City of Stoke-on-Trent Local Transport Plan 3 Focus Groups

AECOM <strong>City</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>Stoke</strong>-on-Trent Local Transport Plan 3 20Capabilities on project:Transportation“That last one doesn’t really sound like they’re going todo anything, does it?”It was felt that too much emphasis was placed by planners onattracting businesses. Participants also felt that car users weregiven too much priority.“But the thing is, what frustrates me is that I can’tbelieve that in 2010 that there’s been a new Sainsbury'sopened up in Newcastle [under-Lyme] over the roadfrom us and it’s completely designed for the car user. Iwalked over there with my son’s buggy and you have tonegotiate two quite complicated traffic systems. I can’tbelieve they’ve only just built that, it’s like somethingfrom the 70’s. So you get across there with your buggyand then on the side <strong>of</strong> the road where the crossingsare, so that you don’t have to go across two lanes <strong>of</strong>traffic driving on, if you stay on that side the kerbs aren’tdropped. So you just have to sort <strong>of</strong> ram your poor childdown these big kerbs that are like that, so straightawaythat’s not been designed for wheelchair users orbuggies in mind.”“It’s cost 90 million quid, apparently and the architectshaven’t put any thought into is this going to be, how isthis going to be used by people, are people going tocome from the town and around on foot, they haven’tthought about it at all.“It’s just a classic example around here <strong>of</strong> the plannersgiving the nod to businesses to just do what they like.”“Yes, I think that’s probably why I’m harping on, Iassume that’s probably why the lanes into Hanley werebeing diverted into Tesco, because it was Tesco thatthe lanes that were prioritising over the other road usersand going into Hanley, so Tesco gets priority rather thanthe main road.”“But the supermarkets could all do that, couldn’t theyand especially this time <strong>of</strong> year.”Participants felt that the health and environment goals,especially encouraging people to walk and cycle, wereimportant. They felt, however, that the environment in <strong>Stoke</strong>on-Trentdid not encourage people to do this. Cambridge wasreferred to as a good example.“I think it’s good that they’re thinking about it.”“… it is obviously important that they have that goal inmind.”“They can promote getting people onto their bikes andwalking places, I don’t think they say enough about thatsort <strong>of</strong> stuff and the benefits.”“To be honest I just, I do think though about <strong>Stoke</strong>-on-Trent and I know we all live here and everything butthere is so much smoke and so much car fumes and it’sso built up and there’s so much deprivation, I don’t thinkit’s the kind <strong>of</strong> place where you’d be thinking oh, let’s g<strong>of</strong>or a nice bike ride, you’d want to be going from A to B.”“But in Cambridge there’s little parts <strong>of</strong> the city that arecar free zones and it’s just for bikes and pedestriansand it’s lovely and you can breathe.”“Yeah, I mean <strong>Stoke</strong> [-on-Trent] city centre, there isn’treally a city centre, is there, let’s face it, in <strong>Stoke</strong> [-on-Trent], like just here, only the buses can go up anddown the high street and I think that that, it’s got prosand cons. I think that would be really nice for that to justbecome pedestrianised but it’s good having the buses,being able to use different routes from the cars,because obviously it alleviates the congestion.”“I was quite impressed how much they’d changed theroad system to facilitate Tesco’s, because normallythey’ll stick a building there.”The women thought that it should be the responsibility <strong>of</strong> thebusinesses to provide access, for example via a shuttle bus, tothe site.“I think the shops and businesses round here could domore, they could put buses and stuff. Is it Asda who dobuses?”