Derbys a s**t hole I want to go home

[Mucker1884]

15 minutes ago, Stive Pesley said:

Hair Dog is the old Flamingo & Firkin pub on Beckett St. They put bands on and is generally an alternative vibe

Electric Daisy Garden is a lovely plot that they have established at the bottom of Sadler Gate on the site of the (now demolished) Princes Supermarket. It's a hippy-ish green endeavour - an actual city garden with lots of plants/fruit/veg being grown and food trucks / bar

Popworld is a terrible chain night club in the old Friary on Friargate (used to be It's A Scream)

See also Dubrek - a community venue/rehearsal room/bar/recording studio on Bridge Street in one of the old Uni  bars. Absolutely thriving 

And of course the Bustler Market is now well established in the old Chocolate Factory on John Street

At Xmas they had a brilliant Nordic Ski Lodge set up on the Market Place too

So much amazing new stuff going on in Derby if people only bother to engage

Of course it's much easier to sit on your arse and snipe from the comfort of your own home about how you haven't seen a plant pot since the days when you used to be able to see your own knob when you had an angry w*nk

 

I was gonna put a nice big cheers reaction, plus a direct thank you post for that info... until I read the last line.

CBA, now!  

 

  

 

[Stive Pesley]

3 minutes ago, Mucker1884 said:

I was gonna put a nice big cheers reaction, plus a direct thank you post for that info... until I read the last line.

CBA, now!  

Sorry pal - couldn't help meself could I? 😂

Classic Derby traits - you either moan like heck or you're a p*ss-taking wind up merchant

I'm strongly in the latter camp I'm afraid. Heart of gold though. Another classic Derby trait UTR!! 

[Mucker1884]

3 minutes ago, Stive Pesley said:

Sorry pal - couldn't help meself could I? 😂

Classic Derby traits - you either moan like heck or you're a p*ss-taking wind up merchant

I'm strongly in the latter camp I'm afraid. Heart of gold though. Another classic Derby trait UTR!! 

Well, seeing as we are back on speaking terms...

 

They did WHAT to Princes?

When TF did that happen!  😲

 

 

😉

[Ram-Alf]

50 minutes ago, Alph said:

Sunnyhill, of course. I should know I used to live 5 mins from Browning Circle. 

I'm guessing these gangs are gone? 

A1 still active...I believe, Involved in the drug trade, BCT(Browning Circle Terrorists)were the older males who lived in and around B.Circle were disbanded when the Authoritys put a Police station near by, The YBCT(Yunga Browning Circle Terrorists) were formed by the teens to follow in their Seniors footsteps.

Police get the former old uns together to "mentor" the younger ones, Slowly they moved on or morphed into other criminal activities.

Now Browning Circle has a large population of East Europeans who have their own agenda 

[Crewton]

1 hour ago, Stive Pesley said:

Hair Dog is the old Flamingo & Firkin pub on Beckett St. They put bands on and is generally an alternative vibe

Electric Daisy Garden is a lovely plot that they have established at the bottom of Sadler Gate on the site of the (now demolished) Princes Supermarket. It's a hippy-ish green endeavour - an actual city garden with lots of plants/fruit/veg being grown and food trucks / bar

Popworld is a terrible chain night club in the old Friary on Friargate (used to be It's A Scream)

See also Dubrek - a community venue/rehearsal room/bar/recording studio on Bridge Street in one of the old Uni  bars. Absolutely thriving 

And of course the Bustler Market is now well established in the old Chocolate Factory on John Street

At Xmas they had a brilliant Nordic Ski Lodge set up on the Market Place too

So much amazing new stuff going on in Derby if people only bother to engage

Of course it's much easier to sit on your arse and snipe from the comfort of your own home about how you haven't seen a plant pot since the days when you used to be able to see your own knob when you had an angry w*nk

 

I've been to Jazz gigs at Dubrek, Deda, Baby Space, the Old Library on the Wardwick, all decent enough small venues for live music. I also went recently to the Hound Dog on Friargate, sister club to the Hairy Dog, and I was quite impressed. It was busy enough, the band was good and the club had a really good vibe. It's at least as good as Peggy's Skylight in Nottingham, if not better. I hope it succeeds.

I take Alph's point about the lack of good sized hedonistic clubs for the young to get their rocks off - there seemed to be plenty of those in my youth - but we also went further afield to Notts, Leicester, Sheffield and elsewhere to sample different clubs and Derby was well placed for that back then.

[Stive Pesley]

21 minutes ago, Ram-Alf said:

Now Browning Circle has a large population of East Europeans who have their own agenda

Presumably, delicious sausages and excellent handiwork at reasonable prices?

[Ram-Alf]

16 minutes ago, Stive Pesley said:

Presumably, delicious sausages and excellent handiwork at reasonable prices?

That's after they've sold their ill gotten cars, And once the ladies of the night have finished their night shift they'll start on their needle work 👍

Not forgetting a couple of houses that purloin bags of clothes that are left out for the charities to collect...

Next 😁  

[LazloW]

Have seen a lot of references to bad planning in this thread. Not going to defend every decision the Council has ever made but almost every planning decision is looked on with the benefit of hindsight and current thinking. Just as an example,  when Westfield (as it was known) was granted permission it was in the context of a massive retail boom, an extremely strong high street and the assumption, reasonable at the time, that Derby could maintain Debenhams where it was and attract another major department store.  The Castlefields Main Centre (anybody remember that?) on which Westfield/Intu/Derbion stands was a desolate wasteland. A tired, outdated precinct with very high vacant levels. Frankly, it was crying out for regeneration and very few people would have been sad to see it go.  Westfield made sense (in principle - not going to get into its architecture which is subjective.)

In the time between granting permission, the spades going in the ground and the thing opening, the world changed. Unexpected global recession followed by the complete decimation of the high street, which turned from a potential momentary blip into long term fundamental changes to the way people shop (particularly the internet but also how supermarkets expanded their ranges massively). Department stores rapidly became a thing of the past, several went bust before Westfield opened. The owners had nowhere to go other than Debenhams and M&S. We know the rest and what has continued to happen to our shopping habits, the economy, covid and so on.  All have impacted on town and city centres. There is too much shopping floorspace everywhere. This means vacancies, decline, and so on. Derby isn’t alone in this.  Looking at it now, it is easy to say Westfield was a mistake and if only it hadn’t been built then Derby would have offered some utopian shopping and leisure experience. I don’t think that is true. I think there would the same issues, but you’d have the old Eagle Centre falling apart, the Castlefield Main Centre as another boarded up and probably closed plot crying out for attention and you’d still have a lot of vacancies. But my point here is that suggesting Westfield was a bad planning decision is very easy 20 years later but at the time it absolutely made sense and was the right thing to do in principle (again, not debating the design or details). 

That is often the case and that’s just an example. I’m sure the planners and Councillors in the 60s had good reasons for their decisions that made sense at the time. I doubt they were in the Council chamber twirling their moustaches and actively trying to ruin the City. Views on heritage have changed over time, views on the environment have changed over time, just as they have in transport priorities etc etc etc. 

Yes, in hindsight some of these decisions look bad and and misguided but to suggest there has been some long term incompetence or deliberate negligence is, in my view, just a bit too simplistic and ‘easy’.  Also, don’t underestimate the influence of government policy (changes all the time), the law, the market (much of planning is reacting to proposals not necessarily being able to be proactive), funding, technology so on and so forth. Not easy to predict how things will change and easy to be caught out. 

I will add a caveat. Not all decisions are necessarily good ones and certainly don’t want to suggest that anybody criticising aspects of the city’s built environment, however subjective, is necessarily wrong. Don’t want to get into that debate really. Just wanted to highlight that without taking the context into account lumping all planning decisions in the last 60+ years as ‘bad’ might not be entirely fair.

For those saying there has been no vision for the city either, are you aware of successive City Centre masterplans? Been around for a while but can’t remember when the first one came out. A while ago (some may remember Derby Cityscape who came up with their master plan and then the Council I’m sure have produced more since). Guarantee there’s always a vision and always a plan… now whether it gets implemented or people agree with it might be a different matter. But again, but simplistic to say ‘there’s been no long term planning’. Maybe more ‘I don’t agree with the long term planning or have seen precious little evidence of the benefits’. Semantics perhaps.

Sorry that was a long and tedious stream of consciousness! Anyway, I might be inclined to agree the City has seen better days but my job takes me to a lot of other city’s and it doesn’t seem massively different from those. 

 

Edited May 24 by LazloW

[Scott129]

On 23/05/2024 at 12:43, Ram-Alf said:

This is an opinion and not a dig at you.

Professionals you say...hhhmmm, Altho Derby has City status it's still a small town, The huge block on Victoria street fronts onto the old Duckworth Square which leads onto Green lane which has a drug problem, I'll wager a good proportion will be buys to let, Take a look at the block on Gower Street a 5 minute walk from Victoria Street even the rats are moving out.

Students, I was a caretaker for 3 apartment blocks at Flamstead Court on Derby University Campus on Kedleston road those students weren't the best when looking after these homes or surrounding area.

Derby isn't a metropolis, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, London, Newcastle, Birmingham are some of the places where these blocks would fit in, Derby isn't...imo 

  

 

I used to live in that block of flats about 5 or 6 years ago.

It used to have a huge problem with people leaving the main door open, druggies coming in, shooting up and smoking in the corridors, and then urinating in the stairwells and lifts. On more than one occasion, I came out of my door to find someone just asleep/passed out on the floor.

Horrendous place to live, even if it was relatively cheap.

[ariotofmyown]

5 hours ago, LazloW said:

Have seen a lot of references to bad planning in this thread. Not going to defend every decision the Council has ever made but almost every planning decision is looked on with the benefit of hindsight and current thinking. Just as an example,  when Westfield (as it was known) was granted permission it was in the context of a massive retail boom, an extremely strong high street and the assumption, reasonable at the time, that Derby could maintain Debenhams where it was and attract another major department store.  The Castlefields Main Centre (anybody remember that?) on which Westfield/Intu/Derbion stands was a desolate wasteland. A tired, outdated precinct with very high vacant levels. Frankly, it was crying out for regeneration and very few people would have been sad to see it go.  Westfield made sense (in principle - not going to get into its architecture which is subjective.)

In the time between granting permission, the spades going in the ground and the thing opening, the world changed. Unexpected global recession followed by the complete decimation of the high street, which turned from a potential momentary blip into long term fundamental changes to the way people shop (particularly the internet but also how supermarkets expanded their ranges massively). Department stores rapidly became a thing of the past, several went bust before Westfield opened. The owners had nowhere to go other than Debenhams and M&S. We know the rest and what has continued to happen to our shopping habits, the economy, covid and so on.  All have impacted on town and city centres. There is too much shopping floorspace everywhere. This means vacancies, decline, and so on. Derby isn’t alone in this.  Looking at it now, it is easy to say Westfield was a mistake and if only it hadn’t been built then Derby would have offered some utopian shopping and leisure experience. I don’t think that is true. I think there would the same issues, but you’d have the old Eagle Centre falling apart, the Castlefield Main Centre as another boarded up and probably closed plot crying out for attention and you’d still have a lot of vacancies. But my point here is that suggesting Westfield was a bad planning decision is very easy 20 years later but at the time it absolutely made sense and was the right thing to do in principle (again, not debating the design or details). 

That is often the case and that’s just an example. I’m sure the planners and Councillors in the 60s had good reasons for their decisions that made sense at the time. I doubt they were in the Council chamber twirling their moustaches and actively trying to ruin the City. Views on heritage have changed over time, views on the environment have changed over time, just as they have in transport priorities etc etc etc. 

Yes, in hindsight some of these decisions look bad and and misguided but to suggest there has been some long term incompetence or deliberate negligence is, in my view, just a bit too simplistic and ‘easy’.  Also, don’t underestimate the influence of government policy (changes all the time), the law, the market (much of planning is reacting to proposals not necessarily being able to be proactive), funding, technology so on and so forth. Not easy to predict how things will change and easy to be caught out. 

I will add a caveat. Not all decisions are necessarily good ones and certainly don’t want to suggest that anybody criticising aspects of the city’s built environment, however subjective, is necessarily wrong. Don’t want to get into that debate really. Just wanted to highlight that without taking the context into account lumping all planning decisions in the last 60+ years as ‘bad’ might not be entirely fair.

For those saying there has been no vision for the city either, are you aware of successive City Centre masterplans? Been around for a while but can’t remember when the first one came out. A while ago (some may remember Derby Cityscape who came up with their master plan and then the Council I’m sure have produced more since). Guarantee there’s always a vision and always a plan… now whether it gets implemented or people agree with it might be a different matter. But again, but simplistic to say ‘there’s been no long term planning’. Maybe more ‘I don’t agree with the long term planning or have seen precious little evidence of the benefits’. Semantics perhaps.

Sorry that was a long and tedious stream of consciousness! Anyway, I might be inclined to agree the City has seen better days but my job takes me to a lot of other city’s and it doesn’t seem massively different from those. 

 

Post of the (close) season

[Gee SCREAMER !!]

10 hours ago, Stive Pesley said:

Hair Dog is the old Flamingo & Firkin pub on Beckett St. They put bands on and is generally an alternative vibe

Electric Daisy Garden is a lovely plot that they have established at the bottom of Sadler Gate on the site of the (now demolished) Princes Supermarket. It's a hippy-ish green endeavour - an actual city garden with lots of plants/fruit/veg being grown and food trucks / bar

Popworld is a terrible chain night club in the old Friary on Friargate (used to be It's A Scream)

See also Dubrek - a community venue/rehearsal room/bar/recording studio on Bridge Street in one of the old Uni  bars. Absolutely thriving 

And of course the Bustler Market is now well established in the old Chocolate Factory on John Street

At Xmas they had a brilliant Nordic Ski Lodge set up on the Market Place too

So much amazing new stuff going on in Derby if people only bother to engage

Of course it's much easier to sit on your arse and snipe from the comfort of your own home about how you haven't seen a plant pot since the days when you used to be able to see your own knob when you had an angry w*nk

 

Never had one of those.  Seen plenty of angry w****** though.  Keep posting 

 

 

Edited May 24 by Gee SCREAMER !!

[Crewton]

17 hours ago, LazloW said:

Have seen a lot of references to bad planning in this thread. Not going to defend every decision the Council has ever made but almost every planning decision is looked on with the benefit of hindsight and current thinking. Just as an example,  when Westfield (as it was known) was granted permission it was in the context of a massive retail boom, an extremely strong high street and the assumption, reasonable at the time, that Derby could maintain Debenhams where it was and attract another major department store.  The Castlefields Main Centre (anybody remember that?) on which Westfield/Intu/Derbion stands was a desolate wasteland. A tired, outdated precinct with very high vacant levels. Frankly, it was crying out for regeneration and very few people would have been sad to see it go.  Westfield made sense (in principle - not going to get into its architecture which is subjective.)

In the time between granting permission, the spades going in the ground and the thing opening, the world changed. Unexpected global recession followed by the complete decimation of the high street, which turned from a potential momentary blip into long term fundamental changes to the way people shop (particularly the internet but also how supermarkets expanded their ranges massively). Department stores rapidly became a thing of the past, several went bust before Westfield opened. The owners had nowhere to go other than Debenhams and M&S. We know the rest and what has continued to happen to our shopping habits, the economy, covid and so on.  All have impacted on town and city centres. There is too much shopping floorspace everywhere. This means vacancies, decline, and so on. Derby isn’t alone in this.  Looking at it now, it is easy to say Westfield was a mistake and if only it hadn’t been built then Derby would have offered some utopian shopping and leisure experience. I don’t think that is true. I think there would the same issues, but you’d have the old Eagle Centre falling apart, the Castlefield Main Centre as another boarded up and probably closed plot crying out for attention and you’d still have a lot of vacancies. But my point here is that suggesting Westfield was a bad planning decision is very easy 20 years later but at the time it absolutely made sense and was the right thing to do in principle (again, not debating the design or details). 

That is often the case and that’s just an example. I’m sure the planners and Councillors in the 60s had good reasons for their decisions that made sense at the time. I doubt they were in the Council chamber twirling their moustaches and actively trying to ruin the City. Views on heritage have changed over time, views on the environment have changed over time, just as they have in transport priorities etc etc etc. 

Yes, in hindsight some of these decisions look bad and and misguided but to suggest there has been some long term incompetence or deliberate negligence is, in my view, just a bit too simplistic and ‘easy’.  Also, don’t underestimate the influence of government policy (changes all the time), the law, the market (much of planning is reacting to proposals not necessarily being able to be proactive), funding, technology so on and so forth. Not easy to predict how things will change and easy to be caught out. 

I will add a caveat. Not all decisions are necessarily good ones and certainly don’t want to suggest that anybody criticising aspects of the city’s built environment, however subjective, is necessarily wrong. Don’t want to get into that debate really. Just wanted to highlight that without taking the context into account lumping all planning decisions in the last 60+ years as ‘bad’ might not be entirely fair.

For those saying there has been no vision for the city either, are you aware of successive City Centre masterplans? Been around for a while but can’t remember when the first one came out. A while ago (some may remember Derby Cityscape who came up with their master plan and then the Council I’m sure have produced more since). Guarantee there’s always a vision and always a plan… now whether it gets implemented or people agree with it might be a different matter. But again, but simplistic to say ‘there’s been no long term planning’. Maybe more ‘I don’t agree with the long term planning or have seen precious little evidence of the benefits’. Semantics perhaps.

Sorry that was a long and tedious stream of consciousness! Anyway, I might be inclined to agree the City has seen better days but my job takes me to a lot of other city’s and it doesn’t seem massively different from those. 

 

That's a very good post. You're absolutely right that attitudes and trends in town planning and towards the built environment change through the years. I'd say my biggest gripe with planners and conservation officers in Derby historically is their failure to protect and preserve the town's history. I was in Shrewsbury yesterday and the old heart of that place looks pretty much how Derby should look today. I suppose one of the main reasons they have been able to preserve so much of their heritage is money. Perhaps more of the locally generated wealth has stayed in Shrewsbury due to its relative isolation compared to Derby? They've never suffered industrial decline and have undoubtedly benefited from being more aligned to successive governments of the day than Derby has. Pinning down the real reasons for such differences is a bigger task than we are capable of on this forum, but you're right that it can't solely be attributed to more imaginative and sensitive town planning.

[Ram-Alf]

2 hours ago, Crewton said:

That's a very good post. You're absolutely right that attitudes and trends in town planning and towards the built environment change through the years. I'd say my biggest gripe with planners and conservation officers in Derby historically is their failure to protect and preserve the town's history. I was in Shrewsbury yesterday and the old heart of that place looks pretty much how Derby should look today. I suppose one of the main reasons they have been able to preserve so much of their heritage is money. Perhaps more of the locally generated wealth has stayed in Shrewsbury due to its relative isolation compared to Derby? They've never suffered industrial decline and have undoubtedly benefited from being more aligned to successive governments of the day than Derby has. Pinning down the real reasons for such differences is a bigger task than we are capable of on this forum, but you're right that it can't solely be attributed to more imaginative and sensitive town planning.

I've done Shrewsbury a couple of times we stopped in the Olde Bucks Head Inn across the river...nice place...as I used to deliver there after my RR days then onto Oswestry and Wrexham, The Castle, The Park, The River...nice quiet streets for shopping, At night it wakes up and gets a bit lively especially at the Shrewsbury Hotel a Weatherspoon's back in the day.

Agree with your sentiments regarding Shrewsbury 👌...lots of Tudor buildings on every street, And plenty of pubs to rest a weary body in 😊 

 

[SSD]

Derby has so much potential but unfortunately I feel the previous authorities have tried to grossly expand a small city (looking at the large shopping centre) and neglected large parts of the town as a consequence. We didn't need the shopping centre, there was no demand for something that huge. I have never understood why we built it. The eagle centre just needed freshen up.

It is becoming better slowly but surely. The Sadler Gate events as an example are very popular. Bustler Market is a great idea. The pub scene has always been brilliant, I don't think that has ever changed. It's a massively plus, some fantastic watering holes around.

City centre areas in general are worse than before because of the neglect in recent years (won't delve into that subject). Derby as a city tried to be too big and all of our historic areas fell into the wasteland. Thankfully businesses and new ideas are trying to turn it around.