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Sunderland railway station.

coyneeee said:
How do you do shopping in Mowbray Park or Keel Square? What are you shopping for? Unless you're a criminal thief.

He's not wrong, The Bridges is an absolute eyesore with all those closed down units where Debenhams used to be.
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Didn't mention shopping in my earlier post did I though obvious mag.
 

coyneeee said:
How do you do shopping in Mowbray Park or Keel Square? What are you shopping for? Unless you're a criminal thief.

He's not wrong, The Bridges is an absolute eyesore with all those closed down units where Debenhams used to be.
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The Bridges is one of the worst city centre shopping centre's (if not) in the country imo. Really miserable place and seriously outdated. Has a horrid layout and completely wastes prime space aswell.
 
Stubbs ftm said:
That's the spirit.

It's not though and it's no worse lay out than the metro centre.
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It's not in a city centre though, the Bridges imo completely kills the street flow in Sunderland. High Street West is complete cut off. There's no decent link from Blandford Street North. The Minister Quarter, is again cut off because of the Crowtree end. The Primark wing is a complete dead end (without walking through it).

Metro Centre to be fair has a really good flow, it's pretty much just a figure of 8 works quite well. Eldon Square / Garden I'd agree though. Eldon Garden is shockingly bad, but the restaurant end is just as bad hence both have loads of empty units and it completely cuts off Percy Street which is a dump aswell tbh.
 
I was in the bridges today for the first time in ages. Obviously there are empty units but that is the case in any modern day town/city . If you focus your line of site upwards, I think it looks alright, high ceiling with plenty light. I think that replacing the flooring would do wonders for the place.
 
Zimba said:
The Bridges is one of the worst city centre shopping centre's (if not) in the country imo. Really miserable place and seriously outdated. Has a horrid layout and completely wastes prime space aswell.
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How many UK shopping centre's (sic) have you visited recently? And how do you measure misery?
 
Zimba said:
The Bridges is one of the worst city centre shopping centre's (if not) in the country imo. Really miserable place and seriously outdated. Has a horrid layout and completely wastes prime space aswell.
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Biggest challenge with the bridges is that it’s just a convert 70’s (possibly 60’s) city centre development so it was always constrained by the existing buildings and street pattern.

One of its biggest issues has been the size of the units in the bridges and the roof where it limits the visibility of second floors.

Agree with the newer development of the bridges cutting off park lane/Holmeside from High Street West though it could be argued it’s better than what was there before.
 
EDGE said:
How many UK shopping centre's (sic) have you visited recently? And how do you measure misery?
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It's a 1960's/1970's brutalist mess with a roof stuck on top. Sunderland made some bad and I meant very bad choices around that time and destroyed some genuine nice buildings. The Town Hall and Station (rebuild) in particular, two completely appalling decisions. Fawcett Street has some of the nicest architecture in the country and it's just rotting away.

Osklen said:
Biggest challenge with the bridges is that it’s just a convert 70’s (possibly 60’s) city centre development so it was always constrained by the existing buildings and street pattern.

One of its biggest issues has been the size of the units in the bridges and the roof where it limits the visibility of second floors.

Agree with the newer development of the bridges cutting off park lane/Holmeside from High Street West though it could be argued it’s better than what was there before.
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Aye can't disagree with that. I personally hate the place it's up there with the equally awful original Trinity in Gateshead which destroyed there aswell. Admit the Bridges wasn't as bad as that though. Horrid brutalist construction.
 
Osklen said:
Biggest challenge with the bridges is that it’s just a convert 70’s (possibly 60’s) city centre development so it was always constrained by the existing buildings and street pattern.

One of its biggest issues has been the size of the units in the bridges and the roof where it limits the visibility of second floors.

Agree with the newer development of the bridges cutting off park lane/Holmeside from High Street West though it could be argued it’s better than what was there before.
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The Bridges was constructed in the mid 1960's I can't recall the exact year but it must have opened around 1967/68 'ish. It was an open to the elements shopping precinct then and it was to say the least a bit of a wind tunnel owing to its ill conceived design with high rise blocks at each end. The adjoining enclosed bus station was opened at the same time. Inside that hundreds of waiting passengers were exposed each day to the diesel exhaust fumes of dozens of busses. From the very start it was therefore obvious that the bus station was a design disaster.

A large part of area that the Bridges occupies had been a bomb site flattened in a big air raid in March 1943. The south end of the station that's now being modernised was destroyed in the same raid and was permanently rebuilt in the early 1960's just before work started on the Bridges. As a kid in the 1950's/60's I well remember the bomb site & the temporary entrance to the south of the station that had been erected during the war.
 
Lord Potts said:
The Bridges was constructed in the mid 1960's I can't recall the exact year but it must have opened around 1967/68 'ish. It was an open to the elements shopping precinct then and it was to say the least a bit of a wind tunnel owing to its ill conceived design with high rise blocks at each end. The adjoining enclosed bus station was opened at the same time. Inside that hundreds of waiting passengers were exposed each day to the diesel exhaust fumes of dozens of busses. From the very start it was therefore obvious that the bus station was a design disaster.

A large part of area that the Bridges occupies had been a bomb site flattened in a big air raid in March 1943. The south end of the station that's now being modernised was destroyed in the same raid and was permanently rebuilt in the early 1960's just before work started on the Bridges. As a kid in the 1950's/60's I well remember the bomb site & the temporary entrance to the south of the station that had been erected during the war.
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Yeah I didn’t think it was covered until the late 80’s? I can barely remember it not covered if I’m honest though remember the bus station all too well.

The concept of high rise living above shopping centres is what most shopping centres are now doing to reinvent themselves. The concept in that respect wasn’t a bad thing but the execution hasn’t been great probably largely due to viability, which is the main issue when people want quality architecture.
 
Stubbs ftm said:
That's the spirit.

It's not though and it's no worse lay out than the metro centre.
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He's a mag. As I said earlier many posters on this thread hate our city and won't allow anything positive to be said. We're getting back on our feet after decades of underfunding. If and it's a huge if certain projects get off the ground we'll see positive change the like of which we've not seen I'm generations. Those from further north or with petty footballing prejudice will have to pipe down and put up with it.
 
Football Dinosaur said:
He's a mag. As I said earlier many posters on this thread hate our city and won't allow anything positive to be said. We're getting back on our feet after decades of underfunding. If and it's a huge if certain projects get off the ground we'll see positive change the like of which we've not seen I'm generations. Those from further north or with petty footballing prejudice will have to pipe down and put up with it.
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Pathetic response, keep those rose tinted goggles on while everyone in the real world continues to avoid the place.
 
Zimba said:
It's a 1960's/1970's brutalist mess with a roof stuck on top. Sunderland made some bad and I meant very bad choices around that time and destroyed some genuine nice buildings. The Town Hall and Station (rebuild) in particular, two completely appalling decisions. Fawcett Street has some of the nicest architecture in the country and it's just rotting away.



Aye can't disagree with that. I personally hate the place it's up there with the equally awful original Trinity in Gateshead which destroyed there aswell. Admit the Bridges wasn't as bad as that though. Horrid brutalist construction.
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So you haven't visited many other shopping centres then as I originally asked you.
 
Zimba said:
It's not in a city centre though, the Bridges imo completely kills the street flow in Sunderland. High Street West is complete cut off. There's no decent link from Blandford Street North. The Minister Quarter, is again cut off because of the Crowtree end. The Primark wing is a complete dead end (without walking through it).

Metro Centre to be fair has a really good flow, it's pretty much just a figure of 8 works quite well. Eldon Square / Garden I'd agree though. Eldon Garden is shockingly bad, but the restaurant end is just as bad hence both have loads of empty units and it completely cuts off Percy Street which is a dump aswell tbh.
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What's difficult about walking from say park lane to high street West?
If the bridges wasn't there, you'd still have to walk through those streets to get there. It's not as if the city centre is huge, takes about 5 minutes to get from one side to the other
 
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