All you have to do in Fawcett Street, to appreciate how much of a gem it is, is to look up. It is blighted by cheap plastic shop frontages.
What Fawcett Street needs to improve the appreciation of its marvellous buildings and to realise its full potential (in my opinion) is:
1. Re-routing the buses away from Fawcett Street to elsewhere (such as the ring road)
2. Full pedestrianisation with access for service vehicles only
3. That awful Northern Rock building knocked down and replaced with a landmark building (just like the Town Hall was when it stood there :ohno:)
4. A landmark station concourse building (maybe in a similar style to Canary Wharf Tube Station). All it needs is a fairly simple structure to contain the ticket office and associated small retail stalls.
5. The building opposite the station (with Alliance & Leicester, William Hill, etc) knocking down and replaced with a purpose built market hall to replace Jacky Whites and introduce a quality ‘market’ offer to the City Centre
I think the Sunniside area is currently disconnected from the City Centre because of the perceived edge of the City Centre created by Fawcett Street being a busy and unwelcoming bus interchange. If we improved the pedestrian environment on Fawcett Street we could reintroduce it as a focal point for the City Centre and improve visitors realisation that Sunniside is actually there.
Any thoughts?
That area of town is so under used and under appreciated and something needs to be done about it.
