I live in bromley area. After the glades was built. What used to be *Bromley High St* Was turned into pedestrian only.I forget market day.I dont often go there.Market is nothing like it used to be.Pedestrian area is filthy.Even though cleaners are about all the time..And as the roads have been altered to compensate for traffic flow.I fail to see where it actually works.Ie more congestion-Takes ages to get through bromley.And I do know Croydon.One reason I steer clear..Its worse than Bromley..Redevelopment can only mean more chaos..IMO
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Steve
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Well that's the impression I've got too RF but...
... IIRC they're supposed to be dveeloping the Whitgift Centre into the UK's largest and I can't see how that'll work if car drivers are largely put off - we all know carrying masses of shopping on PT isn't really practical.
We were over that way visiting some friends' new restaurant in the High Street recently. We arrived at about 1pm but the place was virtually devoid of traffic - at one point I thought we had strayed into a pedestrian zone! Their place really ought to be a goldmine but with large nearby office blocks standing empty, little passing trade and all the traffic/parking restrictions it's more like a ghost town. No point in having congestion charging in Croydon 'cos there's hardly any traffic!
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I live in Bromley, nearby, but can't stand Croydon. It's a dump and I don't like the sort of people that walk its streets after all, Lunar House is there isn't it?
I was studying for my science 'A' levels back in the fifties at the new (then) Technical College and remember how our lessons were ruined by the noise from the pile drivers as they built the underpass just outside.
Since then of course Croydon has become a concrete morass and overladen with office high-rise and a superfluity of shopping precincts - Aaaaaaaaaarrrrh.
As I have a 119 bus stop very near my house I am often tempted to give Croydon a visit but then I lie down until that awful thought has dissipated.
Mind you. Bromley is on that slippery slope now and has been since The Glades opened over ten years ago
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It's true - Croydon is hell and it's that way because of generations of town and road planners. There is probably no city on earth so bad that a town planner can't make it worse.
At present, once you get to know it, using the Whitgift Centre's car park isn't too bad - certainly preferable to struggling with a dozen bags onto one of the Croydon's inconvenient trams or its filthy busses. Two hours parking costs £2.10 - so it's cheaper than public transport, too.
But with a control-freak council which has the local press in its pocket and a government obsessed with central control, it's a certainty that after the proposed development, Croydon will not only be uglier (hard to imagine, but there you go) and even more of a no-go area for motorists.
Today, Croydon's centre is an empty, concrete canyon. In a decade it'll be like something out of a distopian Sci-Fi movie.
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Having been born and bred in Croydon and still living a few miles out from the centre I find it depressing reading such negative views...but sadly I have to agree.
These days I actually avoid it like the plague (especially with the ludicrous parking regulations & costs) and always travel that little bit further if I want to shop to Bromley, which despite a few shortcomings as mentioned further up, seems like a relative paradise to me. I can get in quicker, park closer and for nearly half the cost, then shop in (slightly) more pleasant surroundings. Case closed.
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PhiL
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Same sort of council in Dundee and I hear they are cooking up some grandiose scheme which will entail "widespread traffic disruption" - I bet permanently!
As I already do not go near the town centre - I am too old to take up hiking - it will not affect me much, I hope.
I do most shopping by internet nowadays, which hardly benefits local prosperity.
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I used to live and work and met SWMBO in Croydon.
Both the office where I worked and pub where we met have been knocked down and good riddance but the place is a concrete jungle reminiscent of Manhattan and a nightmare if you are driving and do not know the area.In fact its a nightmare if you do know the area.
Even thirty years ago it was rough and I well remember being caught up in a fight where the pub landlord was bottled and that was in the better end of town.....
I'm actually visiting there tonight - wish me luck.
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Well I dare say that some of us won't be around here to 'talk' about the redevelopment when it's completed but I really hope they'll see sense and understand that draconian anti-car measure are not what's required. IMO what's required is a sensible balance which makes PT more viable and appealing whilst acknowledging that cars etc. are still essential and need to be accommodated. Will that happen? I wouldn't bet on it so my £££'s will probably wind up being spent elsewhere.
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