They all look very good,but my concerns are that the developers will be the big winners not the people. What we also need in Rochdale is spiritual regeneration from the Lord. As we celebrate God's humble descent to earth,lets us be aware that He came to change our hearts, not just our towns Isaiah 64:1-12)KJ

Very nice.

Lets hope we can attract some good busineses and have a few decent shops.

I Cant wait to see that black box and bus station fall to rubble. I think the designer of those monstosities was a few sheets to the wind.

GREAT..more shops for our single mums with buggies and heroin addicts to steal from. Take a look at your customers any day of the week , queues in mac d's benches full of youths and people with no place to go, beggars and thieves waiting for an oppertunity to steal for there next fix. Shop in Rochdale ! never , have a look at Bury, ashton or bolton even folk in oldham spend money nobody in this town is out spending there hard earned giro

Lets hope the failures of the past (Black Pig council offices and the most dreary and unsafe bus station in the world) are not repeated. People must appear in town before and shop and business will. Lets see free parking for low emition cars, an effective thouroughfare system that allows the police to effectively monitor and remove anti-socials. A safe place for people to work and play.

Look beyond the odd potted plant and there emerges a landscape reminiscent of the concrete jungle which so blighted Coventry.

Big shopping centres like the Trafford centre and the big one in Leeds have reported a loss in sales this Christmas period due to a huge increase in internet shopping.

I for one shop online, most of my presents this year came off ebay.

I think people sitting in traffic jams and then queing for ages is becoming a thing of the past.

So it's quite worrying for town centres and it is going to take a lot of planning to get people out.

Today people are loosing there identity, through bigger, shinner, things, here you have a chance to draw in the tourist with a design showing your heritage, that promotes a calmer atmosphere.

Colin Arnold
New Zealand

There has been a lot of spin recently about a billion pounds of regeneration for Rochdale. Unfortunately the cash spoken of is funny money, promised by comedians. Perhaps 74% of Observer readers polled are not impressed by the town centre plans shows that their game is up.

There is a piece of planning jargon that Rochdale Observer readers and taxpayers should know about. The phrase is “speculative build”. This is when a building project is done without a tenant or buyer for the finished project. Although this doesn’t make much commercial sense it is happening on a huge scale in Rochdale.

The Taxpayers Alliance has researched this growing scandal. A whole new local industry has been created to take our tax money and splash it around as “regeneration”. There are public relations consultants, civil engineering companies, lawyers, financiers and new companies set up in partnership with the council and private business. It really is a beanfeast.

Where is our money being spent in Rochdale? On “speculative build” projects such as empty office blocks by the canal, empty industrial units on Kingsway and daft plans for even more shops for the town centre.

What about the knocking down of old peoples homes in Newbold and perfectly good houses only built 25 years ago? Why? So that fancy flats can be built close to the proposed £300 million+ Metrolink extension that will go via Oldham – a line that most Rochdale commuters will not use. In reality, Metrolink for Rochdale isn’t a transport scheme – it is a “regeneration aspiration” that will cost us all very dearly if it goes ahead. Starting with £6 per car congestion charge. At least Dick Turpin wore a mask.

There are other consequences of the Rochdale Regeneration Game inckluding the gridlock on our roads just reported in the Observer.

A dangerous Dodgem-style roundabout at Oldham Road to replace a crossroads but then new crossroads at Sudden and Townhead, to replace the roundabouts. Genius. As the fiasco at Halifax Road proved last year, traffic experts get things wrong but the cash money-go-round still spins to fill the pockets of the regeneration specialists, planning consultants and builders.

No doubt the Council’s Chief Executive and Leader of the Council will publish another gushing defence of “good news” for Rochdale. They shouldn’t bother. We are not stupid and don’t believe this shallow spin.

That begs one final question- How much of OUR money is spent on public relations, media and regeneration consultants to promote planning speculation in Rochdale?

Planners unveiling plans to demolish the black box because it’s unpopular! What about those horrendous concrete tenement blocks that greets people into the Gateway of Rochdale. I tell you, they are ugly with their microwave transmitters perched on top and shoe the town up for what it is. Immoral and content to have it’s people living in remnants of the 19060 while happy to demolish a building much younger because it’s, what, unpopular. The town is unpopular because it’s clear you spend all the money on a town centre that died a death thanks to forward thinking towns like Bury, Trafford and Manchester. Oh and please don’t mention the developments at kirkholt, a lot of private housing at the expense of social housing. When will people spend time thinking about the town rather than money and stop exploiting its people. How much of the money from telephone masts on top of the seven sisters is being ploughed back into the customers living under 1960’s conditions and supporting these new developments for a dead town centre?

The video presentation is a joke really, listen, just click to play and you will hear and see over and over, “Black Box”, “Black Box”. Then look further and watch as the camera pans out to reveal a gorgeous blue sky. Guess what, those seven asbestos remnants to 1960’s crap housing are erased from the skyline. Surely they should be there and they are taller these days with the Microwave transmitters stuck on top, possibly frying the tenants living under them. What these developers and the council are doing is playing up “The Black Box” as being a blight on the town but calling the towers of death erased from the video. Just shows how you can manipulate public opinion. Bet the councils and planners agreed years ago, “Tell you what, chaps, these town flats will be god damn ugly soon and everyone else is blowing them up”. AN OTHER said, “I know…Lets call em the seven sisters and lets stick money making transmitters on top” One could have questioned, “Great, we can keep them for years cause people will love em as seven sisters,” “Yeah, and mobile phone masts could kill but that’s what they said about Asbestos and Turner and Newall but the MP of the time, good old Cyril covered that crap up”.

“Ok, lets go make some money deal with a perfectly usable building in the black box and we’ll turn to the asbestos laden seven sisters when people discover we have been manipulating their opinion while we spend the cash elsewhere.

Before you deal with the “Black Box” go deal with the seven towers of death with the mobile and other transmitters stuck on top. They are a blot on the landscape and show the town up as living in the dark ages.
This town is dead and I ask you what is there to be proud of, a sleaze bag former MP who lied about Asbestos people dying with Mesothelioma, developers wanting to develop ‘Death Meadows, (AKA Spodden Valley), Secret Millionaire showing up the Failinge and Towers of Death (AKA the seven sisters) as the worst housing in the country and benefit capital of the UK.
Are you telling me this so called ‘Renaissance of Rochdale” because of a so called black box when we have appalling towers of death blighting the gateway to this so called, Renaissance. I must apologise for to the people living in the seven towers of death, I cannot believe you allowed the council to stick Mirowave transmitters on the tops of your homes. Please go check out, Berkeley House in Staple Hill, Bristol and ask them how the cancer rate has sored.
It could be argued the people running this town are contend to use the town people as experiments, I mean Turner Newall, Bisinosis and now, mobile phone radiation. Only time will tell!!