However, if there is some happy medium that could enrich the area and modernise the facilities I gotta say I would vote for that.
As a business graduate I would offer the following mildly cynical thoughts with a sprinkling of optimism on the side.
- There's not enough footfall on Armley Town St to attract businesses of a certain calibre, i.e. low margin, high volume, branded goods
- There's not enough branded goods to attract footfall (it's a cruel world)
- The traffic links suck
- There's no-where near enough parking to facilitate points 1 or 2
- There's not enough of point 1 to improve point 3 (is it getting any clearer?)
As I have indicated this must start with a car park and I imagine the council would be unwilling to invest in that without a fairly major independent business signed up to open premises in the vicinity. I thought Somerfield might have been the catalyst for that until I realised they already owned Kwik Save and it was just a re-branding exercise.
Secondly, I'm not a fan of buses but places like Headingley, Hyde Park and Cross Gates have scores of bus routes going through them as hubs. Armley Town St has basically two, the 16 and the 5. All the other buses through West Leeds stay on the Stanningley Bypass. Yes it's not far away but it's a significant distance. Why do you think Tesco Express put up shop there?
They basically need to turn Armley Town St round to face the bypass and build a big car park in front of it.
There, all sorted...
Nick (grecian.blogspot.com)
ps - boycott Tesco Express for putting in self service tills, or at least refuse to use them and create big queues.
6 comments:
A couple of points...
1) Somerfield only rebranded Kwiksave once they bought the actual shop - it was much more than a rebrand and the stock inside has improved dramatically. Somerfield themselves are attempting to be bought by ASDA Wal-mart, something to remember for the future.
2) You talk of increasing footfall in armley then encourage a boycott of tesco because of one thing they've done that you find inconvenient. A little shortsighted. Unless the comment was meant flippantly, in which case fair enough.
3) The traffic links are restricted by the canal. Rather annoyingly they wont fill this in so people on this side will always be restricted by it.
The buses themselves are, in comparison to many other leeds areas, very good indeed. You hardly ever have to wait more than 10 minutes for a bus - even when they're late they're not *that* late. I used to live on Kirkstall Road and the 33, meant to be every 10 minutes, would frequently not turn up for an hour at a time.
We also seem to get the "good" busses, compared to some of the rattly ones frequently used in other areas of leeds. It's a shame they're abused by so many, and I think that's starting to get to an issue to address.
Chicken and Egg indeed. Why is there not enough footfall on Town Street?
Partly due to the incentives for people to wander down there to buy anything. It's less than 10 minutes no matter where you live, but why bother currently?
I agree that to shop at Somerfield you may need parking if you are to take full advantage and not kill your arms on the walk back.
Buses I agree with Seanee, they are plentiful.
The way I see it there is not a sufficient balance of people to encourage the chickens of Armley to confront poverty in the face. I speak for myself too!
Somerfield is worth a shot, it's got everything you need and is no longer a terrifying experience. Customer service is blunt and honest, which is actually quite refreshing!
So I think we all need to be braver Nick, leave the cars behind, take a walk, patronise what we do have, and complain to the people who count if we don't like stuff
Oh I love a bloggy argument...
Seaneeboy
1) kwik save have been owned by somerfield since 1998 according to the somerfield website
2)I don't count Tesco as Armley Town St and therefore it is irrelevant. It was a flippant comment...I'm not very militant.
3)There are very big dual carriageways on both sides of Armley. One called the ring road and one called the Stanningley Bypass. Two of the least congested roads in Leeds. Getting to Headingley is an utter nightmere and yet people still do it.
4)The 2 routes we do have may be fairly frequent but that was not my point. The point is that it's only 2 routes.
But it's not only 2 routes, you're forgetting the 38 which you can get every half hour from town street to headingly...
I get it quite frequently with relatively few problems.
From what has been said at Forum meetings, the footfall on Town Street is actually quite good - it's often busy during the daytime, as are many of Leeds other district shopping areas.
I'd disagree with Town St looking the wrong way, I'd say Tescos/Wilkos could do with facing back towards Town st to increase the linkage between the two areas. Currently to get from one to the other (and to the better buses on Armley Road) on foot involves a relatively long trek through a scruffy car park. Some shortcut through to Tesco needs to be developed, perhaps across the cobbled area adjoining cash converters. The area round the back of here (top end of Theaker Lane) is very scruffy - lots of fly tipping, a forlorn bottle bank, bricked up backs of shops on Branch Road and the business end of the shopping precinct. There's scope for creating new retail units, or landscaping, but again is there the demand for shops, and will it be treated any better than what is there already?
I'd like to see a quality development of Mike's carpets and the surrounding cluster of buildings, something like the Tobacco Factory development in southville, Bristol (a very similar area to Armley) which lifts the area without being too exclusive and alienating.
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