A car park in a Nottinghamshire town centre has closed to make way for a new £11.6m bus station.
The facility on Station Road in Mansfield will serve five million passengers each year and replace the current station on Rosemary Street.Mansfield District Council said the new facility will be located in the heart of the town and encourage people to use public transport. Facilities at the new enclosed glass building will include a baby changing area, shops, an electronic timetable and CCTV cameras.
Preliminary work on the station, retaining walls and sections of pavements had already commenced in preparation for the main construction to begin this month. The project is due to be completed by spring 2013.
The scheme involves moving the bus station from its current site on Rosemary Street to near the railway station to provide proper interchange facilities. The freeing up of the old bus station site will release space for town centre development and bring in investment of up to £60m and create 950 jobs."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-12799714
Two comments.
1. Hopefully full consideration has been given to operational issues in and around the new bus station and that bus passengers are not inconvenienced in any way with regards to access to and from the town centre.
2 Can Mansfield support more new shops and will the new development rob existing traders of their established business, resulting in the town dying around the outer edges?
David Gambles
