Blackpool Gateway Construction

A set of photographs from Saturday 30 March of the current construction on and adjacent to Talbot Road. This is the area being described as the Blackpool Gateway.

This is the soon-to-be Sainsburys store. This is going up over the site of Seed Street, recently cleared of housing and the only bomb site in Blackpool from World War II. The Luftwaffe managed to knock down several houses resulting in deaths and injuries to residents. The housing was never rebuilt and the site had been a car park for years.

This heap of steelwork will be new council offices. It replaces a number of buildings including a nightclub, shops and a car showroom. In the more recent past an indoor bowling establishment had been put up where a road (extreme left) now runs, but had not lasted long before being closed and now demolished.

This view looks from Talbot Road down Topping Street towards the junction with Church Street where the old Regent Cinema is just discernable as the white building with a tower visible (well it is on my larger version!) through the steel structure of the soon-to-be Council Buildings. The multi-storey car park over the old bus station has also been getting attention and new cladding is being added to the exterior.

Looking down Talbot Road towards the seafront, the open space of the passenger entrance and bus exit of the bus station is hidden from view from street level by a large fence. Whilst the work is done buses are terminating at different stopping places all around the town centre streets. Confusing for local as well as visiting passengers, although the bus station, whilst being home to most buses, entailed passengers standing in a large dark area, shaded by the ceiling and building above with buses passing either side of most stands which were not particularly well signposted anyway. At the time of expanding this article (ten years later in 2023) the situation is still the same with no bus station and buses operating from stops around the town centre.

The street and pavements are being laid with cobbles. Attractive once laid but a mess once dug up and patched. Roman roads were cobbled and long lasting, but they seldom had to lay new pipes or power cables under them...

The photos were taken from the top of the car park above Wilkinsons store.

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