What would you do to improve Middlesbrough/Teesside?

Transport is a massive issue.

1) Road / Rail Tunnel between Redcar and Seal Sands
2) Straighten out the Durham coast rail line and add loops allowing faster trains to over take slower trains. Think Dutch rail, white local trains stop everywhere but the yellow double decker trains stop at the main stations, ie Middlesbrough, Stockton/Thornaby, Hartlepool, Sunderland, Newcastle.
3) cycle paths everywhere, safe and segregated from the roads.
4) sort out A66/A19 junction. Flatten the flyover, make it much lower and user friendly.
5) Tees Metro / monorail. Join Boro to Stockton via Teesside Park. 3 stops only.
6) air link to Heathrow again

Cost a fortune but thats what i’d do with transport.

Everything else……

Build new hospitals at North Tees & Hartlepool that are big and fit for purpose.

Build schools where needed, ie secondary at Wynyard.

Flatten eyesores.

Make towns greener. Give everyone a tree to plant and grow a new forest.

Build a Top Golf

Finish middlehaven & over the border.

Build an Olympic size swimming pool with an attached out door Lido and water park.

Loads more ideas are out there…….
 
1) Change what was/is Teesside/Cleveland/Tees Valley into 'Greater Middlesbrough' - Police, Fire, University, Airport, etc
2) Move Downing Street, Houses of Parliament and Buckingham Palace to TS3
3) Housing stock that was taken out of public ownership to be taken back and given to TS residents
4) No land banking, compulsory usage criteria for all brownfield lands
5) Another Teesplan, all areas divided and designated in a garden city format with emerging green technologies prioritised
 
The council should pursue the council tax they are owed to make sure they have the money to improve more.
M'bro council failed to collect over £7 million last year and more each of the previous 4 years. This is from people who are just refusing to pay rather than those assessed as not being able to pay.
Get after them instead of just giving up.
 
MickaelDebevePhenomenal said:
Technically that isn't needed in that particular case, plenty of capacity at nearby schools, its just desired by the residents of Wynyard as they'd prefer their kids to go to school exclusively with Wynyard born and raised kids!
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The plans are needed now, the funding needs to be made available. Plans for another 2000 homes says its needed. Proactive thinking says build it now. Reactive thinking says build it after its already required.

The primary school intake is struggling to accommodate the areas children already. 2nd primary plan is underway.
 
Jonny_Rondos_Disco_pants said:
The plans are needed now, the funding needs to be made available. Plans for another 2000 homes says its needed. Proactive thinking says build it now. Reactive thinking says build it after its already required.

The primary school intake is struggling to accommodate the areas children already. 2nd primary plan is underway.
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It may very well be needed in time if they do develop north and south of the A689 as the plans suggest, but the 2000 homes plan is estimated by 2032, would be pro-active in the extreme planning/ budgeting for that now with more pressing matters straining the budget
 
VestasBoro said:
Would take billions as there's entire areas that need flattening to drive out the toerags. Teesworks and the new jobs will help, but need to improve the police force, flatten the dumps and build new houses, new shopping precincts, need more lanes on Marton road, better public transport.

If someone had 50 billion, and 100 years, we might get somewhere.
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Careful.
Some will take massive offence to that idea. Although I personally wholeheartedly agree.
 
The bit at Gresham (is that the bit behind Jack Hatfield / psyche)? Don't build houses on it (they've already started). Make it into a park instead. Those houses could be mansions and they would still turn to ****.
 
I d look to what other countries such as former West Germany and Japan have done with their former industrial areas and see if some that can be transferred to Teesside.

I agree develop as a base for Green Technologies if professionals can stay in the area or come it will uplift the area, and other businesses will follow that serve them. Promoting IT software businesses is great. They need the best IT infrastructure.

One advantage Teesside has got is space and in general lack of congestion for an urban area. So certainly lots of potential for greening projects, public art, new buildings just look at the space still around the Riverside.

There is a possibly a culture of working for a large industrial employer (right from 1850) and that has not helped small business develop or start up.

Also a bit of a lack of self-confidence that partly comes from the industrial decline of the last 43 years and before that working class dominant culture.

I do think the Dorman Museum is dated and doesn't really illustrate the development of the area. There is no where fully for me that brings together how the area developed from 1825 to date. There are some unique stories there but people don't know about them. I remember when Century of Stone was made and thinking this is more like it.

The Town Hall is arts venue but its limited, its not an arts centre to me. MIMA was an improvement, but its quite high end graphical art, not performing art. Interesting that the Little Theatre was developed so far from the Centre.

Working from home has potential, but people want to work from their country or cliff top cottage not a a terraced street house in Middlesbrough. So Great Ayton and Saltburn could benefit more but not the run down areas of Teesside as much. I can see potential in the fringe areas but its areas like central Middlesbrough and the big estates of the 1950s, 60s, 70s that are more difficult. The people there have a lack of opportunity that gets me angry.
 
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This whole thread disappoints me. Not the asking of the question, but the general answers. Teesside is a brilliant place, we have the North Yorkshire moors one side of us and the Dales the other.
We have 3 small main unitary authorities, Middlesbrough, Stockton, Redcar & Cleveland, with two further small unitary authorities close by, Hartlepool and Darlington.
We need to join Middlesbrough, Stockton and Redcar immediately and create a large unitary authority- I would call it Cleveland, but give the people the choice. The option for one or both the other two to join in the future should be open forever.
With just the initial 3 We have an authority of over 500,000 people, which is big in anyones terms.
Hard political choices will have to be made, a commercial center, a business center an arts/entertainment center would be agreed and cash demanded from the government, whichever colour.

Lets stop wasting more money, lets get a blueprint agreed and have 1/2 million people demand that our future is Cleveland and demand that leveling up starts here.
 
TheLodger said:
This whole thread disappoints me. Not the asking of the question, but the general answers. Teesside is a brilliant place, we have the North Yorkshire moors one side of us and the Dales the other.
We have 3 small main unitary authorities, Middlesbrough, Stockton, Redcar & Cleveland, with two further small unitary authorities close by, Hartlepool and Darlington.
We need to join Middlesbrough, Stockton and Redcar immediately and create a large unitary authority- I would call it Cleveland, but give the people the choice. The option for one or both the other two to join in the future should be open forever.
With just the initial 3 We have an authority of over 500,000 people, which is big in anyones terms.
Hard political choices will have to be made, a commercial center, a business center an arts/entertainment center would be agreed and cash demanded from the government, whichever colour.

Lets stop wasting more money, lets get a blueprint agreed and have 1/2 million people demand that our future is Cleveland and demand that leveling up starts here.
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You've written the new manifesto for the Peoples Republic of Teesside (y)
 
Randy said:
Careful.
Some will take massive offence to that idea. Although I personally wholeheartedly agree.
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South Bank has been flattened, but nothing has replaced it. The interesting question is should anything and if something what.

South Bank to me or possible should I say was extreme Teesside - more industrial and more working class.
 
The_Lizards_Jumpers said:
One of the other key things that's needed to improve a city / town is to reduce "brain drain" where graduates feel a need to move away to make a career for themselves, because the opportunities just aren't there on Teesside.

My wife (girlfriend at the time) and I moved away 20 odd years ago when we finished uni, as our earning potential was so much higher in London / South East, and are now settled down here. If there was the same type of jobs available when we left uni then perhaps we'd still be living on Teesside?
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A thousand times this. The Uni is such an asset to the town, but unfortunately the majority of people get away asap. Just thinking about when I was involved in MSS a while back - there was about 3000 documented members in London and the SE. Just as a snapshot, a lot of the lads I played footy with moved for work and then after a few years ended up in other parts of the country because the work and career options were so restricted. A lot of them in and around Yorkshire (Leeds Harrogate) or Manchester to be able to have those options. The only person who did move back to Boro still works in London.

I appreciate that there's no easy solution but there's so many talented people from the town who have moved away.
 
I would love a metro or tram system from ingleby to get to mbro or even join up thornaby or eaglescliffe railway stations. A tram system would also alleviate congestion hotspots like yarm
 
Emmersons_BrazillianDong said:
A thousand times this. The Uni is such an asset to the town, but unfortunately the majority of people get away asap. Just thinking about when I was involved in MSS a while back - there was about 3000 documented members in London and the SE. Just as a snapshot, a lot of the lads I played footy with moved for work and then after a few years ended up in other parts of the country because the work and career options were so restricted. A lot of them in and around Yorkshire (Leeds Harrogate) or Manchester to be able to have those options. The only person who did move back to Boro still works in London.

I appreciate that there's no easy solution but there's so many talented people from the town who have moved away.
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This resonates with me.

I studied at Teesside 1992-96.

I did my placement at wilton

I left uni, I got another job at Wilton working for the same boss but they just wouldn’t make it permanent.

So consequently after a few years I £ucjed off home.

Simple really isn’t it?
 
Emmersons_BrazillianDong said:
A thousand times this. The Uni is such an asset to the town, but unfortunately the majority of people get away asap. Just thinking about when I was involved in MSS a while back - there was about 3000 documented members in London and the SE. Just as a snapshot, a lot of the lads I played footy with moved for work and then after a few years ended up in other parts of the country because the work and career options were so restricted. A lot of them in and around Yorkshire (Leeds Harrogate) or Manchester to be able to have those options. The only person who did move back to Boro still works in London.

I appreciate that there's no easy solution but there's so many talented people from the town who have moved away.
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Good post - same for me in the 1980s. This brings it back to lack of economic development.

Some people will always move for example if you want to be an investment banker or barrister, but there are another group who could stay in the area such as engineers, senior IT workers, who are lost.
 
Massively increase minimum wage and stop in work benefits.
If people can't afford to live where they work then they're not being paid enough.
 
Billy69_uk said:
For me working out how to reunify the local councils Redcar and Cleveland, Stockton, middlesbrough, into one Teesside authority.

Strength in numbers, greater economy of scale and less local bickering about spending.
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To be fair I think a ******* was dropped when we thought Clevend County Council was a worse idea than 3 competing councils in the same area.
While councils are underfunded there are many people in the council who had responsibilities managing services. I feel many of them are now managing companies providing the same services at a vastly inflated price while they are also earning twice as much as they used to due to the value of the contracts they manage.
 
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