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SALFORD PRECINCT SOLD
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Star date: 12th March 2010
MARY BURNS ON THE PRECINCT
Salford Precinct, spiritual shopping homeland for proper Salford people, has been flogged off to secretive Isle of Man developers for £40million.
The last owners, Prime Commercial Properties, couldn't wait to get the place off their hands when plans for a huge Tesco superstore based across the road were announced last year. So why the sale?
Come with this cynical old fishwife, gaze into my crystal ball and see the future of Salford Shopping City – to give it its posh name…
Just click here… |
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Salford Precinct has been sold to Praxis Holdings Ltd, "an off shore commercial property and investment company" that doesn't particularly specialise in wazzing up shopping precincts but does specialise in "the exploitation of planning gain and change of use and further development angles"…
Is Praxis going to do up the Precinct or run it down further and flog it off for its land value at a later date? These are the questions, perhaps, we should be asking.
If you look at the Precinct in the context of what's going on around the area, bulldozing it might make more commercial sense to an exploitative developer.
Firstly, you've got Tescos coming in at some point in the near future, which (as has been seen in other areas) will kill loads of trade on the Precinct, maybe forcing shops and market stalls to close.
Secondly, you've got this huge PFI redevelopment/regeneration of Pendleton going off, which (as has been seen in other areas of Salford) will force the local community out to build a place fit for yuppies.
Thirdly, the area is being linked in with plans for MediaCityUK, the tarting up of Chapel Street and the expansion of Manchester city centre.
Add all this together and the Precinct is looking like a blot on the planners/developers' shiny new re-design of the area into some kind of Knightsbridge, or, as Salford URC label it a "beautiful, vibrant prosperous" city.
The last time they tried to do up the area they built the Precinct, only half finished it and wrecked the place in the process. But that's never stopped any developer trying to make a profit has it? These people work on 40 year plans and if there's a sniff of a financial killing they're in.
Gazing into my crystal ball I see the Precinct run down, knocked down and sold for its land value as a soulless `retail park'.
Yesterday, the Evening News quoted Councillor John Warmisham saying "These are exciting times for Pendleton…We hope that the new owners of Salford precinct will work with us to bring the best possible retailers into the city."
The MEN added underneath… `Praxis Holdings declined to comment'.
I wonder why?
Updated here and here and here and here!!!
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John wrote
at 07:46:01 on 24 January 2011 |
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| Talk about people taking Salford people for granted.
Look at what John Wilkinson is doing to Salford City Reds. Moving them to Barton and moving Swinton Lions into the Willows.Hes not too clever when it comes to running a second rate rugby club. Likes to be called Mr Salford, he comes from Walken. He employs people from Swinton,Bolton,Stockport and he is based in Swinton and lives in Worsley. Mr Salford my arse. Leave Salford RLFC alone and take a job with Swinton Lions. Evan you couldnt make things worst for Swinton. One world sums you up " FRAUD " |
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Nachtschlepper wrote
at 19:49:48 on 28 October 2010 |
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| Is it idiots day on the Salford Star website? When somebody thinks that working for Tesco stacking shelves on minimum wage should be the only ambition we have for our grand kids then something is seriously wrong. The world & this particular part of it needs another 'superstore' like I need an extra rectum. Can anybody say, without bursting into a paroxysm of laughter, that Tesco & their like are in any way interested in the welfare of ordinary people? Tsco want one thing; total market supremacy. Putting evry other retailer out of business is what the likes of Tesco are about. Imagine a world where the opnly place you can buy a loaf of bread, a bag of sugar or a bar of soap is Tesco. Their dominance would be so great they could influence major political decisions. Or do they do that bit already. |
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IAN JACKSON wrote
at 15:00:06 on 28 October 2010 |
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| WHEN ARE THE GOOD PEOPLE OF SALFORD GOING TO REALISE ITS THE TWENTY FIRST CENTURY REGEND ROADWENT 40 YEARS AGO JUST LIKE BLACK & WHITE TELLIES ORDSALL BOARD SAINT BARTS CLARENDON SCHHOL & ALL ITS GONE STOP LIVING IN THE PAST (ie coronation street in black & white ) ITS GOING TO CREAT A LOT OF JOBS FOR LOCAL PEOPLE WHICH IS MUCH NEEDED AFTER WHAT THE THATCHER GOVERMENT DID IN THE 80s IN THIS DAY & AGE ONLY THE GIANTS LIKE TESCO AZDA CAN SURVIVE THE CRAP THAT VARIOUS GOVERMENTS THROW AT THE WORKING CLASSES & CONTINUE TO DO SO. COME ON YOU GOOD SALFORD PEOPLE WAKE UP BECAUSE YOR KIDS OR GRAND KIDS MAY ONE DAY WORK FOR TESCO & WHEN THEY COME HOME WITH A DECENT WAGE PACKET WHAT WILL YOU HAVE TO SAY ABOUT TESCO THEN THERE IS NO WORK IN SALFORD WITHOUT THESE GIANTS THINK ABOUT SALFORDIANS ??? |
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J Challender wrote
at 17:26:39 on 20 April 2010 |
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| Let's hope they put more imagination into the re-design of Salford Precinct and then it may become a "Shopping City". Historical buildings have been knocked down in Salford and we have not much history left. Knock this 1970's ? eye sore down and start afresh. A transformation would be needed to bring it up to date and this may encourage well known shops to return and invest here. Make this depressing place a more pleasurable experience to visit. |
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Mike Skeff wrote
at 16:14:00 on 30 March 2010 |
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| I'm not sure about Salford Precinct being the 'spiritual shopping homeland for proper Salford people' but there are a lot worse places to endure the ordeal of shopping. Retail parks are the worse places imaginable to go shopping. They tend to be huge car parks surounded by big impersonal stores. They are cold, uninviting, soulless places with a purely commercial rather than social heart. Whatever the fate of Salford precinct, to replace it with a giant, Tesco dominated retail park, would be the worst of all options. It would mean less choice, less value for money and the disintegration of what has become a shopping community, despite what people may think. The only losers here will be the people of Salford once again. |
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David wrote
at 05:20:45 on 30 March 2010 |
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| Bloody hell. I used to stay in one of the flats overlooking the Precinct when my girlfriend was a student at Salford Uni. This was 25 years ago. It doesn't look as though it's changed in all that time. Of course I'm only looking at photos, as I haven't been to Manchester/Salford since the late 80s - but if it's as bad now as it was then, knock it down and start again.... |
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joe coffey wrote
at 21:10:40 on 29 March 2010 |
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| ive thought a lot about this over the last couple of weeks, and salford isnt gonna be the same without the precint, theres something their for everyone as ghetto as it might look to some people, the only thing that puts it down is a big arrow pointing down to show people where it is, the lettering is enough, i wonder how much thought went into that, you dont have to be a designer to know thats what lets it down, if they spent as much on it as it cost to put up, that would have made it look better a bit more thought and effort, as for the precint its a place for young and old. as for the odd pound shops thats all most people can afford, theirs a good variety of shops. is a big supermarket gonna be able to offer all this to the people who use it, no, do we need another big supermarket, no, take the precint away ya might aswell take the heart out of salford, whats wrong with just doin it all up modernising it,their should be a form sent through every door in salford to see what they want on their doorstep, if you wanna know what people in salford want, then its them who should have their say on what goes on in and around their community ,and start puttin stuff in what benefits them, including stuff for are future generations to benefit from in salford take it easy joe coffey |
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Louise Styles wrote
at 14:38:58 on 29 March 2010 |
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| About Bloody time. Now the best thing would be to tear the thing DOWN , it is a disgrace and a huge blot on the skyline. Its full of lowlifes and Jeremy Kyle fanatics. Its about time OUR CITY had a city centre! And pendleton fits the bill perfectly. The sooner its pulled down and started again the better!!! |
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David Henry wrote
at 17:54:35 on 14 March 2010 |
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| The place could do with a refurb, anyone you ask down there will tell you that but bulldoze it? They place to replace it with a huge souless mega-Tesco and a leave a few units for non-competing stores, anyone old enough and local enough to remember Moss Side Precinct and how it was redeveloped into ASDA, Home-Bargains and eventually a rubbishy Argos after Index went bust along with the market hall.
...THAT, my friends is the REALITY of what the good people of Salford have coming to Pendleton Way. It won't be pretty either. |
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mark wrote
at 23:26:57 on 13 March 2010 |
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| You're funny! You get misty eyed over any old shit. |
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Mary Burns wrote
at 07:01:08 on 13 March 2010 |
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| Yeah but would you be able to get a million Rizzlas for a quid? Or computer ink for two quid? What's great about the Precinct is that it's cheap - and it's the only public meeting place in Salford. They built it soulless and Salford people have given it some kind of a soul. |
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Gaz Shaw wrote
at 17:05:28 on 12 March 2010 |
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| Not convinced by ‘spiritual shopping homeland for proper Salford people’. I don’t know anyone who has had any love for the Precinct. The demise of the market, fair enough, but not the actual Precinct. It has been a monument for ridicule by locals and not-so-locals for as long as I remember.
Eddie has it right: Cross Lane, Regent Road, Langworthy Road etc. were really missed and Salford Precinct could never replace them in the hearts of proper Salfordians. |
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Eddie wrote
at 15:26:25 on 12 March 2010 |
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| When i first heard this news, my first thought was "bulldoze it" and that was before i read anything. The place has been going down hill for years, its now dominated by cheep shops and cafes, with the odd brand name store that has stayed there.
All of Salford Shop Lined Streets and Roads vanished in the 70s because of Salford Precinct (Cross Lane, Regent Road, Broad Street, Lower Broughton Road ect), its about time the Precinct realised it also has had its day and has been left behind by better shopping complexes like Regent Roads Retail Park, Manchester Fort Cheetham Hill Manchester's Arndale Centre, Trafford Centre.
I say bulldoze it and build Salfords Retail Park with Tescos at the heart of it. |
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