014: Good News for Stoke & Staffordshire
Goods Yard to Open Early 2025 (Headline), £250k for River Trent, Major Stafford Regeneration, £20m Levelling Up Pot for Stoke, Etruria Canal Festival, this negativity is dangerous.
Good News 🎉
Goods Yard Stoke to Open Early 2025 (Headline ⬇️ ). The brand new mixed-use site next to Stoke train station is on schedule to open early. Bringing 174 apartments, workspaces, places to eat, drink and more. Headline article below.
£250,000 to Go Upstream on River Trent. Staffordshire Wildlife Trust has been granted more funding to develop a range of activities that protect and reconnect people with the River Trent. They’ve worked successfully across East Staffordshire and the goal is to “make the landscape more accessible to everyone, and encourage communities to learn more about the cultural and natural heritage of the Trent Valley.”
Development Partner Chosen for Major Stafford Town Centre Regeneration. Similar to Goods Yard in Stoke and regeneration in N-U-L, Stafford is next on the list for major re-development with ION Developments. Proposals are for apartments, workspaces and entertainment venues in the town centre.
New £20m Levelling Up Pot for Stoke. Government levelling up money has been allocated to Stoke again with a range of developments proposed. These include work on Burslem Indoor Market, leisure and wellbeing facilities, historic building protection and more. It’s important to note that all of these projects are subject to planning and confirmation.
Headline 👇🏼
Goods Yard Stoke to Open Early 2025. Picture this. It’s a sunny day in Stoke and the bifold doors of a new bar spill out onto the canal-side. The sun twinkles from your beer across the water. Next door, a coffeeshop is serving avocado and poached eggs on toast. Inside, people splay out on their laptops across workspaces with an exposed brick backdrop. The terracotta building looming behind is full of people living in this new community in the heart of Stoke. It’s a Saturday, a stream of football fans fill new bars. The space transitions from day to night with people stretching out across the grass.
This is the vision for the Goods Yard in Stoke. 174 apartments plus a range of commercial spaces that are soon to be announced. These could include coffee shops, bars, restaurants, workspaces and a gym.
For many, the sight of this burnt orange building on Stoke’s horizon is a symbol of hope. The skeptics doubt that the space will be used, they question the affordability of the apartments and make quips about “keeping the dust heads out”.
This development, and it’s location, has a lot going for it. Students, a train station with plenty of footfall and new high quality apartments to attract professionals. Many people are unaware that the Smithfield development in Hanley that offers similar apartments are fully occupied, as is their commercial office space. There’s demand.
The question on everyone’s lips, is will this work? Will it be the hubbub of activity Capital&Centric and the council hope it will be. Or will it stand tall as an example of how not to level up? Can the economy of Stoke-on-Trent and surrounding Staffordshire areas fill this place? Is there really demand? Importantly, who will the vendors and operators be that create the draw for people. Can those businesses make it work? Can a coffee shop or bar really survive a cold, rainy, Tuesday night in Stoke?
I believe we can make it work. From my perspective anything of good quality in Stoke and Staffordshire is full, just go to Trentham Gardens on a weekend. People are underserved and desperate for more options. Plus there are a silent majority that live and work in Stoke-on-Trent who don’t write derogatory comments on social media.
The skeptics and nay-sayers are likely to be the older generation who have witnessed the painful decline of the place they love. They’ll be the ones writing tweets about the price of a pint in the new “fancy bar”. Yet the truth is, for the future of Stoke and Staffordshire, a younger, income-generating demographic need to be retained in this city and developments like this give them a chance.
KNOT HAVING IT ❌
“There’s nothing to do round ‘ere.” Autopilot attitudes towards Stoke are like a tough weed. I am not having an angry minority controlling the narrative about this place any longer. We can blame the newspaper, but we have to look at the people that continue to regurgitate old, often untrue, stories about Stoke and Staffordshire. Take a look at this excellent shot of the Etruria Canal Festival by The Red Haired Stokie and you see in a picture that there’s a lot to do in Stoke and a lot of people doing it.
Editor’s Note
After another The Knot event I am suitably connected to our mission. Sharing news with people has been absolutely eye-opening for me and, at times, frightening. People do not know what is happening and in some cases their perception of Stoke and Staffordshire is far from reality. Many facts about our region are not known. More people know about an underused city-centre car park than they do about the full-occupancy apartments, hotel and office spaces next-door. Many people did not know about events such as the Belstaff Exhibition, Your City Festival or Lymelight Festival. Many people have never heard of independent restaurants 20 minutes from their door.
I’m left with no doubt that the state of our news is dire, potentially dangerous and actively harmful to our economy and community. A negative narrative has gained so much momentum that it is fact and I believe we are only just peeling back the curtain to see the damage created.
We absolutely must put a stop to this. We must curtail this cancer of negativity and falsehoods. I will not stop until the tide is reversed and I very much hope this community will fight alongside me for that.
Cheers,
James
p.s the best way you can support The Knot is by sharing it with anyone you know, on social media or in any group or community that you are part of.
FRIENDS OF THE KNOT 👋🏼
Thank you to support from our friends.
Try not to pick on the older generation. There are plenty of us creative activists in the Potteries who still can’t remember the sixties. 😁