The Ann Court question

Some 'white skies' pics from a dull day...

Along Providence Street to Belmont Road...






Looking left, halfway along... down Minden Place, with newly extended al fresco area on the right at the Arts Ctr.








.. and to the right, looking into the boarded up Ann Court.






Around into Ann Place, and the ironically named "No to the car park!" campaigner Ms. Storey lives on the left here... far be it for me to think... NIMBY! (NOT IN MY BACK YARD!)






Opposite Mary Ann Mews...








.. looking back right...








.. and forwards to the right again...







At the junction with Ann Street.. (I quite like the wide-angle leaning buildings effect actually)






.. looking back down Ann Place - note that the mews residents are OK for parking with their secure gated area!




My opinion is undoubtably worthless, but, correct me if I'm dense but surely towns developed for trade purposes, with people choosing to live there for convenience? Trade depends upon access, and, currently that access depends upon parking because we don't live in some communist hell hole and funnily enough we in the western world are generally free to provide our own personal transport if we can afford it. So we drive cars. A town that needs consumer 'footfall' therefore needs parking. Parking has to go somewhere. And I don't believe that people have an automatic God given right to live close by to ammenities - otherwise sheltered housing in the middle of nowhere would be banned in all the other parishes... and that's clearly not the case.

Bearing all that waffle in mind, I would say... I think this is the ideal location for a town park, if this part of town really needs one. Keep/rebuild Minden Place as nobody really benefits from a new open area there, develop parking in Gas Place where the residents are fewer and far between and already used to it, and Snow Hill would be a great place for a new multi with the added side effect of solving the access problem to Fort Regent.

But what do I know? :)