Spectacular new images of Wolverhampton bus station
Monday 24th May 2010, 11:30AM BST.
Passengers mill about in the shadow of a brand new ticket office and a striking building housing a restaurant and trendy coffee shop.
These computer images, created for the Express & Star, show how Wolverhampton’s new £22.5m bus station is expected to look when it is complete.
Work has been under way to replace the old station since April 3 with the new station set to open next summer.
It will have 19 stands for buses and two along Pipers Row for coaches and will cater for up to 200 services an hour. A total of 43 CCTV cameras will watch over.
One of the innovations is glass doors that can only be opened if both bus and passengers are present.
Included in the design is the listed Queen’s Building, formerly the main entrance to the bus station.
But the building, opened in 1849, will not form part of the station itself.
Instead developers Neptune want to attract top name restaurants or a coffee shop to attract the passengers and those arriving in Wolverhampton for entertainment and shopping.
There will also be space for retailers.
Passengers will no longer have to cross in front of buses using zebra crossings as they did at the old station.
Instead, the W-shaped building will keep them inside at all times.
Chris Perry, head of operations at transport authority Centro, said: “We have completely removed all pedestrian crossings from the bus station.
“We hope it will be a key part of attracting people into Wolverhampton through the bus station.”
Neptune is also building a two-floor office block next to the Queen’s building which could also become shops or a leisure complex.
The images also provisionally show how some offices in the background could look.
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Spot the flaws in this plan.
Not to mention what happens if the door’s electronics fail!!!
Its all well and good redeveoping it…but there really was no problem with the old bus station!!! Its the empty shops and bars that make a bad impression.
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You can change the way the city look, shame we cant change the people. Its full of riff raff!
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I don’t think it’s full of riff raff but there is always riff raff which ever town/city you go to. I think Wolverhampton is quite safe having lived in east London for 6 years and Manchester for 3 years.
I think the bus station will make a positive contribution to the city so long as the electronic doors work. If the doors fail I assume they will just leave them open as they do on the jubilee underground line, it’s not such a big deal.
Pics look good, I hope the real thing meets our expectations. I hope they don’t delay phase II for too long.
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Lets hope as much meticulous
care goes into this bus station as it did in Walsall.
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£22.5M seems like an exceptional waste of money to replace an already functioning bus station!
Especially given that there are already more pressing matters of vacant run down shops!!!
Surely with no shops there will not be much demand for the bus station? (unless your leaving w-ton to go elsewhere).
I cant help but feel w-ton needs more than a new bus station to be as great as it once was!
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Actually the existing bus station was not a functional one. It was a veritable death trap with pedestrians fleeing for their lives in the paths of speeding buses.
The money is outrageous and as I have mentioned before…. Buses used to stop on the streets at no cost.
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I too, can’t see what was wrong with the old station, but its no use worrying about it now…its just a pile of rubble.
The new one looks lovely, as long as its maintained. Graffiti and chewing gum, spit and old newswrappings spoil the look of anywhere.
I know that at the mo, its confusing to say the least, as to where to get on the bus. There will be traffic congestion etc. But I just want to applaud the bus drivers, who, in my opinion, are doing a grand job in difficult circumstances.
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I’m afraid the bus station is the least of Wolverhampton’s problems. The whole City Centre is in need of urgent rejuvenation if it is to compete with Merry Hill and The Bullring. As one of the main approaches into the City, Snow Hill is a disgrace.
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What are we going to do about Broad Street with all the excess trouble, double parking, litter, sex shops and too many takeaways. This street is right next to the new bus station. People coming to our city through the bus station will turn back and go the other way when they see this slum of a street. Money would be better spent sorting this long standing problem first especially if we are trying to attract customers to are city. What has happened to common sense?
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i agree with what your saying totally they need to fix up the rest of the shopping centre & abandoned shops before doing the bus station as new people will step into this station thinking wow jus to walk through & think what the hell was all the money the town had spent on jsut the station,
Plus if they think they are complainin g about the amount of people on benefits looking for work, if they were to fix up the shops so ore business could be opened more people will be working & less on benefits
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I don’t understand the need for two clocks unless only one is right at any one time. Or is one for the riff raff and the other for the hoy polloy. It’s a mystery. And why is it that the only thing missing in the bus station is buses? Is this an omen?
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you must be looking at different pics to me as i see buses on 4 of the 5 shots and the other one is a graphic layout !!!!!!
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There seems to be an accident waiting to happen with the layout of the inbound bus lane on the Ring Road side? Outbound buses cross the path of the inbound lane – which although it looks like a “Give Way” has a blind spot looking to the right? Bet there’s a bus to bus shunt there once it’s open….
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its all fair & good that they wanted to modernize the bus station but do they really need to spend so much money? Everyone like to complain about the children hanging around & causing problems when they could have invested some of that money into design some more places were the younger generation can go in stead of being on the streets, plus look at all the shops that they made people move out of because they were going to develop them about 2 years ago so lets see how long this project is going to take & the extra cost on top of that already large firgure for delays etc
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You know what … It is easy to see why Wolverhampton remains 3rd / 4th or even 5th choice to places like mery hill and the bull ring, with all the negative attitudes of the people of Wolverhampton.
Why cant we except this is happening, be grateful at least some of out taxpayers money is being spent on a facility that the majority of us all use. The previous station had many flaws , and there is no saying this will address them all, but credit where credit is due , nice one Wolverhampton council and centro for caring enough to try and improve the transport within the town. By the looks of things you wont find many who agree, but they probably would like to see the horse and carts back on the road too..
It would seem there is only one thing better than doing nothing to rejuvinate, and that is to improve it… give me strength. Moaning about doors before it,s even been built !
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I agree completely, it seems everyone on here seems to hate any money actually being spent, this new look station looks nice and will have a knock on effect.
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Pros and Cons. New bus station, OK. Need for such a large scale redevelopment, no.
I agree with the need to improve the image of the area, but I also agree with the reality of some of the more critical comments made here.
For example, ccTV cameras. The old station was supposed to be monitored. I once saw three individual people smoking in the station with the space of 2 hours. Nobody came to speak to them. Despite all the notices and warnings of anti-social behaviour, I saw no enforcement.
The quality of the new station will be defined by two things. Enforcement of it’s correct use and the behaviour of the people using it. Will we still have to sit on cold benches waiting for buses that never turn-up, listening to some less-than-savoury characters splurting out f-words faster than a machine gun? Those who will run this new station will have to maintain it to an acceptable standard and that will mean making sure that it is a clean and a safe place to be.
There is then the question of empty shops. With parts of the town looking quite desolate, it would have been nice if the very useful Spar shop could have remained open. So why close it when it served such a useful purpose? Don’t we have enough empty shops in Wolverhampton without forcing the closure of one that served the public so well? And what was wrong with the building the Spar shop was a part of? Answer, nothing.
Overall, the concept of the new bus station has been ill-conceived and not well designed (from what I have seen). The fact it will also take so long to complete is ridiculous, but not untypical of British efficiency (like when you see a road works with only one man working and five other men watching him).
In closing, I can tell you that I have seen a good example of how a bus station should be run. The buses invariably ran on time, the station had a permanent security presence, and signs warning that spitting, littering and bad language would not be tolerated.
Have I said enough?
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