Letters to the editor
Coventry Evening Telegraph
Monday 11 October 2008
by hand
Dear Sir,
What is the point in spending billions of pounds regenerating the centre of Coventry, if we can’t even attract a single tourist to visit the city through our own airport? Meanwhile, local visitors will continue to be put off, as long as shabby Coventry station is run by the tremendously arrogant, incompetent and rude staff employed by Virgin Trains. And with the current state of the credit crunch, wouldn’t it be much better to just apply a new lick of paint to the much loved market, rather than opting for an all-out blitzkrieg?
We’ve seen enough damage to Coventry done by the Nazis, and then by the well-meaning, but well past its sell-by date Gibson plan, so why should we now place any trust in some dodgy Californian architect who is much more accustomed to helping casinos empty their patrons’ wallets, rather than building genuinely liveable urban spaces?
The so-called concrete collar which goes round Coventry might well be monumentally ugly, but it does at least keep traffic moving. So, rather than turning over more roads to under-used busways and expensive tram systems, can’t we just learn a little bit from some of our twin cities about how to make Coventry much more accessible for pedestrians and cyclists? I’ve had a good look around all the glossy images that the Jerde partnership have drawn, and I have yet to see a single bicycle in any of them. If there are 9 million bicycles in Jinan*, then surely it isn’t too Batty^ to propose working towards having one million in Coventry?
Notes:
*9 million bicycles in Beijing was written by Mike Batt for Katie Melia. Coventry is twinned with Jinan, China - approx 300 miles south of Beijing.
