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SALFORD ROUNDABOUT £3M COSTS
 

Star date: 5th February 2010

MediaCityUK Roundabout Revamps To Cost Over £3 Million – yet you still can't get a bus there!

Salford Quays Cranes To Move Too?

Salford Council has approved plans to spend over £3million on tarting up a couple of roundabouts and some crossings leading to MediaCityUK. The Council hopes that one of the roundabouts, at the end of the M602, with its new `vandal proof plaques' and `resin bonded gravel' will become a pedestrian "destination"…

There's also a further plan to move the Grade A listed blue Quays Cranes to the M602 roundabout at an estimated extra cost of over £400,000.

The £3.5million roundabout re-vamps will come as a shock to the majority of Salfordians who still cannot get a direct bus to MediaCityUK.

Full story here…

Salford Roundabout Plans Salford Roundabout Plans Salford Quays Cranes
click image to enlarge

A glance at GMPTE's Journey Planner confirms that it's almost impossible to get a straight bus to MediaCityUK from virtually anywhere in Salford, apart from the Precinct. Yet plans have been approved by the Council to spend £1.6million on the roundabout leading to the M602.

The remainder of the £3.237million NWDA grant will go on `enhancing' the smaller Broadway roundabout directly leading to MediaCityUK, putting in some crossings on Trafford Road and new street lighting on Albion Way.

Proposals for the £1.6million M602 roundabout `refurbishment' - which the plans state will develop "the roundabout as a destination" – include `resin bonded gravel', `architectural planting' and `vandal proof plaques'. The existing subways will also have a `high gloss finish' and `functional lighting'…

Phase 1 of the `Quays Gateway' scheme will also have an option to `relocate' the Grade A listed blue cranes from Salford Quays to the M602 roundabout. A report from July 2008 allocated £400,000 to move and repair the cranes from Salford Council budgets.

On top of the £3.27million NWDA grant and the potential £400,000 Salford Council crane bill are extra ten year maintenance costs of £169,902 coming from Central Salford URC's Salford Council funds - making a grand total of £3.84million for the Quays Gateway tart up. And still not a direct bus in sight…

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The original report from the Council on this scheme in November 2009 stated that "The MediaCityUK development at Salford Quays…presents an opportunity for early delivery of the Quays Gateway through NWDA funding…"

In the last printed (issue8) Salford Star we cited Brett Christophers' study from the University of Auckland in New Zealand, which predicted that MediaCityUK would suck up all the public money in Salford, or as he put it there would be "changes in the priorities of public budgets".

Almost every day, it seems, MediaCityUK is getting more and more public money from the North West Development Agency (NWDA), of which this project is the latest. MediaCityUK is a private development led by Peel Holdings. For the links between Peel Holdings and the NWDA click here and here and here...


 
Lesley Gilchrist wrote
at 2:07:00 PM on Monday, February 15, 2010
I've written to Firstbus about the 53 route and was told that they wont be introducing new buses or improving the service as it currently stands even though the BBC is coming to Manchester and it will mean more people working there. Because I work at University of Manchester it works out very well for me to get this one bus to work but there are times when it does not run to the timetable and if you are not at the bus stop well in advance of the timetabled departure you will miss it. It is a shame that Firstbus Timetables do not serve Salford Quays as the shops have loads of bargains available and I know I'd go down more by bus than by tram. I don't drive so I rely on bus services and so I'd rather have money put into better bus routes than a new roundabout or three.
 
Brian wrote
at 10:56:23 PM on Sunday, February 07, 2010
Just took a look at the artists impression of the proposed move of the quays cranes to the M602 Roundabout - Has anybody spotted the apparent flaw in this plan? Namely the re-construction of said cranes on the roundabout. In order for this to happen, local traffic would be upended for a large scale of time in diversions and closures - to elimate risk to traffic from anything falling from the structure. In addition the cranes would have to have to be stress tested to see if they could survive in the new environment. and lets not forget about the current residents of said cranes - the flocks of birds on the quays that land on the cranes on a regular basis - they'll still land on the cranes - only they'll have new targets to hit - the cars on the roundabout!
 
Tom wrote
at 10:56:20 PM on Sunday, February 07, 2010
Oh come on, is your vocabulary really so limited that you think egregious is especially obscure? How depressing. Zzzz.
 
Salford Star wrote
at 8:57:46 AM on Friday, February 05, 2010
See comments below...We'll answer both of these at the same time. At this moment there are hardly any direct bus services. Fact. Jane Deane, the BBC's Programme Director, was briefing Salford councillors last Monday about this very matter. She reported that the Council "has sponsored a GMPTE bid to the Department for Transport’s “Kickstart” fund" but reckoned that the Kickstart Fund was about to be slashed by cuts,or "under review" as she put it. Now, if the Council and partners can spend over £3million on doing up some roundabouts to provide "a memorable entrance feature" (as Jane put it) to MediaCityUK, and then spend well over £40k a year maintaining it, surely, if their priorities were right they could sponsor a bus service for its own community rather than going cap in hand to the Government? So, Tom, not shoddy writing - GMPTE will only run more services to Media City if some other sod pays for it. By the way Tom - `egregious'? You swallowed a Dickens novel or something? Can't you just say `crap'?
 
James wrote
at 8:39:26 AM on Friday, February 05, 2010
Isn't a decision being made at the moment on potential funding for a Metroshuttle style bus route, which would go from Salford Crescent to the Quays?
 
Tom wrote
at 8:39:19 AM on Friday, February 05, 2010
"Yet plans have been approved by the Council to spend £1.6million on the roundabout leading to the M602." Sorry, am I missing something - where's the logic of that sentence? What does Salford council highways department spending (egregious as it may be in this case) have to do with the provision of bus services by an outside agency? Did you even bother to contact GMPTE to ask if they'll be running more services to MediaCity in the future... like it's actually finished? Shoddy writing.
 
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