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Plan To 'de-Pedestrianise' Paisley


billyg

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" A plan is being developed to allow cars to return to a pedestrian-only zone in
the centre of Paisley.

It is hoped the move would help boost the local economy by allowing traffic
outside shopping hours.


Renfrewshire Council leader Mark Macmillan described the proposal as the best
of both worlds.


A previous proposal to allow cars back into the town centre was rejected
after being put out to public consultation.


The new plan is being developed by the Paisley Vision Board, which is made up
of the local council, the chamber of commerce, as well as local individuals and
retailers.


The centre of Paisley was pedestrianised in 1997.


According to the The Local Data Company (LDC), which compiles statistics on
high street shop vacancy rates, the town has
more empty shops than anywhere else in Scotland
.


Retailers in Paisley have struggled to compete against the draw of Glasgow's
retail district as well as out-of-town centres such as nearby Braehead, which
opened in 1999.


The previously
rejected consultation on the town centre
was launched in 2009, and offered
residents a choice between maintaining the pedestrian-only streets, opening them
up to cars again completely, or opening them to cars at various points in
evenings and weekends.

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If they want people to return to the centre, make year round free parking the main priority. I dont see how allowing vehicles outside of shopping hours would offer any boost to the businesses in the area, I think sportsters is the only pub that is in the pedestrian bit.

I think most people in the town recognise this as part of the solution , to get people back into the town for shopping. It just needs those that can actually change it, to do what needs done. .

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What's needed is more parking and all of it free. That's what Braehead has, as an immediate head-start on the town.

The tiny bits of Paisley that are pedestrianised are fine and shouldn't be opened to traffic. What value would be added to the shopping experience by that? Would it make sense to allow vehicles to traverse braehead's main malls during shopping hours? Of course, not!

Make it easy for folk to pop into town from the schemes and they'll happily spend their money locally. Put barriers in the way and they won't.

I used to do 90% of our shopping locally, now I drive and park at a waitrose, sainsbury or Tesco 3 or 4 miles away, cos it's less hassle. The local co-op has a wee car park free and if I can get in there I'll use that, if not I drive on.

I used to pop down, park on the street for a couple of minutes to get bread and milk, some butchermeat, but the local council decided to charge for that. I stopped cos it wasn't added value.

Are the fox bar/glenburn etc busses no longer any good or too dear? THAT used to be an easy option for folk...

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The current swath of pedestianised wasteland is a nonsense. There are almost no shops on the high street / County Square so what is the point of pedestrianisation. Buy closing these areas to cars it means that traffic has to go all round the town rather than threw it. This means that

1. people can't be droped of/picked up near these shops.

2. cars not driving past means people can't see what is there from their cars. Out of sight out of mind

3. The place just looks dead, even when there actually quite a few people there.

4. At night these spaces feel/are unsafe

5. F*ckwits litter the place with "art installations"

6. The open topped bus with the League cup winners cant drive down the high street with Shull following in his taxi honking his horn.

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The current swath of pedestianised wasteland is a nonsense. There are almost no shops on the high street / County Square so what is the point of pedestrianisation. Buy closing these areas to cars it means that traffic has to go all round the town rather than threw it. This means that

1. people can't be droped of/picked up near these shops.

2. cars not driving past means people can't see what is there from their cars. Out of sight out of mind

3. The place just looks dead, even when there actually quite a few people there.

4. At night these spaces feel/are unsafe

5. F*ckwits litter the place with "art installations"

6. The open topped bus with the League cup winners cant drive down the high street with Shull following in his taxi honking his horn.

Boo !

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I think most people in the town recognise this as part of the solution , to get people back into the town for shopping. It just needs those that can actually change it, to do what needs done. .

If this plan happens it's only going to be from 4:30pm onwards.Hardly likely to boost the shops.

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I no longer live near Paisley, so for the last eight years, I have had only three reasons to specifically head into Paisley.

1. See St Mirren.

2. Visit my parents who were in the RAH.

3. Walk around town taking photos with my mate.

They could make the High Street open to traffic tomorrow, and make the parking free overnight - what difference does that make to my three reasons for going?

None. Mrs Poz has found one shop in Paisley that interests her - the excellent home and gift shop across from the museum. I took her around town - she loved the Abbey, museum, Thomas Coats Memorial Church, the wee cafes and independent coffee shops dotted around, and the other architectural joys....

but we hear a lot about retail. One shop, that was it. We don't head to big malls all the time - from Cumbernauld we head to Stirling, Falkirk or wee interesting places like South Queensferry or Linlithgow - which have a series of interesting wee independent shops, to go with the cafes and coffee shops.

It's a 60 mile round trip for us to go to Paisley - we've done, and enjoyed, the walking and taking photos bit.... there's little, if anything, to entice us back as a couple looking for a day out.

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Guest somner9

I no longer live near Paisley, so for the last eight years, I have had only three reasons to specifically head into Paisley.

1. See St Mirren.

2. Visit my parents who were in the RAH.

3. Walk around town taking photos with my mate.

They could make the High Street open to traffic tomorrow, and make the parking free overnight - what difference does that make to my three reasons for going?

None. Mrs Poz has found one shop in Paisley that interests her - the excellent home and gift shop across from the museum. I took her around town - she loved the Abbey, museum, Thomas Coats Memorial Church, the wee cafes and independent coffee shops dotted around, and the other architectural joys....

but we hear a lot about retail. One shop, that was it. We don't head to big malls all the time - from Cumbernauld we head to Stirling, Falkirk or wee interesting places like South Queensferry or Linlithgow - which have a series of interesting wee independent shops, to go with the cafes and coffee shops.

It's a 60 mile round trip for us to go to Paisley - we've done, and enjoyed, the walking and taking photos bit.... there's little, if anything, to entice us back as a couple looking for a day out.

Shull's starting up a "Swingers Taxi Club"?

You ring in, ask for a cab for two, next call in for two means you and the missus are paired at random with the next couple.....

Word to the wise, tried it last week, didnae realise when the Shull said "the next couple for pick up, wan o them's a right dug" mean't we were calling past SPS's hooserip.gif

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De-pedestrianising Paisley is all well and good. They should first try and de-criminalise the place.

My last trip in to the town was seriously like something not too dissimilar from my times in Iraq or Afghanistan. My wife and kids were in the chemist at the cross across from where Littlewoods was as a be-scarred and fragrant young man kicked off with the chemist that he wanted his f**king stuff, f**king now as he kicked at the shelves and displays and called her all the sweet colloquial terms for an Asian lady from the sub continent whilst punching the walls and screaming at her. A wee spot of methadone seemed to calm the f**ker down and stopped him acting like something from a George A Romario movie. On leaving there and quickly walking back to the car, parked outside Summits in Moss St, I walk past what looked like a married couple in their 50's fighting in the street over a f**king cigarette.

They can allow cars to go wherever they want to in the town. The point is, people will not want to go back in to Paisley for their shopping, a wee mooch round the non-existent quaint independent shops or to socialise in the bars and clubs because it's not a nice environment and it's not safe. I agree that parking is an issue, but not even the tip of the iceberg.

The solution: I'm afraid I have no idea. If I did Id be on the council and a very rich man. I think that local, regional and national government should hang their f**king heads in shame. Whatever the colour of their rosette. If i intentionally wanted to make Paisley worse, I don't think I could have done a better job of it than they have done...

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De-pedestrianising Paisley is all well and good. They should first try and de-criminalise the place.

My last trip in to the town was seriously like something not too dissimilar from my times in Iraq or Afghanistan. My wife and kids were in the chemist at the cross across from where Littlewoods was as a be-scarred and fragrant young man kicked off with the chemist that he wanted his f**king stuff, f**king now as he kicked at the shelves and displays and called her all the sweet colloquial terms for an Asian lady from the sub continent whilst punching the walls and screaming at her. A wee spot of methadone seemed to calm the f**ker down and stopped him acting like something from a George A Romario movie. On leaving there and quickly walking back to the car, parked outside Summits in Moss St, I walk past what looked like a married couple in their 50's fighting in the street over a f**king cigarette.

They can allow cars to go wherever they want to in the town. The point is, people will not want to go back in to Paisley for their shopping, a wee mooch round the non-existent quaint independent shops or to socialise in the bars and clubs because it's not a nice environment and it's not safe. I agree that parking is an issue, but not even the tip of the iceberg.

/quote]

Andy,you've just described every Town/City Centre in Scotland/UK.

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This is the sort of nonsense which shows that people in charge of regenerating the town centre have no idea what to do.

IMO they need to stop trying to bring back the 1950's and THINK about what else a town centre can be used for.

We already have places for our shopping which will always be better than a town centre can possibly offer and so continuing to go down that alley is bloody daft.

What is missing is a centralised community area dedicated to leisure activities.

One central area with pubs, clubs, bowling alleys, skate boarding parks, coffee houses, cinemas, swimming pools, and all and every manner of restaurant, plus a whole series of other sporting and leisure things along with one massive f**k off free parking area. We need dozens of flats nearby or right above these places which are cheap as chips, functional and look nice to promote the town as somewhere that people want to be in all the time. A purpose-built community if you like. This is the only possible future for our town centres.

It requires money (probably private investment) and leadership (which we don't have anywhere) and a bit more positivity rather than the usual doom and gloom.

What we DON'T need anywhere is a town cetre based on shops.

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I no longer live near Paisley, so for the last eight years, I have had only three reasons to specifically head into Paisley.

1. See St Mirren.

2. Visit my parents who were in the RAH.

3. Walk around town taking photos with my mate.

They could make the High Street open to traffic tomorrow, and make the parking free overnight - what difference does that make to my three reasons for going?

None. Mrs Poz has found one shop in Paisley that interests her - the excellent home and gift shop across from the museum. I took her around town - she loved the Abbey, museum, Thomas Coats Memorial Church, the wee cafes and independent coffee shops dotted around, and the other architectural joys....

but we hear a lot about retail. One shop, that was it. We don't head to big malls all the time - from Cumbernauld we head to Stirling, Falkirk or wee interesting places like South Queensferry or Linlithgow - which have a series of interesting wee independent shops, to go with the cafes and coffee shops.

It's a 60 mile round trip for us to go to Paisley - we've done, and enjoyed, the walking and taking photos bit.... there's little, if anything, to entice us back as a couple looking for a day out.

Surely its not so much about enticing people who dont live in Paisley to use the town centre but more for people who do, to do so. Obviously as things stand the high street is a waste of space and the shops are low quality, if they lowered rates for businesses, offered free parking, encouraged businesses back to the centre which would have locals coming back, at least to a small extent.

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John, I hope not. In fact I don't think it does. I've moved about a fair bit with work, as you know, Northumberland, Colchester, the Midlands, Rutland, the NE of Scotland. I've never been anywhere quite like my home town. It's a bad day when Johnstone High St has a better selection of shops and less mutants per capita than Paisley...

I'm not saying that I'm better than anyone in Paisley or that I think I'm too good for my home town somehow. I'm 100% Paisley. But it's worrying how bad things are/seem to be nowadays. I can't see how turning the town center in to a mecca for pound shops or cut price outlets or charity shops will generate any sort of meaningful re-generation for the place.

I'm not saying that there isn't anywhere worse to live.

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Marrez makes a good point about offices and work places being pushed out of the town centre. Flats are all very well but having people working in the town is important. That seems to have been lost and with it a whole load of professionals using banks, lawyer,accountants, printers, stationers, etc. This brought money into the town that was spent in shops and restaurants. People would nip out and do shopping at Lunch time or early before work. This has almost all gone.

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I went to a small town in France a couple of years back it would be the size of Johnstone. It had a lot of businesses, parking was free for 3 hours in some car parks and all day in others. You could drive down all streets, but pedestrians/cyclists had priority so traffic slowly moved about until the outskirts. There wasn't a traffic light in the centre and all the streets and town square were well kept and tidy. However sitting on the outskirts of town were the supermarkets and a huge shopping mall with a multi-storey car park next to the motorway!

The town centre in Paisley is embarrassing and doesn't help with it's reputation. Some of the buildings are falling to bits- the one on the High Street opposite the job centre has been like that for about 5 or 6 years and on Moss Street too yet it takes so long to get these things fixed.

I'm sure we all know people who live just outside the town and barely go in it. Where are the Cinema, theatres and leisure things that attract people into a town centre? The fact it's cheaper for many people to keep a unit empty is wrong. Why can't local councils set business rates based on demand to encourage people to take a punt and open a business? High Rates/Rents and annoying parking and traffic systems kill towns.

New Street is wide enough to allow parking on one side yet it's double yellows and disabled spaces only. I paid 80p on George Street and got a £30 ticket for being less than 10mins late back one day. It was a fair cop, however there was hardly another car in the street. The cost of a extra 30mins parking was 40p yet the council fine you £30 the same as if I didn't bother with a ticket at all! Things like that hardly encourage people to do business there or come in to the town.

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I'm still fuming about a fecking parking ticket I got for parking on Moss Street last Saturday...

A: It was a Saturday

B: It's on the specifically constructed parking/cobbled parking bays from Dooleys up to Grumpy Monkey

C: Apparently only half that space is pay & display parking bays, roughly to just outside the indian restaurant, the rest is yellow line and disabled priority.

D: The official P&D parking bays are free at the weekend, but the machines will still take your money and issue a ticket

E: I bought a ticket and parked, not spotting the partial yellow line outside barber shop.

F: Why the feck are parking bays free but yellow line policed on a Saturday ?

G: The yellow line is broken and needs repainted ( I genuinely didn't see it and genuinely bought a ticket)

No wonder folk won't come to Paisley when you have to put up with this bullshit. Why go to the bother of actually constructing an inshot for the purposes of parking a vehicle and then create a confusing scenario that's clearly designed to rip the pish out of unsuspecting motorists ? I've only had two parking tickets in the last ten years, both in Paisley, the last one was because I failed to read the small print on all of those 'Free Festive Parking' posters they had up in all the shop windows around christmas time, a ticket issued on xmas eve, once again in a designated inshot parking bay in the town centre.

ETA: My paid for ticket was fully valid, I was only away from the car for 20 mins and had 12 mins left on my ticket compared to the time stamp on the parking fine. The warden could have interpreted the situation better (IMHO). Even if I was partially on a f*cking single yellow line that you'd need a member of Time Team to expose for you, such is the nick of it !

Edited by FS
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Surely its not so much about enticing people who dont live in Paisley to use the town centre but more for people who do, to do so. Obviously as things stand the high street is a waste of space and the shops are low quality, if they lowered rates for businesses, offered free parking, encouraged businesses back to the centre which would have locals coming back, at least to a small extent.

The point I failed to properly articulate was in regard to my mentioning South Queensferry and Linlithgow. I enjoy wee trips to both places, and they're small places you could go back to time and again.

Both have ONE main attraction. South Queensferry has the wonder that is the Forth Rail Bridge. Linlithgow has Linlithgow Palace and the loch around it. Both of these attractions bring in visitors, and around these attractions are a network of cafes, restaurants and shops. They are pleasant places to just amble around, stick your head into the shops and get lunch.

Paisley SHOULD be able to match these types of places with the frankly top drawer attractions and places of historical interest the town does have. I have mentioned my walking and photography trips with my mate to Paisley. As good as anywhere.

I agree with Oaksoft - a shopping destination is not going to happen. Marketing the town's wonderful buildings, and using them to hook people in is important IMHO. An attraction like the Falkirk Wheel is doing unbelievable business for an otherwise 'unremarkable' Scottish town. So does Falkirk's beautiful Callendar House and Park.

Paisley has the attractions, the history, the river, the weaving heritage, the churches, the architecture...and a walloping great airport 5 minutes from it! fcuking pound shops and a shite High Street too though!

Cafe Lusso's toasted bagel with scrambled egg is a good enough reason to visit Paisley!

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FS I have been done there in exactally the same circumstances. Same place, I was outside the indians, I went to the council, filled out the form and tried to contest it, got hee haw response other than them allowing me to pay the origional 30 quid even though the grace period of it doubling had passed.

G: The yellow line is broken and needs repainted ( I genuinely didn't see it and genuinely bought a ticket)

Took photos of the line, photo's of the machine saying it was free to park on the weekend, I was proper furious about it. It was the first Saturday of the free parking in Paisley over the weekend. I assumed they had made a mistake. I'm still angry about it, TBH...

I was sitting in the Cafe (The Grumpy Monkey I think) laughing about the parking warden sauntering past. I even said it's a bit pointless him being there as it's all free today, double dunt for nothing for that guy on a weekend. f**king WHAMMY. I got the ticket...

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My plan would be -

1. All parking is free starting immediately.

2. As Oaksoft has stated the town should be a community with community and leisure facilities. Council Tax should be lowered or suspended for all businesses within the Town Centre.

3. Great, derelict, old buildings in the town Centre should be sold for a nominal fee for conversion into flats/leisure facilities. Conditions apply. Must be available for two Doors Open per annum. Existing structure should be maintained. Plaques placed on them giving a concise history of the Building. I am thinking of places like the TA Hall, Russell Institute, Old Fire Station, Templar Halls, Sea Cadets etc. The developers may be required to provide a communal facility within the development eg A cafe/bistro/gallery/shop etc. This worked well in the redevelopment of Dublin for example where developers had to produce street art and other such facilities. One developer built a courtyard available as a cafe during the day and available as an open-air cinema at night - open to the public.

4. Paisley History Trails and Walks established. Paisley has a great history with amazing buildings which should be showcased to the public.eg the Mill Walk which would guide you round what is left of the Mills with appropriate plaques on display with leaflets guiding you along. Give people back a sense of pride and knowledge in their community.

5. Bring more people back into the Town Centre. New developers should be encouraged to build new accommodation with incentives like cheap land and for example by suspending tenant council tax for say two years on new properties in the Town Centre.

6. Increased bobbies on the beat in the Town centre.

Thats just off the top of my head. Give Buddies a sense of pride and get them back in from the isolated housing schemes to a town they feel proud and safe to be in where there is something to do.

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The current swath of pedestianised wasteland is a nonsense. There are almost no shops on the high street / County Square so what is the point of pedestrianisation. Buy closing these areas to cars it means that traffic has to go all round the town rather than threw it. This means that

1. people can't be droped of/picked up near these shops.

The pedestianised part of the High Street is only 100m long. People can be dropped off in very close proximity to the shops. This plan is only intended for evening time anyway, which is little use for dropping folk off at the shops.

2. cars not driving past means people can't see what is there from their cars. Out of sight out of mind

Reasonable point but far from convinced that bringing traffic back to the high st is the soultion. Again, the shops will be closed and dark at times traffic will be present. Some form of targetted advertising campaign, surely, makes more sense?

3. The place just looks dead, even when there actually quite a few people there.

That is a result of nae shops. The objective should be to attract tennants, not "make the place look busy". If enough tennants, with sustainable businesses are attracted, everything else will look after itself.

4. At night these spaces feel/are unsafe

That is true, but again attract the right mix of tennants and this will change.

5. F*ckwits litter the place with "art installations"

F*ckwits will continue to litter the place, but in addition, every car and every dreaded McGills bus will litter the place with horrible exhaust fumes and noisy old engines.

6. The open topped bus with the League cup winners cant drive down the high street with Shull following in his taxi honking his horn.

The open top bus does not need to comply with the laws of the land. It can go where ever the f*ck it wants (provided it is in Paisley).

Are you aware of the costs involved (both direct and indirect) of re-opening the streets to traffic?

Are you aware of the amount of disruption and length of disruption that would be required?

Have you seen a business plan that supports the proposal?

Is the any one with any authority on the subject actually endorsing the proposal?

The public did not support a very similar proposal in 2009, why should they support this?

To me it looks like another back of a fag packet proposal with nae substance but a good headline. How could you persuade me otherwise? I'm genuinely interested in the theory behind the proposal.

Edited by civilsaint
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Guest TPAFKATS

This is the sort of nonsense which shows that people in charge of regenerating the town centre have no idea what to do.

IMO they need to stop trying to bring back the 1950's and THINK about what else a town centre can be used for.

We already have places for our shopping which will always be better than a town centre can possibly offer and so continuing to go down that alley is bloody daft.

What is missing is a centralised community area dedicated to leisure activities.

One central area with pubs, clubs, bowling alleys, skate boarding parks, coffee houses, cinemas, swimming pools, and all and every manner of restaurant, plus a whole series of other sporting and leisure things along with one massive f**k off free parking area. We need dozens of flats nearby or right above these places which are cheap as chips, functional and look nice to promote the town as somewhere that people want to be in all the time. A purpose-built community if you like. This is the only possible future for our town centres.

It requires money (probably private investment) and leadership (which we don't have anywhere) and a bit more positivity rather than the usual doom and gloom.

What we DON'T need anywhere is a town cetre based on shops.

Agreed.

If you have malls anywhere in the local area your town centre doesn't need the same shops. This is exacerbated by Paisley being a 10 minute train ride from Glasgow city centre. Oh, and there's that t'internet shopping thing that seems to be growing in popularity.

Small independent shops might have a place in the bigger scheme however the rents are still extremely high in Paisley.

I thought the cooncil had plans for a cafe culture based around the uni end of high street - or has that been ditched by present regime (labour)as it was the previous (snp) plan?

Frankly fed up with yet another plan to breathe new life (ironic given the emissions) into town centre which is based on the same old shite that wasnt working before and wont work now.

Edited by TPAFKATS
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I thought the cooncil had plans for a cafe culture based around the uni end of high street - or has that been ditched by present regime (labour)as it was the previous (snp) plan?

I agree with waht you say. There's no point in going for more of the same. The "cafe culture" on paper sounded like an excellent idea, but I never saw it progress in any way shape or form in practice. The cafe idea is actually pretty old now, was it not superseded by the "retail outlet town" vision, which again never seemed to go anywhere. So many ideas but so little action for all political parties.

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