The garden of earthly delights... Rochdale-style

Yes the park and shop opposite are on Drake Street, but luckily away from the part of Drake St the millions of new visitors to Rochdale will be coming in on the Trams.

UP THE DALE wrote:Yes the park and shop opposite are on Drake Street, but luckily away from the part of Drake St the millions of new visitors to Rochdale will be coming in on the Trams.

Sorry to be pandantic but the nearst stop is way down Maclure Road or Smith Street in the other. There could have been a stop on Drake Street where the tram passengers could have just seen the local indigenous population in and around the telephone box.

So the yes the 'millions' of vistors will now just get a fleeting glimpse as the shiny new Tram glides past en route to the new 300,000 sq ft of tat and pound shops that have just been passed to be built by RMBC. Perhaps these are the big names Cllr Farooq is refering too.

i cant wait till 2020ish (according to the local paper ramblings this past weekend has indictated to be the completion date) by which time all Towns around the area will be on their 2nd/3rd re-generation of their Towns. Which makes the then Cllr Couzens cliam of 2014 (or somewhere round that date) as being the grand opening/ribbon cutting of our new Town Centre, highly optimistic at best.

Perhaps Rochdale should re-brand the bridge over Edinburgh Way saying "Rochdale - home of the never ending re-generation/consultaion."

I thought the trams will be turning right from Maclure Road towards town, Chill. If that's the case, they won't see the phone box, because that's to the left. Or are we on different places. I am on about and I thought Hinch was on about, the one near Church Style/ Milkstone Road near Broadfield Park.

Agree with rest of your post.

UP THE DALE wrote:I thought the trams will be turning right from Maclure Road towards town, Chill. If that's the case, they won't see the phone box, because that's to the left. Or are we on different places. I am on about and I thought Hinch was on about, the one near Church Style/ Milkstone Road near Broadfield Park.

Agree with rest of your post.

Yes I am refering to Church Stile.

Well thats good that they cant see the group at top of Church Stile. Nice welcoming site to our Town Im sure you will agree. i always thought that area fell under the alcohol exclusion zone. Clearly not judging by the well established drinking den there.

Chill37 wrote: the new 300,000 sq ft of tat and pound shops that have just been passed to be built by RMBC. Perhaps these are the big names Cllr Farooq is refering too.

You dont get much bigger names than Poundland Chill, I watched a programme on them and their rivals the '99p' shop, the owner of the 99p shop said he loses £4M a year by not charging the extra penny!thats some customer numbers to be proud of eh?

Watched the same program, these are the shops of the future, anything above a £ will come from the internet and online shopping by Stores that closed in town centres up and down the country. Ten years or so down the line many of the high street stores will only be accessible online, with overnight delivery as standard.

A lot of people I know buy everything from the net including the weekly food shop and have it delivered, how long before the majority do the same, that will certainly kill off any chance of a come back for shops in town centres even in places not struggling at the moment.

People may weary of internet shopping after a while, and want to go to shops again. Rochdale could get ahead of the trend by opening a 'shop museum'.

Why on earth would people get weary of internet shopping? Forgive me but that is at best wishful thinking.

Perhaps they won't. Compared to being able to wander around shops and browse real things, sitting at a computer and buying things from a picture isn't as good, like having a pint in a pub is better than drinking a can in front of the telly. Maybe that's how the future will be though, and people won't miss the 'old ways'.

cyfrifia wrote:People may weary of internet shopping after a while, and want to go to shops again. Rochdale could get ahead of the trend by opening a 'shop museum'.

No I dont think so. It's easy cheaper( sometimes ) the customer service of the bigger internet shopping names is far superior than the high street. Oh and the quality of goods is far superior than the majority of shops you find in Rochdale and some other towns.

As for wandering around shops. True that can be a nice experience, but sometimes in busy periods like Christmas I get tired of getting bashed, bumped into and people snatching things of the shelfs. Yes I have witnessed that at times. Plus I fail to see how you can spend a few hours wandering around the tat and phone shops in Rochdale.

Rochdale never seems to have got the 'architecture' of a shopping area quite right. That combined with the long slide into 'tat' perhaps means perhaps Rochdalians don't have a pleasant shopping experience to look back on.

I found Rochdale was technically quite good for finding practical things that I needed to buy, but they were scattered around town, and the actual shopping experience was fraught with avoiding traffic and a sense of random disconnect, with people hanging around in groups for disconcertingly unknown reasons.

So yes, I can see why internet shopping would appeal.

cyfrifia wrote:Perhaps they won't. Compared to being able to wander around shops and browse real things, sitting at a computer and buying things from a picture isn't as good, like having a pint in a pub is better than drinking a can in front of the telly. Maybe that's how the future will be though, and people won't miss the 'old ways'.

Let me see: I can drive on crowded roads to the supermarket, try to find a parking space and hope that my car door doesn't get another ding because parking spaces are not wide enough. I can then spend an hour trying to find the goods I want and put them into a trolley. When I get to the check out I have to take all the goods out of a trolley to have them scanned only to have to put them back into said trolley once scanned and bagged. I trundle out to my car, and if I am lucky and it is not raining I don't get soaked whilst I take my bags out of the trolley and put them into my car. I then try and negotiate myself out of the car park (often akin to the 'wacky races') and back onto crowded roads to drive home. When home I have to unpack my car and take my bags inside.

Or...

I can shop from the comfort of my home, find everything I want with ease and have them delivered and even brought into my kitchen.

Difficult choice - not!

That time waiting in the queue at the supermarket till is invaluable though, it's the only chance a lot of people have to stare blankly into space and contemplate the nature of infinity.

cyfrifia wrote:That time waiting in the queue at the supermarket till is invaluable though, it's the only chance a lot of people have to stare blankly into space and contemplate the nature of infinity.

Or watching someone put more than 10 items through the ten or less express checkout.

J wrote:

cyfrifia wrote:Perhaps they won't. Compared to being able to wander around shops and browse real things, sitting at a computer and buying things from a picture isn't as good, like having a pint in a pub is better than drinking a can in front of the telly. Maybe that's how the future will be though, and people won't miss the 'old ways'.

Let me see: I can drive on crowded roads to the supermarket, try to find a parking space and hope that my car door doesn't get another ding because parking spaces are not wide enough. I can then spend an hour trying to find the goods I want and put them into a trolley. When I get to the check out I have to take all the goods out of a trolley to have them scanned only to have to put them back into said trolley once scanned and bagged. I trundle out to my car, and if I am lucky and it is not raining I don't get soaked whilst I take my bags out of the trolley and put them into my car. I then try and negotiate myself out of the car park (often akin to the 'wacky races') and back onto crowded roads to drive home. When home I have to unpack my car and take my bags inside.

Or...

I can shop from the comfort of my home, find everything I want with ease and have them delivered and even brought into my kitchen.

Difficult choice - not!

I dare add that in future years to come we will have virtual shopping online were you can see the goods up close and personal before you buy in the comfort of your own home and I'm sure many companies will deliver the same day, not all but many.

It's all very sad for the children involved.

If we had legalised brothels there could be crèche facilities for punters and staff.

I wonder what kind of interest the shop owner charges, must be quite high.

These drinkers certainly do pay a lot of tax into the government's coffers, as a very large percentage of all their money goes on booze, fags and tobacco.
It's financially a good idea to pay them more money as all the money they do spend goes back into the local economy.

It's very sad and I would never look down on these people, you don't know what has happened in their lives to bring them down so low. 'But for the grace of God' I say.

Hinch wrote:Not sure how this turned into a shopping thread...

One of the gang of 'cork-pullers' has young kids and I believe she earns a living in a mainly horizontal manner. When she is thus engaged and it is raining, she has been known to park her kids in the phonebox with a bag or crisps. I think she also has a drug-addiction problem.

I suppose it might be faintly amusing if it was an episode of 'Shameless' but this is real life... but not as we know it Jim.

I think an award should be given annually for the most persistent, champion if you like, thread warper.