Adult Blog

Pete Ashton points out that the new-build BIAD (BCU) campus buildings seem set to be crushed under the proposed tracks of the new high-speed train line into Birmingham. Given the placement of this new station and tracks, I’d assume the line won’t then burrow north under the city (in order to get to Stoke and Manchester? *)…

Source.

Surely it would make more sense to pull it up just short of the city centre, clustering it around the old Curzon St. as a high-rise sandwiched between Millennium Point and the new BIAD? But then I guess people would have to walk uphill (oh, the horror!) for half a mile.

Of course, in busted Britain it could all just be an election stunt.

* I assume that to go north a train will reverse out, then either shadow the existing passenger track through Sandwell Valley (but then it gets tangled in industrial Walsall/Wolverhampton), or else shadow the goods line through Sutton Park in order to get to relatively open country below Lichfield, before taking the direct-but-low route (i.e.: avoiding Cannock Chase and the Staffordshire Moorlands/Peak District) in a shallow northerly curve via Stoke/Keele to reach the Cheshire plain and then on to approach Manchester?

Excerpt from:
New BIAD to be crushed under train wheels?

Google’s photographic Street View coverage of the city of Stoke-on-Trent is now live. Looks like they picked a nice day for it…

Stoke-on-Trent train station, looking toward the University.

Credit:
Turned out nice

Ooops. Advantage West Midlands pays for a shiny West Midlands promo supplement inside The Guardian. But forgets to include the city of Stoke-on-Trent.

Read more here:
Stoke-on-Trent left off the map again

Brilliant. Near-complete nationwide Google Street View coverage of the UK, from tomorrow. Including Stoke-on-Trent, it seems — not previously covered. Hopefully, the photos will have been made in the summertime/autumn.

Street View goes national

Skillset Employment Census 2009 (PDF link, 700kb). Taken in July 2009, the results are now available. They estimate that the West Midlands has a combined employed/freelancer total of 5,950. Strip out occupational groups like management, engineering, sales, “journalism and sport”, roadies and transport people, etc., and the total drops to a ‘creative core’ of somewhere around 3,000 people.

Read the original post:
Skillset Employment Census published