For all you buswnkers out there

[jack123]

I’m sorry this post is delusional

Captain Sham is right Swansea Town centre is a sh1t hole

You can’t compare Swansea town to much of that list.

It saddens me greatly stating the bleeding obvious mind

I agree, about the shi* hole part, it has gone to the dogs, the only attraction for me in town, is Swansea Market.

And in the evenings, it's just play a game of dodge the delivery driver speeding past you on their bikes, Castle Square just demolish it, I walked through there the other week in the rain, my feet got absolutely soaked, due to the amount of slabs not set correctly. Bus fare is a fortune, car parks aren't really that close to the shops..

The missis wanted to go to a few shops the other day, by the time you pay rip off car parking fees, and walk half a mile to the shops, you may as well skip Swansea and go down to Troestre.

 

[jack_lord]

I’m sorry this post is delusional

Captain Sham is right Swansea Town centre is a sh1t hole

You can’t compare Swansea town to much of that list.

It saddens me greatly stating the bleeding obvious mind

don't insult me.

 

[JackSomething]

I agree, about the shi* hole part, it has gone to the dogs, the only attraction for me in town, is Swansea Market.

And in the evenings, it's just play a game of dodge the delivery driver speeding past you on their bikes, Castle Square just demolish it, I walked through there the other week in the rain, my feet got absolutely soaked, due to the amount of slabs not set correctly. Bus fare is a fortune, car parks aren't really that close to the shops..

The missis wanted to go to a few shops the other day, by the time you pay rip off car parking fees, and walk half a mile to the shops, you may as well skip Swansea and go down to Troestre.

Have you been to Trostre lately? That's pretty rubbish these days too.

Brick and mortar retail is a shadow of what it was in the past, which inevitably means that town/city centres will struggle. I don't know how many more times it needs to be said. The shift to out of town retail parks started it and the rise of online shopping drove another nail in the coffin.

Whether it works or not, at least Swansea is trying something, which is shifting from a reliance on retail in the city centre to student accommodation, offices, and businesses to service the people living and working in these premises.

 

[Niigata Jack]

Have you been to Trostre lately? That's pretty rubbish these days too.

Brick and mortar retail is a shadow of what it was in the past, which inevitably means that town/city centres will struggle. I don't know how many more times it needs to be said. The shift to out of town retail parks started it and the rise of online shopping drove another nail in the coffin.

Whether it works or not, at least Swansea is trying something, which is shifting from a reliance on retail in the city centre to student accommodation, offices, and businesses to service the people living and working in these premises.

How much call now exists for Student accommodation though?
The amount of accommodation available must surely be close to its limit as to the amount of students that need accommodation.

 

[jack123]

Have you been to Trostre lately? That's pretty rubbish these days too.

Brick and mortar retail is a shadow of what it was in the past, which inevitably means that town/city centres will struggle. I don't know how many more times it needs to be said. The shift to out of town retail parks started it and the rise of online shopping drove another nail in the coffin.

Whether it works or not, at least Swansea is trying something, which is shifting from a reliance on retail in the city centre to student accommodation, offices, and businesses to service the people living and working in these premises.

I'm not a great fan of Trostre either, the missis for some reason likes Primark. I guess my point is, where is the pull towards Swansea City centre, this time of year drive down in the peeing down rain, park a fair distance away, and pay god knows how much, dependant on council or ncp car park, or pull up more or less right outside the store for free?

I'll be honest, I don't really understand the second paragraph, are you more or less saying that Swansea has given up on the idea, of retail in the actual town centre, and would prefer it student accommodation and businesses instead? If that what you were trying to get across, for me that's bonkers, which IMO is doomed to failure.

Edit: Just re-read, the last paragraph I should say, For me it's to doomed to failure, make all town student accommodation flats and business, what happens then? Everybody shops online, killed the town centre for what? What did it achieve? I would think nothing, but just a combined Brymill/Llansamlet area kind of feel, but it's ok everyone can jump on the great local public transport to the likes of Morfa/Llansmalet/Troestre wherever they are, one bus every 5 minutes.

 

[JackSomething]

How much call now exists for Student accommodation though?
The amount of accommodation available must surely be close to its limit as to the amount of students that need accommodation.

I thought the same, but post-Brexit the universities seems to be looking further afield for students and their lovely money. There's a staggering amount of African students at Swansea University these days for example.

 

[JackSomething]

I'm not a great fan of Trostre either, the missis for some reason likes Primark. I guess my point is, where is the pull towards Swansea City centre, this time of year drive down in the peeing down rain, park a fair distance away, and pay god knows how much, dependant on council or ncp car park, or pull up more or less right outside the store for free?

I'll be honest, I don't really understand the second paragraph, are you more or less saying that Swansea has given up on the idea, of retail in the actual town centre, and would prefer it student accommodation and businesses instead? If that what you were trying to get across, for me that's bonkers, which IMO is doomed to failure.

Edit: Just re-read, the last paragraph I should say, For me it's to doomed to failure, make all town student accommodation flats and business, what happens then? Everybody shops online, killed the town centre for what? What did it achieve? I would think nothing, but just a combined Brymill/Llansamlet area kind of feel, but it's ok everyone can jump on the great local public transport to the likes of Morfa/Llansmalet/Troestre wherever they are, one bus every 5 minutes.

Your first paragraph is a brilliant explanation of why a retail focused city centre is unsustainable today. The alternatives (out of town retail parks, online shopping) are too difficult to compete with unless you have a huge population like Manchester or London.

You may well be right that the switch in focus for the city centre is doomed to failure, but it's better than keeping the focus on shopping and ending up failing anyway. As far as I understand the thinking, it's to focus on the city centre having accommodation (mostly students, but also residential lettings) and businesses to service this accommodation. So leisure (LC2, cinemas, Arena, Ninja Warrior, bowling) and food/drink businesses (cafes, restaurants, bars) that will benefit from more people living in the city centre and spending their money there. These businesses are also going to attract tourists more than the same chain shops that they can go to in any town centre in the country.

Same with more office space, workers will be buying lunches or going out after work to socialise, etc. Bringing the library and other council services into the old BHS is the same thing. I'm guessing the Civic will eventually be sold and knocked down because it's a prime location on the waterfront, yet all the staff working there are cut off from the city centre.

It also ties in with the awful state of public transport. I've seen that bars and restaurants are complaining because the last train from Swansea to Cardiff is around 10:30pm (it's 1am for the last train leaving Cardiff of course), so they're losing custom as people have to rush off early. The more people living in walking distance (or a short taxi ride) of the city centre, the less of a problem that is.

Like I said, no idea if it will work, but at least they're trying something different. Which is why it's annoying when people just post 'Swansea Town centre is a shit hole', showing no attempt to understand the problems being faced and the efforts being made to improve things.

 

[Niigata Jack]

I thought the same, but post-Brexit the universities seems to be looking further afield for students and their lovely money. There's a staggering amount of African students at Swansea University these days for example.

I don't disagree, but how many Uni places are available to these students to warrant the building of countless amounts of the accommodation that is already available, also are the buildings that have been built full of students ?

There's a lot of private rental places with availability to which are probably more cost effective than the cost of staying in these newly built facilities .

 

[JackSomething]

I don't disagree, but how many Uni places are available to these students to warrant the building of countless amounts of the accommodation that is already available, also are the buildings that have been built full of students ?

There's a lot of private rental places with availability to which are probably more cost effective than the cost of staying in these newly built facilities .

I get the impression that the universities will make as many places available as there are foreign students who want them and can afford them. Big earner for the Universities.

Agree on your second sentence, perhaps the University funnels foreign students to these new builds? The companies building them must know the market and are confident the demand is there, as they keep getting built.

 

[Captain_Sham]

Chinese students everywhere also. Universities just want money.

 

[DJack]

Your first paragraph is a brilliant explanation of why a retail focused city centre is unsustainable today. The alternatives (out of town retail parks, online shopping) are too difficult to compete with unless you have a huge population like Manchester or London.

You may well be right that the switch in focus for the city centre is doomed to failure, but it's better than keeping the focus on shopping and ending up failing anyway. As far as I understand the thinking, it's to focus on the city centre having accommodation (mostly students, but also residential lettings) and businesses to service this accommodation. So leisure (LC2, cinemas, Arena, Ninja Warrior, bowling) and food/drink businesses (cafes, restaurants, bars) that will benefit from more people living in the city centre and spending their money there. These businesses are also going to attract tourists more than the same chain shops that they can go to in any town centre in the country.

Same with more office space, workers will be buying lunches or going out after work to socialise, etc. Bringing the library and other council services into the old BHS is the same thing. I'm guessing the Civic will eventually be sold and knocked down because it's a prime location on the waterfront, yet all the staff working there are cut off from the city centre.

It also ties in with the awful state of public transport. I've seen that bars and restaurants are complaining because the last train from Swansea to Cardiff is around 10:30pm (it's 1am for the last train leaving Cardiff of course), so they're losing custom as people have to rush off early. The more people living in walking distance (or a short taxi ride) of the city centre, the less of a problem that is.

Like I said, no idea if it will work, but at least they're trying something different. Which is why it's annoying when people just post 'Swansea Town centre is a s**t hole', showing no attempt to understand the problems being faced and the efforts being made to improve things.

Nailed it.

Additional point...some of the builders know that the student housing is saturated and they are gambling that the council will let them re-purpose as actual housing even though they student flats aren't up to the legal standards for residential purposes

 

[JackSomething]

Nailed it.

Additional point...some of the builders know that the student housing is saturated and they are gambling that the council will let them re-purpose as actual housing even though they student flats aren't up to the legal standards for residential purposes

No knowledge of the market, but that sounds very plausible.

 

[jack123]

Your first paragraph is a brilliant explanation of why a retail focused city centre is unsustainable today. The alternatives (out of town retail parks, online shopping) are too difficult to compete with unless you have a huge population like Manchester or London.

You may well be right that the switch in focus for the city centre is doomed to failure, but it's better than keeping the focus on shopping and ending up failing anyway. As far as I understand the thinking, it's to focus on the city centre having accommodation (mostly students, but also residential lettings) and businesses to service this accommodation. So leisure (LC2, cinemas, Arena, Ninja Warrior, bowling) and food/drink businesses (cafes, restaurants, bars) that will benefit from more people living in the city centre and spending their money there. These businesses are also going to attract tourists more than the same chain shops that they can go to in any town centre in the country.

Same with more office space, workers will be buying lunches or going out after work to socialise, etc. Bringing the library and other council services into the old BHS is the same thing. I'm guessing the Civic will eventually be sold and knocked down because it's a prime location on the waterfront, yet all the staff working there are cut off from the city centre.

It also ties in with the awful state of public transport. I've seen that bars and restaurants are complaining because the last train from Swansea to Cardiff is around 10:30pm (it's 1am for the last train leaving Cardiff of course), so they're losing custom as people have to rush off early. The more people living in walking distance (or a short taxi ride) of the city centre, the less of a problem that is.

Like I said, no idea if it will work, but at least they're trying something different. Which is why it's annoying when people just post 'Swansea Town centre is a s**t hole', showing no attempt to understand the problems being faced and the efforts being made to improve things.

Hard to disagree with any of that, although I just think it's a shame that we are in this position, maybe a few year back if SCC, had decided on using the land where Tesco is, to build a super car park, and maybe improve the Quadrant car park, maybe things would have been different?

IMO I think the best would be to have all retail at one central point, with excellent car parks, and all buses converging on it, the way it's going now, retail is scattered everywhere, and from what I have seen, a decent public transport link to these shops is virtually non existent.

 

[Dr. Winston]

We've taken our son down to London for weekend trips a couple of times in the last few years. I'd prefer to use the train from Swansea to Paddington, but even the cheapest tickets are massively more expensive than driving to the outskirts, parking at a tube station car park for the weekend and catching the tube in. No incentive to use public transport at all.

Train is probably just about cheaper for a solo traveller, but for sure, if there's more than one of you then driving and parking up somewhere like Watford before getting the Tube into Central London is a helluva lot cheaper.

 

[Dr. Winston]

The decline in town centres is not a phenomenon limited to Swansea. Since the advent of the internet traditional bricks and mortar retail has been in a fight for its life and one it's mostly losing to eCommerce and out of town retail parks.

Swansea Council fully deserve criticism for a lot of their actions in recent decades but I tend to think that the current strategy towards a mixed use city centre will prove to be the right one in the long run. I just wish that they hadn't spent £100m on an Arena so unfit for purpose.