Hanley park is set to benefit from a multi-million-pound makeover with improvements to the pavilion and boathouse and the conversion of a former bowls pavilion into a cafe.
Louise Hodgeson of Caterleisure Group, the company behind the project, told the Sentinel " we are delighted to be coming to Hanley Park, which is a fantastic venue with enormous potential".
As someone who has known and enjoyed Hanley Park since childhood, I'm quite pleased to see them pitch up myself.
Like many people born in the surrounding area I have fond childhood memories of what we always called 'the big park'. Sunny seventies afternoons spent splashing about in the paddling poor or riding in a cart pulled by a friendly shire horse called Samson. An adventure that is, sadly denied children growing up in our health and safety conscious world.
I also have less happy memories of the thirty years of neglect that turned the park into a place you sometimes wouldn't want to visit in daylight. Things have improved over the past decade, but this is the extra push the park needed to get back to its best.
I feel a little less certain about the new hotel and apartments being built just up the road on the Smithfield site. While it is an undeniably positive sight to see cranes on the city's skyline, property speculation is a dangerous game for a local authority to be playing.
Things are looking more hopeful than they did a few years ago, although I can't share the Tigger style enthusiasm of council leader Abi Brown as she repeatedly claims that 'Stoke is on the up'. We are moving in the right direction, but there are still some important pieces missing from the regeneration jigsaw.
The largest and most important of these is the absence of a decent public transport system. Without one the newly refurbished Hanley Park could end up being an island in a sea of congestion; building a luxury hotel is all very well, but the people the council want to stay there will not welcome being stuck in a big-standard traffic jam whenever they step outside.
The message that without a decent transport system Stoke will stay forever on the edge of the prosperity party never quite makes it through to the incumbents of the Civic Centre.
They are massively proud of having secured millions of pounds in government funding to refurbish the area around Stoke station, but this does nothing to improve bus and train services that don't play nicely together. During the recent local elections, a prominent Tory councillor told me that it would be nice to have an integrated transport system like Nottingham, but Stoke is a poor city and businesses couldn't, meaning wouldn't, stump up the cash.
I'd say that's exactly why we need one, the current outdated shambles actively discourages investment. As for businesses stumping up their share of the cost. There will be complaints at first, as there were in Nottingham and other cities, until they realized what a good job it does of attracting investors and customers.
Logistically building an integrated public transport system in Stoke-on-Trent is entirely possible. In fact, as a linear city you could say we have the ideal conditions for building one. The vital element missing is a little imagination on the part of the council.
Building an integrated public transport system would also help to slot into place another piece of the regeneration jigsaw, giving all six towns a slice of the prosperity pie. At present the rising tide lifts only the good ship Hanley, leaving the rest of the fleet pretty much beached.
Better busses and trains and the eventual return of trams to the city’s streets wouldn’t just bring in visitors and investment, it would make it easier and cheaper for local people to get around too. This would leave them with more money in their pockets that could be spent with local businesses.
Sprucing up a much-loved local landmark is a good thing for the council to be doing, particularly one that allows people to enjoy nature in the heart of the city. Building hotels and fancy apartment blocks is a brave statement of optimism about the future.
Any jigsaw though is the sum of all of its pieces, not just the shiny ones that most easily catch the eye. The dull grey-blue ones making up the sky or the sea are just as vital, because without them the full image can never be realized.
The same is true when it comes to regeneration. Until we have a public transport system fit for the twenty-first century Stoke-on-Trent will only ever be halfway towards really being ‘on the up’.
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