City scape

In my view, the important thing with buildings is how well they age, and in a city, it's how well they fit in with surrounding streets and whether they create a decent cityscape. Some of the stuff built in the post-war years has aged very badly, and the city centre has virtually no decent townscapes or streets. Donald Gibson's precinct has been a disaster and looks... absolutely ghastly now. The buildings have aged badly and now look somewhat tatty and decaying. I like the Cov Uni 'Dalek City' building, but I can imagine in 20 years time it'll look quite dreadful. But like the IKEA/Skydome area, it's a disjointed mess in that area. Things like the Elephant Sports centre have aged badly, and the back to front nature of a lot of Coventry has only served to make it even more awkard. I like the Belgrade Theatre, but notice this weeknd how bad the area around the main entrance looks. Very poorly finished (I think it's a later addition) and quite tatty. All those stupid canopies and perspex glass bits that have been added around the precinct have just made it look worse.

I can agree with you Flapdoodle even some older buildings don't age well, and some older buildings I don't like but it's a waste of time as they will do what they want any way, as I have just learned the real plan for Coventry is to join/link it from Warwick University right into the town, which when you see the student flats in Broadgate at the old Leofric, shows their plan has succeeded right into the town, like the plan was in the first place, from years ago, a city of its own, as I have just been told, to make it like Oxford and Cambridge even our hospital is a University get it, not Walsgrave or Coventry but University hospital. Hence Broadgate being slabbed easier to keep clean with the young throwaway society of students.

The University title in the hospital just means it's a teaching hospital. I think a lot of hospitals that are linked to medical schools are called University Hospitals: Staffordshire, Cardiff, etc. It doesn't mean the hospital is part of the University... I can't see how they can link the city centre to Warwick University. The two about 3.5 miles apart! That's an odd idea. People forget that Warwick University has invested in Coventry a lot and has set up the science park and business parks that provide vital employment and bring in skills. Warwick also has the Arts centre. Graduates (like myself) sometimes stay and bring new skills and prosperity which is vital. One of the reasons why cities like Oxford and Cambridge are so prosperous is because of their universities. I'm not convinced that filling the city centre with nothing but student flats is going to help solve its problems (I think it'll alienate people more.).

Coventry owns Warwick University too, it bought the land opposite so it could be called Warwick University, the land opposite they let to be a farm, they even own all the roads too, so I am informed, perhaps someone will say if I am wrong I'm sure. Isn't Friargate going to be joined from the station through to Greyfriars Green, I wonder if we would have thought that possible at one time, I do know that was the plan to link it all together. I have just found this for you Flapdoodle, if you read the second paragraph below it tells you the land for a farm was bought too. Take note, in there it states they plan over the next 15 years to expand more. It states it is governed by the courts, council and senate, if it's USA senate goodbye Coventry as we knew it, as it does mention Clinton and Blair. Perhaps that's the intention to make Coventry prosperous. I think it's already done that, alienate some of the locals. When you're brought up in a small town over the years you get use to seeing local people friends etc. you know while shopping in the town, when they extend and bring extra people in which you're not familiar with you feel more wary and not feel safe, not the community you knew any more, stupid as it sounds this is what I hear from others, hence they find elsewhere like local retail parks, where you bump into your friends, relatives, that now shop there too, not having to pay bus fares, trying to find parking which is free. With more people, more being built into the town gives a feeling just thinking of it as enclosed. Perhaps that's why so many retail parks have been built so the town can be for the students and retail shops for us.

The Warwick Uni campus in split - part in within the Coventry city boundary, part in the Warwick. And it isn't 'owned' by Coventry - it's an autonomous institution that has to pay rates etc like everyone else. And it's not the same as Greyfriars Green and the station, which is about a hundred yards and the only real problem ever was getting over the roundabout, a situation easily rectified with a pedestrian crossing to replace the subway. It always been thinkable, and for many the main question has been "why has it taken so long?" And with the info coming from Wikipedia, I'm afraid I have to take it at face value. A huge amount of stuff on there is erroneous, often deliberately so, due to the nature of the way it pulls together the information. And of course it will look to expand if the potential demand is there, as any other business or organisation would. And it is regretful that you feel anyone you don't know is a threat - perhaps the students feel the same way about the locals? After all, they are usually the ones who are young, away from all they find familiar and the comfort of the family home for the first time in a totally alien place. The students have friends, relatives etc just like you do, so what is there to be afraid of? I met a myriad of people from around the country and the world, with different cultures/religions etc as a student and 99.99% of them were lovely people - far nicer than many of the local people I met at school (which is unsurprising as students on the whole are the nice kids who worked hard and succeeded, especially at somewhere like Warwick). In fact a number of them were slightly wary of me at first just because I was from Coventry, and they'd heard it was a pretty rough place. My sister lived with a small group of students some years back, none of whom were from the local area and some from abroad, and found them a nice bunch to live with. She then moved into a house with non-students with most of the housemates from the local area. They were a nightmare. Coming in drunk at 3am and then turning on music at a ridiculous level (even though the neighbours (who were Chinese and extremely polite) had a small baby), shouting/swearing, some even taking recreational drugs. In fact the people she had no problems with were a guy from down south and a guy from India. She left after a few months because the stress was making her unwell. And what about those who study there from Coventry? They're both local and students, so which part is for them? I don't see the problem with trying to entice more Warwick students into the city centre. Let's not forget todays students are tomorrows decision makers, especially at a uni with a huge reputation like Warwick. Do you want them to dismiss Coventry in the future because their experiences of it were bad and unwelcoming as a student?

Its been over 7 years since the last post on this topic and in that time a lot more building has taken place in the city. In particular student accommodation and a new water sports centre. Personally, I like the colourful look of the towers and I'm pretty sure it's adding to the town's coffers? There has also been major developments on the University site, this has also bought money to the area, this can be seen by some of the shops being taken over at Cannon Park shopping centre. I think we should call it progress!!