Tag: Queensgate

There And Back Again By Peugeot iOn

08:27 Friday 15th November 2013
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

[P]AUL STAINTON: We are increasingly told that electric cars are the future, and we’re all going to be driving one soon, aren’t we, swapping our gas-guzzling cars for a green silent version. Well, as you may have heard on the Bigger Breakfast Show last week, in Peterborough there are six new electric car charging points went up in the city centre to encourage us to ditch our gas-guzzlers. But we were keen to find out how difficult or easy it was to use an electric car and get across the county, so we sent our reporter Waseem Mirza on a challenge. Can he travel from Huntingdon to Peterborough, Cambridge and then back to Huntingdon in a reasonable time? Well, first of all he had to get a car. He did, from Simon Atack at Anvil ESI. But as you are about to hear, it didn’t go at all well for poor old Waseem.
(TAPE)
SIMON ATACK: We’re here in the Peugeot iOn electric vehicle. It’s a 100% electric vehicle.
WASEEM MIRZA: OK. Well I’m very keen to find out how we do on this journey. We’re going to be going to Peterborough.
Continue reading “There And Back Again By Peugeot iOn”

Queensgate Footfall Rise – Small Shops Neglected

07:07 Friday 28th June 2013
Bigger Breakfast Show
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

PAUL STAINTON: It seems that Peterborough city centre is seeing something of a revival. New figures from the Queensgate shopping centre show that footfall has risen by 4% since November last year. The opening of discount clothes retailer Primark in November last year has contributed to a 4% rise in shoppers at the Queensgate centre. .. Meanwhile there’s something of a cafe culture emerging. Now nearly 300 seats available for outdoor dining across the city centre, and Cowgate has been much improved, after an £800,000 revamp. .. Rachel Parkin owns Reba, a gift shop on Cathedral Square Peterborough. She told me her shop hadn’t felt the benefit of the city centre revamp any time yet, and felt independent shops need much more help. Continue reading “Queensgate Footfall Rise – Small Shops Neglected”

Flogging a Dead Horse – The Collapse of City Centre Shopping

PAUL STAINTON: It doesn’t help I suppose that there’s a lot of empty shops in Queensgate at the moment. How far has footfall gone down do you think?

CHRISTINA WRIGHT SHOPKEEPER: I think it’s gone down by about a third. Although the trouble is they give you figures which suggest different. Because how they measure the footfall is, as you know, there are several entrances to Queensgate. Thay have infra-red sensors on the doors, and they measure it by mobile phone signals and all different manner of measurements that they use. Unfortunately, Queensgate, like many shopping centres in city centres is used as a commute. So people will go from one end of the shopping centre , use it as a cut through to get to the other side, to get to where they want to be. So they’ll get counted going in and out of an exit twice, when in fact they haven’t actually dwelled. So it’s the dwell time I think that needs to be worked on by these centres, in terms of keeping people at the centre for longer.
PAUL STAINTON: When you spoke to Queensgate about the level of empty shops as well, which obviously puts people off, what did they say to you then? Are they just waiting for Primark to open?
CHRISTINA WRIGHT SHOPKEEPER: Yes. That’s the main thing. We’re waiting for Primark to open. That’s going to be a big attraction. Stick with it, and all the rest of it. Well listen, if you want to subsidise my business by about £500 a week then I’ll stick with it. But if you can’t do that I can’t. .. Two things happened. Last September, when the kids went back to school from school holidays, it’s almost like someone switched the lights off in retail. Because noticeably, across the whole country, not just Peterborough, every shopping centre just went dead. It’s not really recovered from that. .. Even Starbucks, they’re closing 80 Starbucks stores up and down the country. If a coffee chain cuts costs and closes shops then you know that there’s an issue.

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Business Decimated by Queensgate Building Works

07:10 Monday 26th March 2012
Peterborough Breakfast Show
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

PAUL STAINTON: Work to revamp Cowgate which is supposed to start at the end of March now won’t begin until August. The £800,000 makeover includes the extension for Primark in Queensgate. But businesses in the area are not happy. Simon Baker is from the Sports Lounge in King Street. Morning.
SIMON BAKER: Good morning Paul.
PAUL STAINTON: So the revamp was supposed to start at the end of this week, wasn’t it?
SIMON BAKER: Yes. All the guys from Primark were supposed to be out by the end of February. And I only got informed by the local press on Friday that it had all been put back again. It’s becoming an absolute nightmare for us. Our trade has just plummeted really, because of all the work on Primark. And if you ever walk past King Street, it just looks like a building site. And it has been for the past two or three months now. And it’s really really starting to affect us badly. I didn’t mind putting up with it because I knew it was short term. I’ve got fantastic relationships with all the planning guys. With the Council, it just seems to be I don’t know what’s going on.

08:15
PAUL STAINTON: We did ask the Council to come on this morning and tell us what was going on. They couldn’t. They did send us a statement. They said: “The work on Cowgate is dependent on the progress of Primark. At this stage we’re in discussions with the developers working on the new Primark store, and an exact timeline will be clearer towards the end of the week.” But it’s not clear for local businesses who are suffering at the moment.

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Before Queensgate

07:12 Friday 9th March 2012
Peterborough Breakfast Show
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

PAUL STAINTON: Trevor Pearce is ..Chairman of the Peterborough Local History Society. Do you remember the .. centre of Peterborough pre-1982?
TREVOR PEACRE: I do indeed Paul. Yes.
PAUL STAINTON: Was it a vibrant centre at the time?
TREVOR PEARCE: Yes it was. You’ve got to remember, in the middle of what is now Queensgate, was Perkins Engine factory.
PAUL STAINTON: Yes.
TREVOR PEARCE: That’s where it all started. There was also a huge printing works. There was a big department store called Trollope’s, and numerous little shops. And I think something like fifteen pubs.
PAUL STAINTON: Was there really?
TREVOR PEARCE: Yes.
PAUL STAINTON: Really! It’s before my time. I came in ’89. It was all built then. It was all sorted, and running very very nicely. It’s undoubtedly been a success.
TREVOR PEARCE: Indeed.
PAUL STAINTON: We were one of the first places to get a shopping centre. And that was a great thing. But has it had a detrimental impact do you think on those independent shops that we had before?
TREVOR PEARCE: Yes. Maybe. I think there was a huge price to pay. It was a labyrinth of tiny little streets. Very narrow little streets. And I think there was a price to pay for that centre. But at the other side of the coin is I think we came off pretty good, because it’s a good centre. You compare it with the Broadmarsh or the Viccy Centre in Nottingham ..
PAUL STAINTON: Hmm.
TREVOR PEARCE: We’ve come off quite well.
PAUL STAINTON: Well the Broadmarsh is half empty all the time. That’s the thing. (THEY LAUGH)

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Julie Fernandez on Disabled Access at Peterborough’s Temporary Bus Station

08:22 Monday 6th February 2012
Peterborough Breakfast Show
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire.

PAUL STAINTON: On Friday’s Show, actress Julie Fernandez highlighted problems with access for disabled people at that temporary bus station behind the Brewery Tap car park. Commuters are catching buses from there, whilst maintenance work is being carried out. We sent Julie Fernandez, a disabled actress, to the Brewery Tap. This is what she had to say. Continue reading “Julie Fernandez on Disabled Access at Peterborough’s Temporary Bus Station”

Peterborough News 8th November 2010

A summary of the Peterborough Breakfast Show from BBC Radio Cambridgeshire broadcast from 06:00 to 09:00 on Monday 8th November 2010.

Topics:
Council plans to cut £500,000 from its social care budget every year for the next five years. The BBC looks at how individual clients might cope, and what the likely effects will be on the cost to the end-user.
People living in Peterborough are being invited to participate in a new kind of personal tour of the city, identifying and talking about locations that matter to them and have had a big influence on their lives. The Council initiative is called “Take me to”
Queensgate Shopping Centre prepares for Christmas with an Acting Centre Director, who is upbeat about the trading prospects, with decorations up and new shops trading.
Continue reading “Peterborough News 8th November 2010”