Landmark Klaxon!

[Deutsch Wolf]

It's daft because I reckon I last went there in about 2006, but was gutted to see recently that my very first local The Old Mitre has totally gone now. Knocked down, flats going up, so that's it.

They tried to have at least 5-6 revamps after I left the area but none of them worked. The absolute morons who took over around 2000/2001 totally wrecked it. Mithering you for your glasses ten minutes before last orders, ripping out all the old pub stuff, well done for killing it. We ended up cutting them out and using the Milestone (which is shit) instead, at least they let you have a pint in peace.

A real shame as that was a fantastic pub once upon a time.

So that's now my first local gone, my Manchester local (Jabez Clegg) gone and my Hamburg local gone. Good job I have good pubs round here.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

No sprinklers in the rebuilt Civic. Smooth move, Wolves Council.

Miles behind where they're supposed to be on progress as well.

 

[MARKakaJIM]

No sprinklers in the rebuilt Civic. Smooth move, Wolves Council.

Miles behind where they're supposed to be on progress as well.

Can't imagine there's anything likely to happen for a while seen as it was Shaylors doing the work and they no longer exist.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Do you know what the scope of the works is mate? Obviously a total stripout but they've always been very vague publicly about what's actually going to happen.

 

[MARKakaJIM]

Not entirely sure, couple of former colleagues worked for Shaylors but been a while since I spoke to them specifically about it.

Think they were putting in a new bar upstairs to mirror the one that runs down one side and might have been adding another balcony at the end opposite the stage. From what I was told the Council sort of jumped in the deep end without really understanding enough about the existing building and what it needed to get what they wanted out of it. Think when they'd got Shaylors involved and carried out full surveys they found a shit load of asbestos and a woefully inadequate structure to costs/programme started to spiral out of control and the two parties were at loggerheads as to who was responsible and how to proceed.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Cheers man.

I have absolutely no idea when it's going to be built. They could have knocked it down (except the pointless listed bits) and sorted a purpose built arena on the Carillion site in the time it has taken them to do virtually nothing.

 

[MARKakaJIM]

I think most of the delays have been contractual more so than anything else, probably some financial stuff in there too once they'd decided who was culpable for what.

We had a painful experience getting in to contract with the Council for a school we're building in Bilston. Think they allowed a 4 week period originally for documents to be drafted, signed by each party and then closed out, ended up being more like week 7 before it even got sent across to us. They had no information on work that had been previously done to the site which meant we couldn't finalise our design and ended up having to go proper belt and braces to cover ourselves eventually. Seems to be a lot of silly internal politics between different departments too, we were having to be intermediary between people who worked in the same building 50+ miles away from us, it was nonsense.

The Civic project would be a lot more complicated given the dicking around with existing structures so can only imagine the mess they could've made compared to our big box in an empty field.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Opportunity for Wolves this if we can somehow get Asda to bugger off (that shop is massively outdated, it hasn't changed since it opened 30 odd years ago).

Build our own arena there (make it a series of bars on a matchday) and keep all the money for ourselves. Bands like coming to Wolverhampton. Bang the darts there as well.

 

[MARKakaJIM]

I suppose your big obstacle there would be gaining planning approval from the same organisation that you'd be attempting to steal a massive customer base from.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

With their no venue.

I really wish they weren't so useless. Nothing I can do though as I don't live there.

 

[lemonjelly]

At the civic they're planning an extra balcony in the civic above the existing one, as mark says. Plus installing a balcony in the wulfrun to increase capacity too.
Think some issues arose as a result of grade 2 listing?

A lot of bands love the civic, moreso after a massive overhaul of the backstage areas was done a few years ago. Bands were genuinely clambering to get in there.

Building an arena would be risky. There's a variety of similar sized venues locally (ie midlands) with birmingham the obvious competition, having the NEC, NIA, town hall, symphony hall, hippodrome and so on. So you'd need to be cautious in looking at the size of venue you're building.

Plus, the market for tours has gone down, unless it's a mega show (ie NEC, or stadium to reduce costs). That's why comedians are everywhere these days, cheaper and easier to sort a seat & mic/stand with a few lights. Lot less gear, lot cheaper to run a tour. A lot of bands instead focus on the festival circuit instead.

Civic is one of the best venues I've been to, to be fair.

 

[Keef]

Beattie's building up for sale at £3 million, sports direct looking at moving the actual store and stock to a more convenient site in the town centre,says the E&S.

 

[SLA]

the local historians among you might enjoy these - https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2019/sep/10/after-the-metal-has-gone-in-pictures

 

[lemonjelly]

the local historians among you might enjoy these - https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2019/sep/10/after-the-metal-has-gone-in-pictures

Thanks for that SLA. I worked near loads of those places, so was nice to see.

 

[Paul]

.

 

[Paul]

the local historians among you might enjoy these - https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2019/sep/10/after-the-metal-has-gone-in-pictures

I like anything like this but it's 1983 and the photos look like they're pre war ??

 

[lemonjelly]

Try going to some of those areas now...

 

[Pablowolf]

Ahhh, the Merry Hill monorail...

Managed more miles in a container ship than it ever managed at Merry Hill.

 

[SLA]

I like anything like this but it's 1983 and the photos look like they're pre war ??

The world of 1983 is probably as different from now as the world of 1933. You're just old enough to remember 1983 :icon_biggrin:

 

[Stan Hullis]

https://www.insidermedia.com/news/m...nds_news_tracker&utm_medium=top_story_article

Landmark building sale falls through klaxon