Post-war redevelopment

May I add some thoughts here, speaking as someone who (a) lives near a traditional city, and (b) who hasn't come into Coventry's city centre for over 20 years. One major fault of Coventry's planners in the 50s was that you have to do SO MUCH WALKING to make use of the shops! Traditional city centres are quite compact, because they grew organically; modern planned centres are totally artificial. In the early 50s, despite the bomb damage, you could do an awful lot of shopping using just Smithford St (what was left of it) and the old City Arcade and Barracks Market. Just try that even in the 1960s! And each iteration has made it more spread out and disjointed. That is one of the prime things that tears the heart out of it. Someone mentioned Cologne. That, too, is quite a compact city centre for what is a much bigger city than Coventry, and it's easy to walk around it; you don't have to walk miles to find the shops you need. Another issue that has always bugged me with Coventry's centre is that it seemed to use cheap finishes that were easily vandalised. Things like mosaic panels at floor level - very quickly lost a lot of the mosaic tiles, and just as quickly looked run down. I contrast it with Norwich. Norwich had bombing, too, and some areas are still empty - but not in the actual centre. The centre is vibrant, attractive, and well, homely, for want of a better word. The old narrow streets are mainly pedestrianised. But there is also a concrete shopping area - Anglia Square - that is very reminiscent of a lot of Coventry. It's cut off from the main centre by an inner ring-road fly-over, and is about a mile outside the actual centre. Guess what? It looks run down, footfall is reducing, the street running to it has a lot of empty, and run-down shops. The few good shops that were there have been replaced by e.g. QD and Poundland - says a lot, does it not? Especially as there is no proper car park, just a muddy, private car park with extortionate charges, otherwise you have to park a good way away. These "modern" monstrosities are demonstrably not the way to go for city centres. And planners now, having perpetrated them, don;'t know what to do to improve them, so they compound the felony with cheap paved areas, mediocre face-lifts, et., and pretend they've done a good job. The planners are still trying to wreck Norwich, however, with the Chapelfields shopping centre (more chain shopping) and the Castle Mall (even more chain shopping, but not as bad as some - at least it's right in the centre, and has good parking). In Germany, most modern town planners have tried to at least replicate the appearance of the old pre-war cities (though some haven't, e.g. Kassel, which is like Coventry). Even now, they are going to try to re-create some of the beautiful baroque city centre of Dresden; if Germany can do it, so can we. But our planners, IMHO, are too puffed up with their own opinion of their cleverness and 'artiness' that they won't even consider they might be wrong, so we continue to get the worst of all worlds. As someone also said, I know from my own memories that the city of Coventry was planned to be largely 'redeveloped' in the early 1930s - hence the vandalism of Butcher Row/Little Butcher Row. Whether what was planned before the wartime destruction would have been any better than what was done post war, and later, is an unanswerable question. Somehow, I doubt it.

Hi Leanne My father when he was alive, used to mention a Jimmy deMain with whom he was friendly when he was a young man living at home with his parents (my grandparents) in Hamilton Road (off Kingsway). This would have been in the 1920s. Doesn't help your family history research much but is offered as background. Peter A.

My wife's cousin was manager of the Coventry Economic Building Society in the old Martin's Bank for quite a number of years up to the 1980s.

Yes please!

This is a picture of one of the ancient stone vaults under the High Street. It may not be the actual one referred to above but it is probably very similar:

Not sure whether any of you have seen this picture, I was blown away by it! There's so much greenery and trees around, less concrete is good! In fact it looks like they want to demolish (again!) most of the Lower Precinct. They say this is the final plan, so does that mean its going to look like this picture?

Looks like someone was given a new computer for Christmas! I guess they completely "forgot" that we have a cover over the Lower Precinct now!

A green and pleasant land, by the look of it !

This is three years old, and is no longer happening. What they are doing instead is just a bit of tarting up of the existing precinct. And, it seems, creating a large open area around the horrible market building, which they wanted to demolish a few years back.

Hi Peter, He would most definitely be referring to either my great grandfather or my grandad, both were called James (Jim/Jimmy) though my grandfather was born in the 1920's so he may have been a bit too young? It is interesting to hear! We are the only de Main's in the UK! Leanne

Dutchman - that's pretty much how I remember it! I will get round to copying the plan at some point - it's pretty heavy going though so I might hand it over to Rob

Would love to see the Plan too

I also have a copy of this plan.

It's in Rob's capable hands now so I'll leave it to him to do with it as he will!

Well, just finished a bit of a mammoth scanning session! Firstly, though, I'd like to thank LdeMain for her kindness in passing that 1966 Review Plan on to me. And now for your viewing pleasure and entertainment.... the first 19 pages of the plan - the overview, with photos, models and diagrams. I'll try to put more on as I find some time, but this first section sets the tone of the plan, and in many ways echoes the earlier 1945 plan which laid out the first post-war proposals. For convenience, I've placed these images in The Gallery. I hope they will provoke a few memories....