Wear crossing

[Icarebecauseyoudo]

I don't think they can get big enough ships in for Nissan anyway, they're trying hard to upgrade it by road and rail but I doubt it has much to do with Nissan

Big ships direct from Nissan aren't the only business associated with them

 

[The Great Soprendo]

Exactly mate. Sometimes the Council is dammed if it does or dammed if it dont and there are lots of self appointed experts on social media these days who have pretty ill informed or just stupid views.

Though I live in Northumberland I take great interest in Sunderland as I see it as 'my city' obviously through the football mainly. I have been critical of Sunderland Council in the past as the place has stagnated whilst other parts of the NE have regenerated. However, I have been impressed by Sunderland Council in recent years as they are really starting to turn the place around. They should be given credit!

That said I think the area around the SOL particularly the South Stand area needs looking at soon.

I think it's probably fair to say that these things can take time, but particularly over the last decade, which has unfortunately coincided with a lot of potential developments in Sunderland which have unfortunately been impacted. There was a lot of work in the pipeline and investment hoped for in the early years of this millennium but the global financial crisis put paid to a lot of it for places like Sunderland, with investment conditions changing dramatically and a lot of regional investment taken away almost overnight. In that context, it is grossly unfair to blame the council too much. In Sunderland no doubt mistakes were made but a lot of it stems from the private sector (Swallow Hotels killing off Vaux was the root of the stupidity on that site, and then the whole Tesco debacle), though with public sector mistakes thrown in too.

But when you look at what has been done in Sunderland recently, and what is in the pipeline, from a variety of investment sources, it is very much a positive picture, albeit slow moving:

• Seafront changes are of a good quality and bearing fruit generally
• Greatly improved public parks (Mowbray and Barnes Parks in particular are superb)
• New bridge finally underway
• Keel Square and other nearby developments (fire station, Vaux site now starting build, viewing platform etc)
• New hotels: Travelodges, Premier Inns, Hilton Garden Inn and others on the way
• Bridges extensions (one done, one coming)
• SoL, Aquatic Centre, Foundation of Light development (hopefully with more to follow in Sheepfolds area - I agree this is an eyesore now)
• Sunniside
• new Sunderland College facilities

Yes, it's frustrating how long some of this has taken, but we've come a long way, especially recently, and there is a clear drive to continue investment - the above have got the ball rolling and will help fuel more, if financial conditions allow.

 

[Jap Stammer]

Just because someone disagrees with the council on this particular issue does not mean they are ill informed or have just stupid views. I see the bridge as the Sunderland Mono-rial, a picture on the front of the echo and we all whoop and say get it built. The question should be do we need it.

At the moment the issues with the town centre is white collar working, and the council are trying hard to resolve this and deserve credit, but from a transport perspective the real issues are transport links to Doxford Park, the bottle necks at both sides of the Queen Alex between 8-9am and 5-6pm and the bottle neck on the A19 roundabout from Wessington Way between 4pm and 6pm. This bridge will not resolve any of those issues, and could be argued until the roads are widened on the south side could make things worse.

Surely it will help in this respect as it will give people coming from the City on the north side an alternative to crossing the Wear southbound?

It's not going to have an overnight effect. It's a long-term thing. And it's dependent on all of the proposed improvements being in place.

The times you are quoting for places like Doxy Park and the QA are always going to be busy as people are going to and from work. The same is true of anywhere in the country where people are trying to get to large-scale, purpose-built trading estates/parks.

Have you ever tried getting on and off Team Valley at those times? Ever tried getting into Durham before the advent of the Park and Ride? It's just a fact of life.

Until someone invents a mass-teleportation device to instantaneously move large numbers of people around the region and/or the country, or improves public transport networks a hundred-fold, you will never get away from congestion at peak times.

Let's get the bridge and new roads in place and see if the intended improvements happen. If they don't, then moan about it.

Until then, let's give it a chance and back the Council, instead of slagging them off for trying.

 

[Dave Herbal]

Apart from matchdays, when are there significant queues for the bridges? The only one I ever seem to see is on dame dot for the town bridge on a morning, which this won't affect.

 

[I'm Spartacus]

It's not about what's happening now, but what could happen in the future. Or is it about Nissan
Its about what could happen in the future, and making the port more accessible to the A19/A1
Don't forget, other than Nissan there's the Enterprise Zone & IAMP, which will be trading with he port.
The City NEEDS better transport infrastructure to enable it to grow economically

Why can't the people arguing against it see this? If you're trying to attract investment into the area and the infrastructure is wank, no one will come. Also do Nissan use sorcery to get raw materials into the factory? Maybe but I dare say they use ports and shit, maybe they want it coming in at pos and out at pot, maybe companies have been eager to set up shop here but found the infrastructure insufficient for their needs. Fuck knars but I'd rather have money spent here than elsewhere leaving us to rot, at least it gives us a fighting chance of attracting investment.

 

[Paddy O'Dors]

While your at Google pull Maps up - From Nissan port of Tyne is 6 miles and takes 15 mins, Port of Sunderland is 9 mile away and at the moment take nearly half a hour. Only the South Side is not dual carriage way, changing this to dual carriage way is not going to move the dock any closer. We are spending £40m on hoping that Nissan and others are stupid enough to move there whole logistics operation from a well established and close by internation hub, to a place which currently has no major operators and is further away. I still think the bridge a white elephant from one B&M bargain to another.

6 miles to Tyne Dock and 9 to Sunderland port? Think you're exaggerating a bit there.

 

[royaldragon]

6 miles to Tyne Dock and 9 to Sunderland port? Think you're exaggerating a bit there.

In his world Tyneside is nearer to Sunderland than what Wearside is.

 

[super-niall]

In his world Tyneside is nearer to Sunderland than what Wearside is.

TBF it's quicker to get to Sunderland from South Tyneside than it is to get to Newcastle.

 

[steve30000]

A brilliant example of the attitude that has seen Sunderland stagnate for years while other areas invest and try to drag themselves forward.

Don't you get it? If we don't try something new, we will continue to stand still whilst others pull away from us.

Cheesy film quote:- "If you build it, they will come....".

It's as if some people hate improvements..

 

[Jap Stammer]

6 miles to Tyne Dock and 9 to Sunderland port? Think you're exaggerating a bit there.

I thought that too.

And you've got to negotiate that poxy roundabout when you come off the A19 to get onto Leam Lane (A194). Then you've got the one at the bottom of the John Reid Road which is even worse! You can easily spend 15 minutes waiting to negotiate those two roundabouts alone.

 

[vinegar hill]

You really can't believe the negativity by some.
Would there ever be anything that would make them give positive comment?

 

[super-niall]

I thought that too.

And you've got to negotiate that poxy roundabout when you come off the A19 to get onto Leam Lane (A194). Then you've got the one at the bottom of the John Reid Road which is even worse! You can easily spend 15 minutes waiting to negotiate those two roundabouts alone.

Bollocks. Apart from when the road works are active (they finish in July) you rarely have to queue at Lindisfarne Roundabout or the JRR roundabout, and once they are both made 3 lanes it'll take seconds to get through. The biggest hold up for the A19 to Port of Tyne is the roundabout near port of Tyne which needs to be signalised and that work starts later this year with the roundabout being upgraded.

 

[Hooky]

Why can't the people arguing against it see this? If you're trying to attract investment into the area and the infrastructure is wank, no one will come. Also do Nissan use sorcery to get raw materials into the factory? Maybe but I dare say they use ports and shit, maybe they want it coming in at pos and out at pot, maybe companies have been eager to set up shop here but found the infrastructure insufficient for their needs. Fuck knars but I'd rather have money spent here than elsewhere leaving us to rot, at least it gives us a fighting chance of attracting investment.

I don't think anyone would argue that transport infrastructure should be a continuous improvement, but some would argue that the bridge in particular is a vanity project in this respect and other areas in town should have been prioritised. And I don't know of any company who would re-locate because of a Bridge. Rates, Utilities Infrastructure, available skilled work force etc move companies and that is where we should be concentrating.

 

[Cosmos Rocks]

Just because someone disagrees with the council on this particular issue does not mean they are ill informed or have just stupid views. I see the bridge as the Sunderland Mono-rial, a picture on the front of the echo and we all whoop and say get it built. The question should be do we need it.

At the moment the issues with the town centre is white collar working, and the council are trying hard to resolve this and deserve credit, but from a transport perspective the real issues are transport links to Doxford Park, the bottle necks at both sides of the Queen Alex between 8-9am and 5-6pm and the bottle neck on the A19 roundabout from Wessington Way between 4pm and 6pm. This bridge will not resolve any of those issues, and could be argued until the roads are widened on the south side could make things worse.

As I dont live in sunderland I dont know the intricate details mate. However, as a general point all I would say is the Council should be applauded for having the balls to do this as in the long term it cant be a bad thing surely? If this was being built in Newcastle no doubt some of the locals would be criticing Sunderland Council for doing nothing. Credit it where its due.

 

[Jap Stammer]

Bollocks. Apart from when the road works are active (they finish in July) you rarely have to queue at Lindisfarne Roundabout or the JRR roundabout, and once they are both made 3 lanes it'll take seconds to get through. The biggest hold up for the A19 to Port of Tyne is the roundabout near port of Tyne which needs to be signalised and that work starts later this year with the roundabout being upgraded.

Not bollocks at all!

In the summer I regularly use that route to take my youngest to cricket matches in the area. It's a nightmare around 5pm-ish negotiating those two roundabouts.

We're nearly always late because I can't get home early enough from work to set away earlier.

It might be a doddle at non-peak times but at peak times it's as bad as anywhere previously mentioned on this thread.

 

[Cosmos Rocks]

I think it's probably fair to say that these things can take time, but particularly over the last decade, which has unfortunately coincided with a lot of potential developments in Sunderland which have unfortunately been impacted. There was a lot of work in the pipeline and investment hoped for in the early years of this millennium but the global financial crisis put paid to a lot of it for places like Sunderland, with investment conditions changing dramatically and a lot of regional investment taken away almost overnight. In that context, it is grossly unfair to blame the council too much. In Sunderland no doubt mistakes were made but a lot of it stems from the private sector (Swallow Hotels killing off Vaux was the root of the stupidity on that site, and then the whole Tesco debacle), though with public sector mistakes thrown in too.

But when you look at what has been done in Sunderland recently, and what is in the pipeline, from a variety of investment sources, it is very much a positive picture, albeit slow moving:

• Seafront changes are of a good quality and bearing fruit generally
• Greatly improved public parks (Mowbray and Barnes Parks in particular are superb)
• New bridge finally underway
• Keel Square and other nearby developments (fire station, Vaux site now starting build, viewing platform etc)
• New hotels: Travelodges, Premier Inns, Hilton Garden Inn and others on the way
• Bridges extensions (one done, one coming)
• SoL, Aquatic Centre, Foundation of Light development (hopefully with more to follow in Sheepfolds area - I agree this is an eyesore now)
• Sunniside
• new Sunderland College facilities

Yes, it's frustrating how long some of this has taken, but we've come a long way, especially recently, and there is a clear drive to continue investment - the above have got the ball rolling and will help fuel more, if financial conditions allow.

Agree mate. Without getting too political the NE has also had a tory government for 7 years and the financial impacts are way worse up here than down South so the the Council at this tme should be particularly applauded IMHO.

 

[The Great Soprendo]

I don't think anyone would argue that transport infrastructure should be a continuous improvement, but some would argue that the bridge in particular is a vanity project in this respect and other areas in town should have been prioritised. And I don't know of any company who would re-locate because of a Bridge. Rates, Utilities Infrastructure, available skilled work force etc move companies and that is where we should be concentrating.

I'm glad we're talking about building bridges rather than walls.

That said, the area on the south side of the river between the QA bridge and the new bridge is a wasteland at present, and that land presents a good opportunity to build improved road links (and the road links will improve the likelihood of development of the rest of it). Also, it's a long game: Nissan originally chose its site alongside the A19 partly because of the excellent transport links with capacity. This new bridge will improve the attractiveness of the business parks along Wessington Way and provide opportunities for development all along the south side of the river. With Nissan committed long-term, there are likely to be many business opportunities to exploit that available land once it is 'opened up' with effective road links that have capacity. And as said above, if we didn't get the money for this, somewhere else would have.

 

[super-niall]

Not bollocks at all!

In the summer I regularly use that route to take my youngest to cricket matches in the area. It's a nightmare around 5pm-ish negotiating those two roundabouts.

We're nearly always late because I can't get home early enough from work to set away earlier.

It might be a doddle at non-peak times but at peak times it's as bad as anywhere previously mentioned on this thread.

I live there marra and I use both at peak times, it's currently worse at off peak times because the roadworks become active and everything goes down to one lane. It's quieter now at peak times because people are avoiding the area.

 

[Hooky]

I'm glad we're talking about building bridges rather than walls.

That said, the area on the south side of the river between the QA bridge and the new bridge is a wasteland at present, and that land presents a good opportunity to build improved road links (and the road links will improve the likelihood of development of the rest of it). Also, it's a long game: Nissan originally chose its site alongside the A19 partly because of the excellent transport links with capacity. This new bridge will improve the attractiveness of the business parks along Wessington Way and provide opportunities for development all along the south side of the river. With Nissan committed long-term, there are likely to be many business opportunities to exploit that available land once it is 'opened up' with effective road links that have capacity. And as said above, if we didn't get the money for this, somewhere else would have.

OK - Lets put it this way. If the work taking place at the moment was to widen all the roads from the new bridge into town I could see the benefits, but its not. At the moment its a bridge from nowhere to nowhere else with an additional drawing in the council office of something that needs £20m and all the appropriate planning etc.

 

[Wilfy]

WDSC.