What’s needed is a concerted effort by both the Town and Borough councils to get all these spaces converted to residential accommodation. The office market is minimal, the people market, especially for low cost ‘starter’ spaces (owned or rented) is burgeoning.

I agree that the ring road can be a bit foreboding – it’s been around longer than me, so I’m used to it, but looking at old photos it does seem to have created a false boundary around the town’s centre. A lot of towns are reassessing that balance between cars and people, in favour of the latter, although in the Wellington case I’m not sure how that could be done – slowing that ring road traffic, considering there’s so much of it trying to skirt around the town in a hurry, may well be very unpopular!

I’d love to see some sort of exhibition/heritage centre in the old library buildings, I’m just not sure the local will is there – the Clifton idea has taken off fantastically, attracting a broad base of support, but I don’t think it would be as easy to rally enthusiasm around the old library – which is a shame, because it would be a much more manageable project financially, and the building is already council-owned. I agree it’s a shame about Edgbaston House as well.

What I would like to see is some sort of ‘town team’ to take different things forward. This needn’t mean employing lots of new people, perhaps just a town manager type of role, with the right people seconded in on a part time basis from the borough council, other organisations, and volunteer input as well (alongside some councillors). That seems to be working in some other towns.

One thing which struck me while walking around is that the pedestrian access to the centre from the west is hampered by fast moving traffic on the “ring road:” This was probably a traffic planning solution from the good old days, but it changed the balance of access in favour of vehicles and placed the needs of pedestrians from immediately outside the ring road at the lower end of the list in terms of priorities to be met. Perhaps the time has come to reassess the balance and give pedestrians from beyond the ring road improved means of access to the centre.