New Youth Centre announced

It really is fantastic what they're doing with the town centre.

Despite having lost a bit of its traditional feel the market is actually far better than the old one in terms of comfort and facilities. The glassworks has a very safe feeling to it walking around at night and it's brought high end shops to barnsley. The new cinema and bowling alley has brought much needed entertainment venues to the town centre, the library I think was built with the future in mind, easily changed from books to meeting areas, the bars and restaurants have brought a night life that isn't rough like wellington street is, car parks are much better than we used to have and much safer, the homes that are to be built on on county way will get much needed footfall into the centre on an evening and the kids area will give kids (funnily enough) something to do and stimulate them. Plus they are renovating the frontage of many town centre buildings and planning works for the former bhs area and as much as we mock it the new bridge will be a lot better than the crossing ever was.

They're building something for everyone and I'm really proud of our town right now

 

What a place!! The rejuvenation of town definitely warms my heart! I’ve always been proud of Barnsley probably over the top at times but I can’t help but be absolutely chuffed..

 

Yes i'd like to see both of those things myself too. I believe that for the 50th time they're trying to do something with the civic but i'm not sure what. If it were up to me then theyd move all the actual shops on Market street into the alhambra to fill that up including a poundland and then turn that entire street into a row of independent shops, on both sides that all have to have old style signage up. As they're knocking down the old BHS and opening that up it would become a little welcoming gateway up to the independent street. They could use wellington house too subdivided up inside as a kind of artisan independent craft area.
For the arts I'd be trying to acquire some of the buildings on regent street as I think that location would be perfect for more artsy places as it would link the civic and parkway cinema to the cooper gallery and town hall museum.

easy this planning lark

 

As an out of towner now I think the new town centre looks fantastic. Old style shopping has moved on - people want more now. They want places to eat and entertainment - we have Liverpool one which has a similar feel to it. It transformed the City centre and brought in more people to visit.

Places like the Glassworks and Liverpool one have extended visiting times as people go to eat and be entertained. As good as Barnsley was for shopping years ago it was pretty dead after 4 o'clock when market started to close down for the day.

 

Excellent news. Great to see ASOS donate towards it too

 

Council doing an unbelievable job IMHO.

 

Impressive stuff.

 

Bit late to the party there the bbc, it was announced in the local press last May and the work started on site a few months ago.

 

Not the biggest fan of Sir Houghton and his autocratic "cabinet" but I will admit they're making a decent fist of the town centre.

 

Let's hope you don't need a bridge to get to it.

 

It has and it hasn't. The building etc shown in the link is all funded by the council, asos and other local funding. The levelling up thing has given us £10m to build more things next to it such as bike track, skate park etc so i can see why people are lumping it all in as one as its all youth based things in the same place between the bus station and harborough hill but theyre technically two different things with different funding and timescales.

 

Market Day Experience..

 

Not really. Theyre giving funding to build something next to it, it's the media who have gotten them mixed up and lumped them as one

 

I'm happy to knock them wherever possible but frankly I'd rather they do pay for this huge investment than they tell us to piss off just so we can point score.

The local funding is the small area in the yellow line by the way, the government funding is the large area outside of it. Personally I'm not going to turn my nose up at it or try to point score. It's a fantastic development and one I welcome regardless of if the money comes from asos, the council, the government or if rishi sunak himself is paying for it out of his avoided tax money