The Interchange.

[Inspector Knacker]

The offspring of flawed planning and pie in the sky fantasy continues it's undisturbed slumbers, but didn't one councillor claim it would improve job prospects for the people of Hartlepool .....?
How .....?

[fred c]

A £4 Million Pound Pie in The Sky....A councillor did describe it as the biggest improvement in transport in Hartlepool for years............ I`m sure someone will have the exact "Quote" think it was PH that said it.

It has only been open about 2 & a half years & it is now redundant, no buses at all use the bloomin thing.

It is a classic case of bad planning apart from anything else it is in the wrong place, whoever came up with the idea in the first place should have been sacked.......... I wonder if the same person came up with the Cafe In The Crem idea

[mk1]

It is a classic case of bad planning apart from anything else it is in the wrong place,

You overlook the obvious
This 'station' had been in the planning stage for years without any real effort to get it built.  Dumbo  made sure it was pushed through simply so he had somewhere to park the coaches that came for the Tall Ships fiasco. He could not admit to this so (with the complicity of the Labour group) you got all the bollocks about how it was going to 'improve job prospects' and no doubt bring world peace and an end to famine.
The Bus station is  simply a cost of the Tall Ships hidden in another budget.

[steveL]

Quote:!Also, what the hell does this mean? "The Forum were informed that real time information would be a key component of the site, ensuring that transport users had regularly updated information about the various transport operators accessing the Hartlepool Transport Interchange, although the views of Members were that the site
should also not alienate the non-technologically minded transport users"."

It means that it has electronic timetable signs.

[Inspector Knacker]

Whoever thought this up failed to realise just what the purpose of bus services in the town are for, something which Stagecoach do know.
The purpose is to get your customers to the place they want to go, which in our case is generally the shopping centre, not a railway station with a very limited service to very limitd destinations. So,logically you build your bus terminus with covered access to the shopping centre...... which has the sdditional bonus of removing all the bus stops ringing the centre of town.,
What did we get for our money ...? Not a lot. A few bus shelters and a car park basically, in a place no one wants to go to.
Pure genius.

[tankerville]

Can anyone explain why National Coaches Don't use The Interchange?

National Coaches park outside the New C.F.E. there are sometimes up to five at any one time but why are they allowed to stop there.?

I also understand 'only' the National London Coach uses the Interchange.

From the outset the main problem has been one of access this was blatently obvious it's not easy for cars, so it's got to be ten times worse for a coach.

Access should have been directly off Marina Way but what the hell do I know ? Common sense does not apply when it comes to Hartlepool Borough Council.

We have have Bus Station at Seaton Carew that has buses an Interchange that does not.

Will we have another Photo Shoot in the MAIL of Labour Councillors Cheering? I think not!

[SRMoore]

National Express do stop at the interchange though Tankerville is correct, for some reason not all of them do. There are two or three services from NE that do stop there including the London service.

I often use the London service as I'm often required to travel to the big smog with only a few days notice and I'm far too tight fisted to pay short notice train fares!

[steveL]

The 'interchange' was originally planned to cost £2.4m but such was the level of dithering and delay the eventual cost topped £4m and the original 6 stops were reduced to 3. Much of the £2.4 money came from Central Government but taxpayers money all the same. The overrun costs will have been met by HBC.

'Interchanges' by definition are meant to pull together and be junctions for different modes of transport and there are a couple in the Newcastle area that work quite well - noteably at the Metro Centre and Longbenton, both of which have train and/or Metro links and bus links. In Hartlepool's case, we have a p**s poor train service at the Interchange and a virtually non-existent bus service though the taxis do quite well.

There's an interesting and coincidental link to this story to a recent article in The Mail looking back on the controversy over the building of Middleton Grange back in the 60s with many at the time calling for the retailing centre of the town to continue to be based on a redeveloped Lynn Street/ Church Street area.
The Interchange would have made more sense had this option been pursued but I doubt if the local train service would have been much better.

Pam Hargreaves' statement about how the Interchange would improve the job opportunities for the people of the town has to rank as one of the most absurd pieces of spin ever to come out of the Civic. She's seems a nice enough lass so you just wish people like her would just cut the crap sometimes.

When the TS was first announced, Drummond looked ahead to 2010 when the Interchange would be a thriving hub and Victoria Harbour would be 'well underway'.

Yes, well . . . . what can you say.....?

[Inspector Knacker]

Can anyone explain why National Coaches Don't use The Interchange?

National Coaches park outside the New C.F.E. there are sometimes up to five at any one time but why are they allowed to stop there.?

I also understand 'only' the National London Coach uses the Interchange.

From the outset the main problem has been one of access this was blatently obvious it's not easy for cars, so it's got to be ten times worse for a coach.

Access should have been directly off Marina Way but what the hell do I know ? Common sense does not apply when it comes to Hartlepool Borough Council.

We have have Bus Station at Seaton Carew that has buses an Interchange that does not.

Will we have another Photo Shoot in the MAIL of Labour Councillors Cheering? I think not!

National Holidays stop at the college, a totally different company from National  Express who provide the London service and use the 'interchange'.

[steveL]

Is there a charge to bus companies for using the Interchange?

[no6bus]

Yes there is also a charge at Middlesbrough bus station

[marky]

Middlesbrough bus station is quite a busy place being as it is right next to the James Cook Shopping complex. It also has a few shops and cafes of its own and operates as a hub for both local buses and National services. It's interesting that in the planning stage, the existence of Middlesbrough Railway Station has been pretty much ignored even though the rail station will presumably be a central part of the much touted Teesside Metro.
As for our own 'interchange', I think it suffers from an overdose of nostalgia being built in the same area as the old bus station - too many old farts reminiscing, I suspect.

[fred c]

Someone was the prime mover in this whole debacle, who is considered to be so indispensable to HBC that they can make such a "Massive c**k Up" like the No Transport Interchange & still retain the position working for HBC.

If someone in the private sector had made such a comprehensive blunder, they would have been sacked for gross incompetence.

The costs of theTransport Interchange should be included in the overall costs of The Tall Stories, the S**t would hit the fan if the "All in Costs" of that financial disaster ever came out.

Councillors should be asking these & questions, they should be seriously concerned that the calibre of staff appears to be lacking in major project decisions, i don`t think a Phd in townplanning would be needed to come to the conclusion that the whole project was a White Elephant from the beginning

[Inspector Knacker]

As for our own 'interchange', I think it suffers from an overdose of nostalgia being built in the same area as the old bus station - too many old farts reminiscing, I suspect.

More like a few bright things with 'ologies' in planning who have never used a bus in tbeir lives, probably don't even live in the town and operate on an higher ethereal plain above us mere mortals..I suspect the old farts would have been too fly to fall fir that rubbish.

[for fawkes sake]

I've long thought that we need the equivalent of the commons Accounts Committee to revisit projects like this and assess its value for money and implementation. That said, if it were to be composed of existing Councillors they would be far too willing to spin their way out of embarrasing conclusions.