Pssst! Wanna buy a bus station...Cheap?

[Dos_Box]

Seems our iconic, or eye-soric - depending which side of the local fence you sit on around here - bus station here in Preston is up for sale. For £1!

If, however you can make it pay.

Bus station available for £1 - Business - Lancashire Evening Post

 

 

Still, you get an awful lot of concrete, rubber floor tiles and hardwood for your money! Apparently it is the second largest in Western Europe. I don't know where the largest is, but I'll bet is a lot prettier than ours!

[Ric_]

I like that bus station... it is Preston's claim to fame and, if you hold your nose, it barely stinks at all.

[Miscbrah]

Seems our iconic, or eye-soric - depending which side of the local fence you sit on around here - bus station here in Preston is up for sale. For £1!

If, however you can make it pay.

 

Can I buy it and then flip it as a second home so the taxpayer has to give me money to fix it? Could certainly make some money out of that!

[Martin]

But it is not just a bus station, it is a car park for over a thousand cars - and at the prices you pay these days, how on earth is it not making a profit?

 

Then again, Preston council aren't very good with car parks are they? When i was staying at the Fulwood Premier Inn a few weeks ago i wondered what the secure gated area was next door. Turns out is was a failed park and ride scheme that cost two and a half million pounds to build (and lost £30,000 a year before it was closed).

 

mb

[Michael]

It amazes me how some councils lack innovation how to generate cash from a huge bus station that probably has thousands of people going through it everyday. Laughable really...

[Dos_Box]

But it is not just a bus station, it is a car park for over a thousand cars - and at the prices you pay these days, how on earth is it not making a profit?

 

Then again, Preston council aren't very good with car parks are they? When i was staying at the Fulwood Premier Inn a few weeks ago i wondered what the secure gated area was next door. Turns out is was a failed park and ride scheme that cost two and a half million pounds to build (and lost £30,000 a year before it was closed).

 

mb

 

Yeah, they built the car park and then couldn't get the bus companies to run to the areas that workers actually wanted to go to from it:Empty park and ride gets its own bus service - Local - Lancashire Evening Post

So now we have a very large car park sat in the middle of nowhere: https://maps.google.co.uk/?ll=53.79117,-2.65676&spn=0.010838,0.033023&t=h&z=16

And nearby is (was) The Red Rose Hub, where Lancs CC was to move a lot of its customer support operations. It didn't quite work out and has now been abandoned: Council 'should be ashamed' over call centre - Local - Lancashire Evening Post. They also moved in their emergency response centre into there, but when there was a large fire at a nearby chemical works they couldn't get in to man it

[VeryPC]

One of my all time favourite buildings! I've got 18 years of Preston under my belt (1973-1991, Fishwick) and made countless reckless dashes across that bus apron on my way into town as a lad (though I was rather fond of the 2 slightly smelly underpasses too).

 

When I heard that they were decommissioning it as a bus station I imagined what could be done with it and thought that a good refurb could create an awesome retail/leisure space in that spacious, light and airy double height ground floor with the full height windows. Imagine a few cafes, bars and nice shops with the sunshine streaming in through those big windows - it could be like a continental street with loads of "outdoor seating" in front of the foody/drinky places, but sheltered from the unpredictable Lancashire weather. Plus there are the 2 large aprons offering loads of expansion capabilities for other buildings. We could create one of those out of town retail leisure parks right in the middle of town (there'd be no shortage of car parking either with that monster/awesome structure right there on the roof. And that's not even a very imaginative idea.

 

Here's another idea - I'll talk our MD @VeryPC_Andy and persuade him to relocate the company from Sheffield to Preston. We'll "buy that for a dollar" and set up a huge new techo headquarters for VeryPC with lasers and holograms and stuff. Yes, much better idea - we are definitely going to do that instead.

 

Al

 

P.S. where is Preston Bus Station now that this place is not being used?

Edited December 14, 2012 by VeryPC

[SpuffMonkey]

Didn't I read that Preston got stuffed by the OAP free bus passes? afair the departing bus station picks up the tab for the cost of the journey and Preston is the central hub for Lancashire - so it was costing a fortune

[Gibbo]

Check out Sinister Architecture for more buildings of this style.