England's Greatest Place

:lou_eyes_to_sky:

Cue Bazza

Of the 10 finalists, I’d probably have gone for the Peak District, myself.

It’s pretty spesh, and I’ve got to say I take it for granted now. As a model to follow, Southampton should really look at how the space has been narrowed between the waterfront and the city centre.

I’m hoping to have a closer look at that myself in the near future, Pap

Do you think it’s do-able in Southampton?

It’s do-able, but not in isolation. The biggest problem faces right now is that is routinely unable to cope with the amount of demand now. The M27 being broken is an every other day occurrence.

Liverpool stuffed their version of West Quay in between the main part of town, and extended it backward so it almost hits the docks. The back of Liverpool One is all restaurants and bars, with nighttime ice skating in the winter and funfairs in the summer.

It can be done, but it’s something that needs to be done in one go, not planned piecemeal.

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Did they take the local population into account?

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Related, but not entirely on topic. On Friday, the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority was set up to look after Merseyside and the neighbouring area of Halton, which is where John Bishop grew up. There’s always been a lot of co-operation between neighbouring councils, but this new authority will be able to make transport, regeneration and economic decisions for the whole area.

Here’s a map showing the new combined city region. For planning and perhaps even branding purposes, this is the new Liverpool. There have been a number of projects on the go for years, such as the Mersey Gateway Bridge, a doubling of dock capacity, all with the wider region in mind.

Compare and contrast that with the problems that Southampton usually faces; NIMBY neighbouring councils that often don’t want to help out, but have no problem causing problems (e.g. the bland sprawl of Eastleigh Borough Council). There is much less power to do regional transport or planning, as our constant traffic problems illustrate. Even the attitude toward the “lead authority” is different. Sometimes I get the impression that the likes of New Forest and Eastleigh would rather Southampton wasn’t there. Towns want in to Liverpool. Southport petitioned to get into Merseyside back in the day. Halton opted in to the new Liverpool City Region.

dune is doing one of his “I hate Liverpool” threads over on the UI at the moment. A particularly challenged poster pointed to the drop in population in Liverpool City itself. It’s around 450K now, down from an all time peak of 846K. The point he’s missing is that there are 1.5 million people in this new region, and that “Liverpool” has effectively gone from 43.18 sq mi to 279.53 sq mi. And we’ve still got our fucking Eastleigh problem :lou_lol:

In reverse order:

  1. The seat right at the front of the DLR where u can pretend ur driving the train

  2. The Urinals at Aqua in the Shard - gr8 views!

  3. Emma Watson’s vag

Edit: What do u think? What is ur top 3, guise?

Originally posted by @pap

where John Bishop grew up.

:lou_angry: burn it down