Standing room only

Plans have been published for a £25 million revamp of the city centre. On the whole they don't look too bad, a few gripes here and there about minor details but, there is one major fault that screams out from the picture shown. There are practically no seats, nowhere to sit and admire the grand works. Seems this no seats policy is part of a worrying trend.
Back in December 2012 I posted about plans to develop an outdoor café area near the War Memorial on Ferensway.  Well it's up and running and looking every bit as tatty as I imagined. The price paid for all those cuppucinni al fresco is that there are now no seats for members of the public to rest their weary backsides on. Even the seats by the memorial have been removed. If you want to sit down near here you've got to be a paying customer. 

Thanks to marvells of Google Street View or whatever it's called here's what this place looked like before it was cleared to make way for the cafe culture. Clearly we can't have people just sitting around and not paying; what's the fun in that? Mind you it appears that the very thought of sitting down and thinking for a short while is so horrific for some that they would rather give themselves an electric shock so maybe removing the seats eases their stress.... but planners please bear in mind some people do like to sit and admire the view.

Copyright Google, so sue me!

Noctilucent Clouds

I suppose if you don't go to bed early you'll sooner or later start seeing things even rare noctilucent clouds. This was around 3.10am on July 7. Seems there's been a spate of these over Europe this past week, must be something in the air.

One law for them and another one for you

South Street

Well if you parked your car here on these double yellow lines you'd expect the passing traffic warden (now tweely called a Civil Enforcement Officer or CEO in the jargon) to write you out a ticket for illegal parking. But this bright fellow just walks straight past this vehicle. Could it be that Hull City Council can park where it likes and damn the rest of you? Seems that way...

...and the irony of a CCTV van designed to spot wrong doing being parked illegally... but that's Hull City Council for you, a law unto itself; well it does employ the traffic wardens so it would have to fine itself. It's all done by smoke and mirrors.

Clearout

Whitefriargate

I think it's clear that Clearout has cleared out.

Jack Kaye Walk

Jack Kaye Walk connects Ella Street and Goddard Avenue. If this bridge or tunnel looks a bit odd for a footpath that's because originally the Cottingham Drain ran through here until it was culverted and turned into a  path. This place used to attract the graffiti artists and that was frowned upon now it's been 'decorated' by a 'community' group and that's OK. Jack Kaye ran a shop on Ella Street that has since been pulled down and is now housing. There's a plaque that reads "Jack Kaye, Epicurean Grocer served the Avenues area 365 days a year from this shop here 1947 to 1998" seems a bit OTT for a corner shop proprietor but maybe he was special.

Deserted

At the end of Middleton Street this small play area was clearly not the place to be.

The Weekend in Black & White is here.

Percy Cottages

What we have here is the housing equivalent of putting a quart into a pint pot. Instead of just building a straight row of terraced houses our greedy little Victorian builder has missed out every third house and squeezed in another terrace between the rows. So now there are eight houses where one would have been. This was fairly common practice in Hull and elsewhere I guess. These little off shoots were often given  names like Percy Cottages in this case, there's a Minnie's Grove further along and I've seen an Annie's Grove as well, often however they're given somewhat ridiculous names such as Victoria Avenue which is next to old Percy here on Mayfield Street. I once lived in a similar place to this (Willow Grove off Alexandra Road, long ago demolished) and these houses are teeny, damp and squalid, how a family with children was expected to thrive in them I cannot imagine but many generations have and continue so to do. In fairness Mayfield Street is exceptional in that there has been no redevelopment, the neighbouring Middleton Street which was very similar to this has been modernised and these hutches demolished.