BUS STATION

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Pat Woolley, an anti-Riverlights campaigner, has objected to the council's plan to site eight temporary office buildings in Osnabruck Square, while the new bus station on the Riverlights development, in the Morledge, is built. She claims the buildings will create access problems for pedestrians.

She has also challenged the councillors and senior officers, who are allowed to use the Council House car park, opposite Osnabruck Square, for free, to start using the bus to get to work, and thus free up a "perfect" site for the temporary buildings.

The city council's principal planner John Stewart said, "Applications cannot be refused because somebody thinks of an alternative. If we get an application for an alternative site then we will deal with it." Mrs Woolley said, "I think they should site these buildings in the Council House car park. It would inconvenience only the councillors and council officers. But they should practise what they preach."

Derby City Council's Environmental Policy states one of its main objectives is to: "Reduce the need for motor vehicle journeys, especially the private car, within the city by encouraging walking, cycling, rail and bus travel." Mrs Woolley believes, this is at odds with the council's apparent intentions to retain its own 65-space car park, above the public open space in Osnabruck Square.

The development of the bus station has been delayed again for several weeks after Derby City Council ordered developer MetroHolst to halt the building of a temporary bus station in Osnabruck Square. Council leader Maurice Burgess told planning staff to look more closely into siting the temporary station in the council's own car park opposite the square.

Mr Burgess denied the postponement was due to the challenge by Pat Woolley and claimed it was due to other work being carried out to repair the damaged culvert in Albert Street. But the council were well aware of this other building work when plans were announced to demolish the bus station a month previously.

Mr Burgess said building the temporary bus station in the council car park was his 'preferred option'. Mrs Woolley said, "Blaming the delay of the building of the temporary bus station on the other works is possibly a red herring. There are far deeper issues which are not being made public."

She claimed that the council and MetroHolst were awaiting the outcome of a judicial review, which Mrs Woolley is trying to bring on the grounds that the public were not consulted enough before the scheme was approved.

The council has submitted a new planning application to use the car park, next to the Council House, in Corporation Street, instead of Osnabruck Square. Mr Burgess said the Council House car park was a "much better site" than Osnabruck Square. "It shows we listen to the people," he said. "I've been very enthusiastic in encouraging our officers to get it right." He said the problem with using the car park had been one of "access" to an electricity sub-station, but that had now been solved.

Some councillors expressed fears that the car park could attract anti-social behaviour. Councillor Joan Travis said she feared "boy racers" would swoop upon the site once the bus station offices were installed, especially if council security officers no longer watched the site. And Councillor Chris Wynn said, "We're going to have a lot of vehicle conflict with bus passengers and council workers on what is quite a busy little roundabout just opposite the car park. Late at night this car park could become a magnet for anti-social behaviour elements."

It emerged the planned installation of new bus shelters in Corporation Street, Derwent Street and Full Street has been delayed because the supplier did not have enough bus shelters in stock. Council leader Maurice Burgess is keen to tell us all that the move demonstrates his council is a listening council. How was it that the collective brains of the council's engineering and planning departments failed to come up with a commonsense plan for a temporary bus station yet a 61-year-old pensioner can see the solution at a glance? (Source: Derby Evening Telegraph)

Referring to the current difficulties that Riverlights is experiencing in attracting tenants, may I suggest the following way out of this impasse? Taking note of the negotiations between Greggs, Tragus Holdings and MetroHolst, I have contacted the former two, proposing to them that they may consider the option of opening outlets at a renovated current bus station. This would mean that the city would benefit from not only a renovated station but also from two new landmark outlets. Furthermore, it would also signal the death of this controversial scheme.

If you wish to stop Riverlights from seeing the light of day, you must support the campaign to save the present station. There is no alternative. Somewhere down the line I would not necessarily be against a replacement on a suitably human scale. I would still like to see a memorial to the work of C H Aslin there. I would not object to working alongside erstwhile adversaries as long as I believed that it would lead to a better future for the city. However, this must be on the basis that those who defended the current station dictated terms.

I say this because the opposite side are clearly the aggressors against a building that should be singled out for, and I quote the city council's own words, "sympathetic treatment". The body I have in mind would be called something like the Bus Station Renovation Steering Committee. Its first task would be to investigate the possibilities of renovating the present station. Should it be determined that such a renovation is not practicable, the subsequent task of the committee would be to ensure that any replacement is a suitable tribute to the work of Aslin and not Riverlights II. Christopher Bentley