I am happy for Bradford.

[Suff]

26 million? Where the hell did that figure come from?

Erm,

Here

[Suff]

I had a similar experience walking down Kirkcaldy high street 2 years ago. Even McDonalds and half the mobile phone shops had left which tells you how totally dire the situation is. The town centre is dead, killed by the out of centre shopping areas with free parking and access to the Western Distributor bypass without having to get into the nightmare of the traffic snarl-ups in the town itself.

Job done. Parking expensive and very limited. Bus priority all over the place killing the traffic flow. Systems designed to screw the traffic up and not let anything move.

Town emptied and dying.

I've been saying this for decades. Edinburgh is next although being the capital city does mean that a certain level of expenditure and enforced business location (like London), remains.

Councils all over the UK are falling over themselves to make their towns and cities hostile to traffic. There is an inevitable result. The smaller towns and cities see it first, the larger one's will see it later.

I pity the people who have no vehicle and no access to the out of town shopping.

[Aggers]

.

Town emptied and dying.

.

A lot of towns are like that, and would be much worse if it wasn't for the charity shops.
The reason is not the Government's fault. It is largely the result of the growth in Internet shopping.

[Suff]

It is largely the result of the growth in Internet shopping.

Not in Kirkcadly. It's dying because of the peripheral shopping and the real pain involved in getting into the town and shopping there.

[Workingman]

26 million? Where the hell did that figure come from?

Erm,

Here

Ah, I see what you did.

That is not London and the S.E., as was being talked about, that is everything south of a line from the Severn estuary to the Wash. It, incidentally, has some of the lowest funded areas, as far as infrastructure is concerned, in the whole of the UK. The average for the whole area is skewed because of London and the S.E. or rather the old "Stockbroker belt".

Docklands Light Railway or Crosslink anyone? Or how about shifting old Thameslink trains to the TransPennine route, giving the relatively modern TP trains to Chiltern Lines and then providing London Thameslink with 1,200 brand new lighter and more reliable and energy efficient carriages paid for by the UK taxpayer?

Don't even try to tell me this country treats everyone equally.

[Kaz]

Goodness me, lots of the SW is pretty socially deprived, and in no way equates to the SE in terms of infrastructure, jobs, or investment! Gloucestershire, if you exclude the more affluent Cotswold villages and possibly Cheltenham, is a case in point.

We've noticed, since we moved back to Gloucester six years ago, that the house prices in Egham where we used to live have gone up considerably, Our old house is worth around 50k more than when we sold it. In contrast prices have barely moved here. Staines town centre (now Staines-Upon-Thames if you ever did!) has been hugely gentrified and shows no signs whatsoever of recession. Everywhere looks prosperous and 'shiny' Gloucester has empty shops, half finished building projects and what jobs there are tend to be low-paid. We have a big homelessness problem and a lot of rough sleepers and the mental health services are patently failing as there are a lot of very bewildered and obviously ill people around and about in the city! The gap is wide and keeps on widening. Our MP (a Tory) is useless and stopped us getting an extra railway station that would have put us on the west coast mainline, for some nefarious reasons - that would have given the city a big boost

[Workingman]

Kaz, I am so glad that you expanded on your original post.

Take the arbitrary line - Severn to the Wash.

Just either side of it are Cheltenham, Gloucester, Northampton. Corby, Peterborough, Spalding, King's Lynn and loads of arable land. They are not densely populated, human wise, but they are in other ways.They are in areas where a lot of our food is produced.

Do you think they get anything like the spend of London and the S.E. even with farm subsidies? Not a chance! What would you like to eat; veg and meat or £ coins?

[Kaz]

I know

[miasmum]

I think it is a shame towns have to 'die' before they are regenerated.

Corby used to be horrendous. Its a steel town, with a huge Scottish population. As the steel folded, the town died, but finally money was ploughed in and it now has good shops, a good infrastructure and is no longer the hell hole it was. Sadly Northampton is almost dead on its feet. But until it ends up with the reputation Corby did, shops will be allowed to stand empty, people will beg and drink on the street and the town will only come alive on a Friday and Saturday night, resulting in riots and mass brawls.

[Kaz]

It is a terrible shame Shell