The present demolition of the old Hanley bus station and its adjacent shopping precinct marks the demise of one of the less-loved areas of our city centre.
Yet it was constructed as part of the council’s vision for an improved infrastructure in Hanley – a development intended to make the town work better.
As early as December 1963, the local press reported on a scheme for a bus station that would effectively transform a six-acre site bounded by Old Hall Street, Lichfield Street, Birch Terrace and Charles Street.
The plans also embraced new shops overlooking Old Hall Street. The council envisaged that the bus station would remove traffic congestion in the city centre, which was partly being caused by bus stopping places.
Ultimately, the bus station opened in the early 1970s. The adjacent shopping centre was more functional than pretty, but over the years it was to offer a number of shops that added to Hanley’s retail range.
A 1970s photograph shows the precinct and one of its larger shop premises – Cadman’s – which had once traded in the City Arcade.
This retailer sold record players and radiograms as well as radios, televisions and other equipment.
Mention should be made here of the nightclub that once occupied the first floor of the shopping centre.
The Penny Farthing, opened by Stoke City star Eddie Clamp and later known as Chico’s, once had a membership of 3,000.
In 2010, Sentinel letter-writer and former clubber J M Burke, of Abbey Hulton, recalled: “Back then you could park on the bus station late at night, with it being so close. One night, I remember coming out of the nightclub, jumping into my car, driving all the way home to Abbey Hulton, and then, to my horror, realising it was not my car.
“Somebody had parked an identical car next to mine!”
Other shops that readers may recall include Bewise, Cursor, Jessops the photographic equipment specialists, Pronuptia the bridal shop, Tandy the electrical shop, and Mr. Big, which eventually left after 21 years of a 25-year lease.
Stoke-on-Trent City Council, always conscious of the image that its central bus station was creating, had at least approved a £98,000 facelift in 1990.
Perhaps it was like trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, for as historian Steve Birks states on his website, the bus station was said in 2010 to be ‘a contender for grimmest building in the Midlands’.
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He added: “Most poignant of Hanley’s buildings, at its centre is an arcade of faintly Moorish precast concrete arches that connect one board-shuttered parade of shops from another, wanly light-hearted and jaunty, but unloved and desperate.”
Plans to regenerate the entire site were announced in 2008 when the city council’s working partnership with developer Realis Estates envisaged City Sentral – an intended £350 million shopping hub.
Sundry factors stymied this grand plan, including nationwide austerity, radical changes in the retail landscape and – I would like to think – those pesky campaigners who wished to retain the nearby Coachmakers Arms pub, which was earmarked for demolition.
Nevertheless, the rather dated bus station had been gasping for redevelopment for years.
The public toilets were uninviting and bleak, and on occasions a magnet for unsavoury characters.
It seemed totally inappropriate when, in 2015, film producers used part of the derelict bus station as a post-apocalyptic backdrop for the filming of the zombie science fiction thriller She Who Brings Gifts.
Some local people, upon examining the film footage of the old bus station, harrumphed that they had barely noticed any difference.
The theme of Hanley as a desolate place was picked up by one Sentinel letter-writer in December, 2016.
“Our city centre is on its knees and is begging to be put out of its misery,” lamented Darren Meadowcroft of Hanley, “with its ugly buildings, cheap looking shops, beggars, drunks and the rat-run of pubs that attract people who look like extras from Benefits Street.”
As part of the intended improvements, the concrete bridge which spanned the entrance to the bus station – seen as a grimy carbuncle unlikely to impress visitors to the city centre – was demolished in 2010.
Whatever the future holds for the site, it can only be a conspicuous improvement.
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