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Snow Hill Station
- Thread starter Alf
- Start date
Richard Dye
master brummie
Thought the same thing!
I also wondered why the ground like this and other sites stay idle for so long before being built on or productively utilized.
Here in TN (not putting on a pedestal) when a building or site gets knocked down and cleared, almost the next day new construction starts.
Thinking about the speedway being idle since 2016. Somewhere someone is paying for that which in turn increases cost!
Could it be something to do with land ownership ?
Richard Dye
master brummie
It could be but even at that it is an unemployed asset that has a cost associated with it that will be passed along in price or taxes depending upon ownership. In industry we have a metric "asset utilization" be it money, plant & equipment etc., if they are idle someone pays, they have to work. It's not easy I might add when you have something like the speedway, idle for 9 years?
MWS
from Bham
I used to work across the road from a Council depot and when it closed down it was years before they built on it. The reason I heard was that they had to wait in case there was any ground pollution. I think it was the same reason that it took over 10 years for them to build on the old Smith & Nephew site in Alum Rock.
Richard Dye
master brummie
I don’t know when that was but here back in early 90’s we were required to conduct what is called a phase 1 environmental ground study. I’m sure you have something similar. If you passed and they were/very strict you were good to go, fail and you had to more work and develop a remediation plan including time and ££££. In the Smith & Nephew (almost went to work for them in the US) case it sounds like a delaying or negotiating tactic. If the land is contaminated it needs to be remediated at the cost of the current owner. I have personally been an expert witness and rectifier on three sites, all successfully concluded!
Richard Dye
master brummie
The remediation depends upon phase1, or first phase findings are. There are some fairy tales regarding time. It depends on what the contamination is: printing ink, petroleum, plastics and adhesives are amongst the very worst.
Radiorails
master brummie
If the new Snow Hill station had been built, it was presumably WW2 that stopped it happening, I guess that the building could be still in existence. Far more aesthetic that the giant green houses that Birmingham now prefers .
paul stacey
master brummie
Maybe sentimental, but I loved the old smokey, dark, and eerie, Snow Hill, maybe because I went so much, as a child, lad, and youth, I always seemed to be there, so many memories!!
It's fascinating what might have been built. WW2 changed a lot of things, including the fact that I would have been a lot older if my father had not been away serving in the army for king and country.
The biggest problem for me was that railways had come under Government control and this led on to the closure of much of the system (thanks to arch-villain Marples & his sidekick Beeching) for political/greed reasons. This followed on from the fact that the railways, having served faithfully throughout the war, were short-changed by the Government and then found themselves strapped for cash. So the Attlee government said "never mind, we'll take you over and all your problems are over!"
The railway's worst problems were that the Min of Transport (MoT) were repeatedly favouring road improvement schemes rather than rail schemes and the MoT carried on doing everything they could to close the system down.
Well that worked well. We now have a ruined road system because all the heavy freight is moved by lorries which have battered our roads into a mass of potholes. And the lorries aren't even British! Think Iveco, Renault, Mercedes, MAN, Volvo, Daf.
I could go on, but I won't.
The biggest problem for me was that railways had come under Government control and this led on to the closure of much of the system (thanks to arch-villain Marples & his sidekick Beeching) for political/greed reasons. This followed on from the fact that the railways, having served faithfully throughout the war, were short-changed by the Government and then found themselves strapped for cash. So the Attlee government said "never mind, we'll take you over and all your problems are over!"
The railway's worst problems were that the Min of Transport (MoT) were repeatedly favouring road improvement schemes rather than rail schemes and the MoT carried on doing everything they could to close the system down.
Well that worked well. We now have a ruined road system because all the heavy freight is moved by lorries which have battered our roads into a mass of potholes. And the lorries aren't even British! Think Iveco, Renault, Mercedes, MAN, Volvo, Daf.
I could go on, but I won't.