What would you do with Burslem?

[whotobeakiller]

33 minutes ago, Playa Amodores said:

Burslem needs someone with common sense and good business acumen. Therefore I suggest, break away from SoT Council making it an independent town and then install K&C the Mayor and Mayoress, with a life time tenure.

Why don't we all break away from the council?

[whotobeakiller]

43 minutes ago, Jacko51 said:

There must be a market for them. 

Resulting in a lot of obese overweight people. Stoke is notorious for it...women in Burslem for example, are hugely obese

[RailwayRowdy]

There are many problems that haunt the Potteries.

When I was growing up in the 60’s there was an abundance of jobs in the city. Having employment wasn’t an issue. Having a decent paid job was an issue.

A cartel of pottery owners would keep wages artificially low as it was in no employers interest to pay better wages. Consequently when a child reached workable age, their parents would get them a job on the pot bank on which they worked to supply a needy further family income. Further education was rarely an option.

So fast forward a few decades. Thatcher came and suddenly the pots have gone, the pits have gone and the jobs have gone. We then have a population who have had less access to further education than most other parts of the country and so find it more difficult to adapt.

We then have a city council with no vision about how to react to the changing fiscal landscape and consequently we get the Stoke On Trent we have today.

MP’s can only do so much. The grass roots of the area’s problems lie firmly in the hands of the City Council who, in my view, lack any vision in how to stop what seems like a terminal decline.

But if the electorate continue to vote the same proven failures in to power because “that’s how we’ve always voted”, what hope is there ?

 

[Aussie Rules]

5 hours ago, whotobeakiller said:

Do you want to count the number of Chinese, turkish, Indian, Balti etc takeaways we already have in the whole of Stoke on Trent? No more

I say thank goodness for international cuisine - and in this neck of the woods 24/7.

A loved one keeps me up to date with all things Bucknall in particular, and the surrounding areas in general. A recent exchange included the growth of fast food and other eateries in and around Bucknall where food traders targeted and occupied previously empty buildings - some were even boarded up.

Their survival in a very competitive market rests mainly with customers approval of value for money. But in the first place Council incentives probably assisted decisions taken to open up for business.

Food and eateries aside it is my thinking the Mother Town should have greater autonomy for its future - even if it means separating into a smaller municipality with control of its own revenue and spending. Failing that, and as suggested by others, get the heritage artistes in (keep the politicians well away) to help identify those buildings with the greatest potential to be linked with generous cash and other incentive to kick-start a new beginning.

In today's 'dog eat dog' business environment Burslem is competing with Hanley, Stoke, N-u-L etc. The days of a 'friendly five towns' are long gone, and until there is a more favourable disposition shown by the City towards Burslem most things will remain the same.

Still, who knows - and as Paul Murray reminds us 'From little things big things grow' - maybe the 'acorn' in the Hamil is the beginning of future prosperity for Burslem. 

[geosname]

10 hours ago, valiant steve said:

Bit harsh! Have you never been to Luton or Hull? 😄

Not really, it's so depressing because I knew it how it was, I was born bucknall new road across from cappers barbers and the 3 tonns, went to school in burslem..... crap jobs with crap pay and a lot of crap housing but people doing what they could with what they had.... trying to survive.

Hanley and burslem bustling with shoppers, alive, with choice and variety.

Now look at them.

Yes I've been to Luton, hull, Sunderland, Blyth, Whitley bay and many more places..... I've been to villages where families live in shacks and live off what they can grow, catch and the coppers they get for collecting bottles and cans.

[Aussie Rules]

6 hours ago, whotobeakiller said:

Resulting in a lot of obese overweight people. Stoke is notorious for it...women in Burslem for example, are hugely obese

 

6 hours ago, whotobeakiller said:

Resulting in a lot of obese overweight people. Stoke is notorious for it...women in Burslem for example, are hugely obese

Give me strength! What an absolutely daft comment to make.

Please Mr Killer, do not confuse fast food outlets with good eateries and restaurants - the latter offering healthy food including vegetarian & vegan dishes.

Nor should you link obesity the only consequence of eating from fast food outlets.

[Howjy04]

Burslem,as has been shown,has some stunning buildings,especially along Queen Street.Surely they can be put to good use.Return of a library and Art school?Only Hanley gets funds in this city.Time for a different direction. 

[Playa Amodores]

6 hours ago, RailwayRowdy said:

There are many problems that haunt the Potteries.

When I was growing up in the 60’s there was an abundance of jobs in the city. Having employment wasn’t an issue. Having a decent paid job was an issue.

A cartel of pottery owners would keep wages artificially low as it was in no employers interest to pay better wages. Consequently when a child reached workable age, their parents would get them a job on the pot bank on which they worked to supply a needy further family income. Further education was rarely an option.

So fast forward a few decades. Thatcher came and suddenly the pots have gone, the pits have gone and the jobs have gone. We then have a population who have had less access to further education than most other parts of the country and so find it more difficult to adapt.

We then have a city council with no vision about how to react to the changing fiscal landscape and consequently we get the Stoke On Trent we have today.

MP’s can only do so much. The grass roots of the area’s problems lie firmly in the hands of the City Council who, in my view, lack any vision in how to stop what seems like a terminal decline.

But if the electorate continue to vote the same proven failures in to power because “that’s how we’ve always voted”, what hope is there ?

 

Burslem does represent certain parts of the country, which is fractured. I agree with most of your post however in the late 80’s early 90’s  the pottery workers were very well paid. I left the armed forces and luckily managed to get a job at the Michelin earning £12k per annum. This was a third more than I was earning when I left the armed forces in 89. My wife who was a packer for Wedgwood was still earning more than me and others at the Michelin we’re earning over £20k some nearly £30k with overtime.

I’m not a Thatcherite but I think she’d do a better job than the current bunch we gave today. ie dealing with Brexit. She’d have had us out by lunch time and the EU would have been paying us compensation.

The demise of the pottery industry was to do with the greed of Doultons and Wedgwood. They moved all their business to the Far East so that costs would be drastically reduced whilst retaining the cost of purchase so that profits would increase. This was not the case and the quality of what they produced was never the same, hence why you can’t give their ware away today. They  exported their goods all over the world but due to the quality demand dried up. They tried to get around this by bringing their ware back to England so that they could carry out one process which allowed them to put ‘Made in England’ on the bottom of the piece of pottery. Unfortunately the world weren’t daft and stopped buying it. The knock on affect was that smaller pottery’s who supplied the big two also had to close so their businesses were finished.

In relation to the mining industry whilst some pits were profitable others weren’t and you cannot run a business that is losing money. At the time they had Arthur Scargill as president of the NUM who called a strike without having a referendum. He should have put his ego aside and let the miners have a vote on strike action.  He wasn’t having any money problems however the miners were and even to this day it caused rifts in families because some crossed the pickets lines to work. I can recall that one miner lost his life having had a piece of concrete dropped onto his car off a bridge. The pits wouldn’t be here today anyway. These were sad times for our country. We saw unions broken and they have no teeth even today, despite what unions tell you, perhaps with the exemption of the RMT. Our police force became a political pawn, that is why it’s in such a mess today, chasing government targets, by any means they can.

The government keep on about a Northern powerhouse but we’ve heard this before and what SoT and lots of others need is government investment, however the problem is to big as other old industrial towns are in the same position. That doesn’t mean that our useless ineffective council aren’t to blame, as I’ve visited other old industrial towns which reflect SoT and they’ve reinvented themselves and are doing extremely well. SoT has given a lot to this world. Look at inventors such as the man who invented the spark plug, Mr Lodge. Be proud to be from a Stoke and when you meet people from other places tell them about us, be proud of our heritage. We have great history but can’t be bothered to promote ourselves, if we did then it would bring in tourists which naturally means that jobs are created and the economy naturally improves. Perhaps the council should liaise with Fred Jones or Mervyn Edwards, local historians, with a view to having tours to entice people to our city.

Burslem has some lovely  architecture from the pavement but as the town as been virtually closed down in the retail side for more than a decade and the buildings neglected, most buildings are occupied by pigeons and are in a state of disrepair, like the Central Hotel, Queens Street on the opposite corner to the lively building that used to be a library..

Mrs Cartwright is doing her best to get things moving to revitalise the town however the political wheels move slowly at the best. IMO we should all support the woman so that it isn’t a one woman mission.

One last thing, do the council really want Burslem to be successful as it would then attract people to the town.? The reason that I ask this question, is that it’s too close to their beloved Hanley which they throw money at, as it’s where they want people to go. The council need to listen to the people of SoT. With all the retail parks, the cost of parking, bigger cities being able to offer more people are deserting Hanley which is on its knees waiting fir the sword to be plunged INTU it

 

[philpvfc]

11 hours ago, whotobeakiller said:

Just being on this site the last ten or so years and you realise most people have moved away from the area for a better quality of life. Their only love in Stoke on Trent is the Vale.

 

Stoke offers nothing but depression and despair unless you have the money to get out once in a while

I moved away 13 years ago for 4 years then moved back for a year, it was only then I realised how bad Stoke really is, never thought it was that bad when I had always loved there and nowhere else. I stayed for a year before moving to Cornwall before settling in WSM, my Mrs is from Wolverhampton and reluctantly moved down here with the intent of moving back to the Midlands, she now feels the same and reckons Wolverhampton is a <ovf censored> hole whenever we go back. All my best friends are from school in the potteries yet not one now lives in Stoke, Stone and Uttoxeter being the closest any one of them lives. 

Stoke had a bigger population in the 60s than it does now. For me, the biggest reason for Stoke On Trents decline or certainly not to have improved like the city’s of Liverpool, Cardiff, Glasgow and Leeds is it’s backwards approach by the council, local MPS and dare I say it, so many of the local population. I do think Stoke people are some of the most friendliest people in the country, far more pleasant than locals around here but so many are stuck in the past.

[The man in the pub]

As someone who lives local you get used to Stoke on Trent. Having daughters who went away to uni its when you travel to other places that the contrast hits you.  Go to Manchester regularly for concerts, the amount of building and regeneration  taking place there is an eye opener, a place heading forward.

As the question is about Burslem it needs to find a niche. Seen the difference Artisan markets and the like have made in some towns.

[Valiant in Brum]

15 hours ago, blackdog said:

Burslem needs to be a destination town,the council need to offer massive rate reductions, in other words huge incentives for food based premises,turn it into a go to place for a curry,Turkish,Chinese etc.

It would need to be cleaned up, the premises that are boarded up need to have local street artists to come and show case their craft,I agree about attracting the artier types, Burslem has so much to offer,someof the architecture is stunning,something the rest of Stoke on Trent doesn't have.

 

 

This is it. The new county borough in fact nearly ended up being called Burslem. The arcitecture in Burslem is the finest in Staffordshire. Yet its the most neglected High street  in the country. It will never be a shopping town again, the above Idea is perfect. Get apartments and homes in those beautiful old buildings, get a train station in Burlsem as well so commuters are open to it, get curry places restaurants and Turkish Barbers all there get it as a trendy place with modern bars traditional pubs let the pubs even offer food etc. 

 

[philpvfc]

An ATM would help

[mr.hobblesworth]

3 hours ago, Gallifreyan Valiant said:

let the pubs even offer food etc. 

Aim for the stars!

[Emile]

The state of Hanley these days Burslem could thrive with a creative independent scene.

 

Cheap artist space

Zero business rates and refused rents for small businesses for first 3 years

Free parking if you spend in a local store

A bloody ATM

 

[Jacko51]

16 hours ago, whotobeakiller said:

Resulting in a lot of obese overweight people. Stoke is notorious for it...women in Burslem for example, are hugely obese

I think you missed out the word "some" there.  And some of the blokes are hardly sylphlike.