What would you do to improve Middlesbrough/Teesside?

As others have said, infrastructure is a major problem in Teesside. Public transport all over the north and north east is overpriced and not fit for purpose.

Trams would work but I don’t think it’s the best solution as it would disrupt a lot of the existing traffic, cycling and pedestrian flow. Tunnel networks like the ones being built in Vegas and other cities by The Boring Company would be a lot better if they were extensive enough.

The technology isn’t developed enough to make construction financially viable somewhere like Teesside yet and I think the plan to use road cars is a mistake but once it’s built, running and maintenance costs are minimal, particularly if the vehicles are fully automated. Once a profitable network is up and running, a portion of the profits could be allocated to expanding the network to nearby commuter towns and even regionally or nationally in the longer term.

Imagine stations every few hundred yards that could take you to any local work, shopping, education, leisure, transport or healthcare location in minutes for a minimal price. The number of cars it would take off the roads would be huge and it would open up a lot of opportunities for employment, particularly to non drivers.
 
uncle_rico said:
Monorail surely?
Click to expand...
The transport infrastructure.

Sunderland up the road have city status and a metro system.

The air show showed the region up.

Link, Darlington station up with a metro like system with trains. Rail links from yarm to Darlington direct.

Also what about extending the metro to Teesside using existing lines. The metro centre train passes through Newcastle via the coast.

Yarm station being sold and having a train station in the town, having a train station at Teesside park and the riverside and in the terminal at Teesside airport or even trams.

If we are talking about levelling up this is bay is needed.

Perhaps even something out of the box like making bitcoins legal tender. El Salvador are building a digital Bitcoin city.

Mind you we can’t even build a ski slope.
 
Redlips said:
Mind you we can’t even build a ski slope.
Click to expand...

I'd say a ski slope COULD be built if it was done by a company experienced in the building and running of ski slopes, rather than some bloke from Yarm who decided he fancied a go at building a ski slope, created ridiculous footfall figures and got all the idiot politicians, and the local newspaper, who all love a good bandwagon to jump on, excited.

See also the air show, you have a bloke who runs an IT company and suddenly becomes "mates" with all the local politicians and then all of a sudden he's got a licence to run an airshow, despite little or no experience (happy to be corrected if this isn't the case).
 
Blf said:
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.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure if you have experience of Council Tax and how the council collects it but they won't be 'giving up' as you put it. I'd imagine quite a lot of that £7m is well and truly down the recovery route and heading towards attachment of benefits / earnings and some to the bailiff.
 
My feeling on this is that as a country we need to move away from the old Town Centre mindset. It's never coming back and chasing it is fruitless. We had those small regional high streets / hubs that people could get to easily with the limited transport options but these days the majority of people drive so in the same vein that people don't go to do their grocery shopping in several different shops, they won't go to small town centres either. People prefer to do everything all at once which is why big cities are doing well, they are retaining their big shops and therefore their footfall. We don't need to have an M&S on every high street 5 miles apart when we can have 1 big one that everyone can access (repeat for all other shops). Small towns don't need to be mini-shopping hubs. It's a bit depressing that whatever high street you go to in the country it is the same copy and paste of mostly empty, under-maintained shops next to a string of charity shops and bookies so the sooner we move away from that model the better.

One thing that people don't particularly like travelling long distances for is entertainment. Restaurants, bars, cafes, pubs, theatres, cinema etc people like to be local so they can easily get home without their own cars. Towns should become purely entertainment venues. There can be some local independent shops but the national chains don't need to be there. You don't need a huge sprawling high street either, just a few pockets of entertainment areas. The rest can be used for housing/offices.

I know the argument for all of this is "what about people without a car" but much better public transport infrastructure and links to those major hubs benefits them as well. That is the key and we should be doing that anyway. We don't all need to be using cars if we drastically improve the rest of the country's public transport to the levels that London has.
 
Nano said:
My feeling on this is that as a country we need to move away from the old Town Centre mindset. It's never coming back and chasing it is fruitless. We had those small regional high streets / hubs that people could get to easily with the limited transport options but these days the majority of people drive so in the same vein that people don't go to do their grocery shopping in several different shops, they won't go to small town centres either. People prefer to do everything all at once which is why big cities are doing well, they are retaining their big shops and therefore their footfall. We don't need to have an M&S on every high street 5 miles apart when we can have 1 big one that everyone can access (repeat for all other shops). Small towns don't need to be mini-shopping hubs. It's a bit depressing that whatever high street you go to in the country it is the same copy and paste of mostly empty, under-maintained shops next to a string of charity shops and bookies so the sooner we move away from that model the better.

One thing that people don't particularly like travelling long distances for is entertainment. Restaurants, bars, cafes, pubs, theatres, cinema etc people like to be local so they can easily get home without their own cars. Towns should become purely entertainment venues. There can be some local independent shops but the national chains don't need to be there. You don't need a huge sprawling high street either, just a few pockets of entertainment areas. The rest can be used for housing/offices.

I know the argument for all of this is "what about people without a car" but much better public transport infrastructure and links to those major hubs benefits them as well. That is the key and we should be doing that anyway. We don't all need to be using cars if we drastically improve the rest of the country's public transport to the levels that London has.
Click to expand...

Maybe turn all these shops into homes. Then the entertainment areas would have plenty of residents to keep them flourishing. Could improve public transport so we can ditch the cars and get a bus to do our shopping. Home delivery (like at Iceland) can ship your shopping back later that day if you are doing a big shop.
 
Many years ago (early 90s) there were some feasibility studies carried out by Middlesbrough Council regarding a new 'supertram' network. The north/south links to service the estates would have used the existing highways - so tracks would have been laid along Acklam Road, Marton Road & Cargo Fleet Lane - all of which are wide enough (or would require minimal land purchase) to accommodate the necessary infrastructure.
The study was published (with no real recommendations), the Gazette got hold of it and suddenly the council were inundated with complaints from, mainly, residents of Acklam Road (Blue Bell - Mandale) about this proposed train that be feet away from their front gardens. An almost silent electric tram passing three or four times an hour would apparently be more intrusive than the four lanes of traffic (two of which it would replace) they currently enjoyed.
It wasn't the complaints that saw the idea scrapped though - it was the eye-watering expense.
Plus, as usual, Langbaurgh Council completely refused to co-operate (shades of the 'Marton Motorway') so routes through their part of town we just guessed at.
 
Look at what they achieved with the metro in Dubai.
The first lane being the backbone of an evolving project. Not perfect but a great start.

399_preview.v7.jpg
 
Nobby_Barnes said:
Close the A66 through Middlesbrough and pull it down, it cuts the town in 2 and is only really a short cut for HGV's .
They can use The Parkway....
Thanks 👍
Click to expand...
It fills me with equal amounts of sadness and anger almost every time I drive along the A66 through town.

To allow such wanton devastation of a town was either gross incompetence of gross negligence on the part of the council.

I also feel that we (not just Boro, but Stockton, Yarm etc) all mourn having a natural resource like the River Tees. There isnt another area in the country that tries so hard to prevent people using and enjoying the river and the riverside areas.

Absolutely baffling.
 
Billy69_uk said:
It fills me with equal amounts of sadness and anger almost every time I drive along the A66 through town.

To allow such wanton devastation of a town was either gross incompetence of gross negligence on the part of the council.

I also feel that we (not just Boro, but Stockton, Yarm etc) all mourn having a natural resource like the River Tees. There isnt another area in the country that tries so hard to prevent people using and enjoying the river and the riverside areas.

Absolutely baffling.
Click to expand...
Completely agree, the A66 Eastbound doesn't even go anywhere other than Teesport.
It's the single reason for the lack of investment alongside the Tees over the years.
Close it from Newport to Cargo Fleet and pull it down 👍
 
Is everyone seeing something between the A66 and the river I'm not?

Totally get they knocked down some cool old buildings to put it there, but is there anything of note or interest to attract people to the area between Durham Street, the A66 and the Dinosaur park thing?
 
We should divert part of the river to create a network of canals across the centre of Boro.Think of the possibilities.
Cafe culture could thrive.
People could travel by gondola to the Riverside.
Venice of the North.
We know a man who could make this happen.
 
Billy69_uk said:
It fills me with equal amounts of sadness and anger almost every time I drive along the A66 through town.

To allow such wanton devastation of a town was either gross incompetence of gross negligence on the part of the council.

I also feel that we (not just Boro, but Stockton, Yarm etc) all mourn having a natural resource like the River Tees. There isnt another area in the country that tries so hard to prevent people using and enjoying the river and the riverside areas.

Absolutely baffling.
Click to expand...
Have a look at what River Shack do along the Tees between Yarm and the Barrage to see how the river is being harnessed.
But the River Tees is still very much a working river downstream of Newport Bridge. AV Dawson and Wilton Engineering are both extremely active between the Newport and Transporter Bridges.
We do have to move on from the A66 though don't we. It is sad that it happened but if you were there at the time you will know that there were very few people speaking out against it. Surely what we must do now is be really adamant that the Transporter Bridge is returned to full use as a road bridge. Infrastructure gets far, far more money than heritage projects, so it can funded as a vital road bridge link but would always struggle as a museum. The Tyne Bridge and the Tees Viaduct receive funding that dwarfs what would be needed to get the Tranny back in operation again.
 
NorthumberlandBoro said:
We should divert part of the river to create a network of canals across the centre of Boro.Think of the possibilities.
Cafe culture could thrive.
People could travel by gondola to the Riverside.
Venice of the North.
We know a man who could make this happen.
Click to expand...
I always though that Boro town centre and Venice had alarming similarities.

There is a similar "canal" type thing in Thornaby, that the "people in charge" have deemed to prevent entry at either end to anything with a deeper draft than a small swan or large goose, by putting up barriers across one end and underwater gate across the other end. Surely it could be opened up to Kayaks, canoes, or paddle boarders?

1655728985682.png

1655729364996.png
1655729159912.png

Another part of the town that is used by joggers, walkers, dog walkers etc but is bereft of any services or amenities whatsoever.
 
Wiseman_Vaughn said:
Again, done in Dubai. Great idea
Click to expand...

There's a massive difference between Middlesbrough and Dubai, in that was one was an empty desert so easy to develop on, and the other a historical, working town; that's not to mention the billions of oil dollars that they had available rather than relying on public funds or securing private investment.
 
fmttmadmin said:
Have a look at what River Shack do along the Tees between Yarm and the Barrage to see how the river is being harnessed.
But the River Tees is still very much a working river downstream of Newport Bridge. AV Dawson and Wilton Engineering are both extremely active between the Newport and Transporter Bridges.
We do have to move on from the A66 though don't we. It is sad that it happened but if you were there at the time you will know that there were very few people speaking out against it. Surely what we must do now is be really adamant that the Transporter Bridge is returned to full use as a road bridge. Infrastructure gets far, far more money than heritage projects, so it can funded as a vital road bridge link but would always struggle as a museum. The Tyne Bridge and the Tees Viaduct receive funding that dwarfs what would be needed to get the Tranny back in operation again.
Click to expand...
The river is very much a working river and long may that continue to grow and thrive, but I am talking about areas upstream of the barrage, or areas like the old dock near the stadium that have endless leisure and recreational uses.

I think that River Shack is doing some great work that needs applauding and more recognition.

But how many river access points that were paid for by the public purse between the Barrage and Yarm are actually open to the public? 1 at the barrage that is open tot he public, and maybe half a dozen that are "available" but not accessible by the public.

I get the need to limit access to powered craft etc, but deliberately making it difficult or nearly impossible for kayaks, canoe or paddle boarders to enter the water safely is a disgrace.

I agree 100% about the Transporter bridge needing to be protected at all costs, however the longer it drags out, the less are the chances it will ever reopen. I fear it will become a static museum.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top