New Bus Station
The Manvers Street Bus Station was scheduled to be demolished as part of the next Southgate regeneration programme for nearly 20 years. During this time, the building was owned by the local council and leased to First. Neither party was prepared to improve or repair the fabric of the building, as it was expected to be demolished. However, the redevelopment was plagued with controversy and continual demands for reviews, so the project did not get under way until early 2007, with the appointment of new contractors. The bus station was finally demolished in July 2007.
Operations for First Somerset & Avon moved to a temporary site constructed on the Avon Street Car Park on 16 June 2007. This was provided by contractors Sir Robert McAlpine as part of a move to speed up completion of the entire Southgate project by one year.
A new location for the bus station was chosen on the site of Churchill House – an abandoned 1920s electricity company building, the demolition of which sparked the most recent controversy to delay the whole project. Campaigners fighting for the preservation of the building argued that the frontage from Churchill House should be retained and incorporated into the design of the new bus station, but the architects maintained that this was not practical. Revised plans for a glass and metal rotunda - nicknamed derisively by local people as the "Busometer" - on the site close to Bath Spa railway station and on the edge of the River Avon were given council approval in early 2007 and work begun to construct this part of the transport interchange for the city.
The new Bath Bus Station opened on Sunday 7 June 2009, at a cost of £14 million, as part of the forms part of the £360 million SouthGate development.
Read more about this topic: Bath Bus Station
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—Bob Dylan [Robert Allen Zimmerman] (b. 1941)
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—Terry Eagleton (b. 1943)
“How soon country people forget. When they fall in love with a city it is forever, and it is like forever. As though there never was a time when they didn’t love it. The minute they arrive at the train station or get off the ferry and glimpse the wide streets and the wasteful lamps lighting them, they know they are born for it. There, in a city, they are not so much new as themselves: their stronger, riskier selves.”
—Toni Morrison (b. 1931)