Broad St, at which point the two schemes become a lot more similar. Although not entirely the same, Birmingham did a great deal of changes to its ringroad around Brindley Place to help it connect with the rest of the city centre better, and I see my plan as being similar to their changes As for the basin itself, as mentioned above, its access is poor - either from the canal itself or St Nicholas St - and for the journey to be more legible it needed to have obvious access and legibility from the city centre direction and around Bishop St in particular, but this is enclosed by the buildings on the south side of the basin such as Leicester Row and thus it became clear at least part of these would have to go to make that improvement. Another point mentioned was the expansion of the basin towards Bishop St, and while I thought the topography etc unfortunately made expanding the actual waterway unfeasible, I have always thought of the Bishop St area as part of my plan, straddling the ring road with further apartments, bars, restaurants etc. and connecting it with the centre rather than it being separate from it. Rather than my thinking of this as a developer focusing solely on the basin, I see it more as urban planning, with the entire 'Station to the Basin' being an experience, from alighting at the station to views of the skyline and the spires to walking through the centre and seeing its history, mixed in with shops and places to eat, to an impressive waterside entertainment destination.