BUS WARS: Chapter 2: The History of Preston Buses

Preston Bus  was founded in 1904 and ran as a publicly owned bus service for 89 years until in 1993 it was bough by its employees during 1993.
The bus's owned by the company operated under the City logo and with the City colours, as seen in the picture bellow. The firm operated many routes through out Preston along with other local bus companies.

A Preston Bus infront of iconic bus station 
© Copyright Tom Pennington and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

Such companies like John Fishwick and Sons a bus company based in Leyland, as small local bus firm that rans buses around Leyland, Preston, Chorely and Wigan.

An old Fishwich bus running out of the bus station

There was also Ribble Motor Services, an other small transport firm that operated from the 1920s to the late 1980s. Ribble Motor Services covered many northwest bus routes and operated many out of Preston bus station.

A Ribble bus

These three firms and others created a healthy bus industry in Preston, economic theory dictates that their prices would have been competitive and service good. But in take look round the now declining Preston Bus station and you will not see a Ribble bus, the iconic colours of Preston bus are gone and Ribble Buses are rarer and rarer.

For there was a storm brewing, a new competitor was about to arrive and monopolise the North West laying waste to its competitors. The Stage Coach had arrived.

Chapter 1

BUS WARS: Chapter 1: The city of Preston

Preston is a city with a strange affilation to buses! There have been in the past year many wars fought between companies, politicains, citizens and government bodies over the simple mater of buses. 

Preston is home to one of the worlds largest bus stations which has been the focal point of the 'tithebarn project' a plan to redevelope the city. The iconic Preston bus station is loved and hated by many and its disition to be torn down has caused much debate amoung citizens of Preston. 

http://www.leegarlandphotography.co.uk/

That is another tale which can be read here

Yet Preston Bus station has been the scene of an other war, a battle between a small local firm known as Preston Bus Plc and the national bus giant stage coach. What seemed at first a battle between two firms soon became a war of legislation and law as the Competition Competion fought with Stage Coach for the fate of Prestons bus services. 

This is the story of the Preston Bus Wars!

The routes covered by Preston Bus PLC

Cash Incentive

As we all know its tough economic times, as such I have been unable to find a part time job as of yet. With University in the pipe line I thought i might as well try and earn some money doing what i love, blogging.
From now on the Pol-Eco-UK blog with have some adverts on it.
Thank you for all your support so far, I hope we can continue to grow this blog.
Hope you all had a Merry Christmas and have a Happy New year.

Net Neutrality

Net Neutrality is a term that has been appearing across the internet and in American Media, but what is it and how does it link to Economics.

What is Net Neutrality?
Net Neutrality means neutrality across the internet, which is the theory that each user on the internet should have equal access to websites and each website should have an equal chance.
In other words you pay for internet access but not for each website.

Why is it an issue at the moment?
Net neutrality has become an issue at the moment because some american internet provides are not following the ideals of net neutrality, they are changing more for some websites than when accessing others.

What is the importance of Net Neutrality?
Net Neutrality is vital, at present the internet is a 'free' while you must pay for access once on the internet each website has an equal footing with the next website. If firms start charging for access to websites there are huge social and economic consequences!
Socially it will mean that smaller websites will be weakened against larger websites, if their is free access to main stream media and it costs a lot more to access an independent website then instantly the free of speech on the internet becomes threatened. The advantage of the Internet now is that everyone has an equal say, you can go to any website and it will cost the same as accessing another, so you can choice where to get your news, information and entertainment. If firms break net neutrality then they can price out the competition.
Economically the fall of Net Neutrality is a disaster. What is glorious about the internet is is very few barriers to entry, which has greatly increased competition is most markets and in the internet industry itself lead to huge leaps of innovation and markets that are close to that of perfect competition (the blog market for example).
Also with the fall of net neutrality firms have an anti-competitive weapon to used to wipe out their competitors, as explained in the video bellow if internet providers can charge consumers for each website they access then they can offer some for free and charge huge amounts for others which will wipe them out.

Steve Wozniak co-founder of Apple is amount many trying to save net neutrality. It should be a social and economic priority for all peoples and nations!

Top American Youtube news reporter and Vlogger Phillip DeFranco explains the concept perfectly in this video:

The new macro economic challage, supply side woes of getting things moving!!

Forget fiscal policy to get agreegate demand moving, it appears that this winter we are stuggling to get anything moving at all!

Its easy to over look the impact of weather in Economics but is a very important factor.
For a start weather gives out externalities, a rainy day could have negative externalities believe it or not! Perhaps the snow will make people happier and more productive.. though this is debated!

Where weather plays a key part though is the supply side of the economy. Shifts in weather conditions could damage crops or reduces solar power yeild lower agreegate supply. Famines can damage supply in market increasing prices and panic buying due to weather has drastic effects on sum markets.
This quick example shows the classical theory for what happens in the market for tinned beans short term in a panic buy. The supply is fixed short term as shown by being totally inelastic. The demand is also inelastic as demand will not be effectected by price rises. A jump to D1 leads to a drastic increase in price from P to P1.

This is exactly what plucky shop keepers can do in times of high demand. Although the large super markets like tesco and sainsbury's could be hindered by pricing policy, in this case it would be the small independent shops and francises (like Spar) that would benefit. Although classic theory tends not take into account customer loyalty that would be damaged for years to come for any shop keeper that abused his customers this way.

However the problem facing the UK at the moment is the effect of weather, in this case snow, on the mobility of the factors of production. Mobility of labour, land, capital and even enterprize is a very important supply side concept. To improve the supply side of the economy we can improve infrastructor like motorways to improve mobility of these factors.. so what happens when the economy is snowed to a stand still?
"The insurer RSA estimated that the freezing weather could cost the UK economy up to £1.2bn a day, with retailers and the restaurant and bar industries likely to be the worst affected." -Big freeze could cost UK economy more than £6bn - guardian.co.uk
For each person that does not get to work, each factory that's supplies are delayed and each school child that can't be educated the economy suffers.

Yet there is some good news, due to the internet things are not as bad as they could be. People are working from home and businesses can use webcams and phones to hold meetings, I know infact of a business now conducting a board meeting via skype.
Businesses are also offering their own solution, Miniture scifi model producer Games Workshop emailed its customers telling them while they can't promise Chirstmas orders they are offering online vouchers that can be given over the internet to solve Christmas gift woes. Ending their email with an appropreate image, I've shared with you bellow, to lift thier fans spirits.

Snow causes chaos but we just have to 'battle' through and hope the smiles a white Christmas will put on peoples faces will out weight the chaos, after all at the end of the day Economics is not really about money its or even dare i say it factors of production, but whats best for us all and thats happiness. 

Rebellions and Promises

Tuition fees are to increase to up to £9000 
Yet not with out heavy resistance. 
28 Lib dems voted Yes
21 Lib dems voted No
8 Lib dems abstained or were not present 
This means that less than half of the Liberal Democrats passed the proposals. Full list here.
Also 6 Conservative MP's also rebelled against the fees. All in all the pass of 323 votes to 302 votes was very small. This raising underling problems within the coalistion, as predicted when tested the Liberals Democrats have split. With the Liberal Democrats being an  initial merge of the SDP and the Liberals back in 1988 and now the a divide between the Socialist of the party and the Orange Bookers, is it too unlikely that we could see a break down of the party? Having seen a number of deffections and resignations today so a number of higher profile Lid Dems leaving their posts, mainly Michael Crockart, who quit his government role. This rebellion has further to go.
Mean while Ed Millibands Labour party voted against it the change and is now speaking out against it trying to capitalize upon the situation. 

In the streets
Outside parelment things were far more open and violent! Protesters attacked Prince Charles car, attacked statues, the treasury and battled with police. Police Cavalry charges and protestors throwing  missiles were seen in public violence that would be hard to match in the last 20 years. Who is to say what will happen next? Should further Unions join strikes in 2011 when budget forms sink in it could have devistating consequences. 

Tuition fee increase: Political not economic.

Many would have use think that the Tuition fee increase is way of raising finance for the Government, that in these tough times we all must pay. Nick Clegg said his reasons for flip flopping on his promise to the NUS about not increasing them was because after he saw the 'true extent of the debt' he changed his mind. However after a bit of reading around, I've come to the conclusion that in fact it is no an economic move at all.. it is a political move based upon ideology.

The Government wants to reduce exspenditor, so it will cut University funding and increase tuition fees. As a one off this will cut the expenditior for that department as now less funding will go out to Universities. Yet this will cancel out becuase the Government will have to give out more loans. This is not a short term stragegy because it will take some time for these loans to be paid back, the Government will start seeing the return after this term in office. Not to mension the huge costs of setting up the new system!
Its claimed that the increase in tution fees will not have an effect on people going to university, that students will not be put off by high debts and the new system is fairer. This is not true at all, just from first hand experience I can say that many students are being put off from going to university and it can be seen but the civil up roar displited by the students all across the country that it is very much not regarded as fairer.
Increasing the skills and education that works have is a good way of developing the economy. It is a core supply side policy. If we deter people from going to collage then growth will suffer in the economy. On average those with a degree earn 35% more than the national average. This means that if less people go to university the Government will collect less taxes! No only this but the cut to university funding will mean Universites will have to scale down their research, this again will put Briton behind.

So what is too gain from this? Freeing tution fees is on more step to privatising it, the Conservitive party believe in the free markets. The best universities will be able to offer higher charges so will have a higher income. This means the top Universities will have more money to spend but what about those that can't charge so much?
Could we be faced with Universities disappearing? Those that don't perform may be wiped out.  This could just be the begining of policy. The Government will keep pushing up tutuin fees and liberating Universites until it becomes a business. Those that don't attract will fail. Is this really what we want?
There are serious implicaitons to slowing increasing tution fees, re-making university for the elite could be a danger. The question is, is this in the Converitives interest? Some might say so.
If fees are pushed up but the Government whats to still make it viable for everyone to go to University then they will have to increase grant, those maybe this is not a consern for the present Government.
We have established that higher tuition fees will put people off university but perhaps this is the point. Some people believe that their are too many University course and many are useless. Could this be the motive, to put those off that will not benefit themselves or society by going to University?

Really what have the Tories got to loose from upsetting students, they are not a key group of supports of the Conservative party! Those that are, are unlikely to change their view based upon this. The only ones loosing out are the Lib Dems and the students ofcourse.

Yet we must remember for all of this speculation of Conservative gain it was Labour that brought in tuition fees in the first place...

Bank of England's independence threatened

Bank of England's independence threatened

Mervin King, Governor of the Bank of England, is under pressure to resign after WikiLeaks revealed he had less faith in David Cameron.
The WikiLeaks articles contained this document from a US ambassador : "He [Mr King] opined that party leader David Cameron and shadow chancellor George Osborne have not fully grasped the pressures they will face from different groups when attempting to cut spending," Since this has emerged Mr King has been pressured to resign.
Reports state that leading Economist David Blanch Flower states: Mr kings "thirst for power and influence ... has clouded his judgment one too many times".  That he should quit because of political bias.

Mervin King should not quit for exactly that reason!
He was reported to have concerns about the Government, this is merely his opinion. While Mr King may be using his influence surely he is entitled to an opinion.
If he is forced to resign for expressing some concern about the Government it will seriously question the independence of the Bank of England. If the Bank of England is a truly independent body then the Governor, while working closely with the Government, should be allowed to judgement. If every Governor that questions the Government is removed then surely we might as well take monetary policy back to 10 down street !

Predictions for 2011

That most reliable and well-established organization known as the independent office for budget responsibility is telling us its all going to be just fine, I would care to disagree.

First lets look at what the OBR are saying:
A revised growth for this year 1.8% which is 0.6% higher than predicted. This does make some sense considering the 3^rd quarter was 0.8% growth, which is a lot higher than predicted. This figure also predicts good figures for the final quarter of this year. This is disputable, however sales figures for Black Friday were 0.2% higher than last year, which could suggest a strong final quarter to the year.
What is dubious is that it predicts 2.1% growth next year. I would question this, increased retail sales are likely to be being fueled by the VAT increase in spring, it makes sense to buy now. Also inflationary pressure (the multiplier effect) is only going to add to that. So this is only short term, next year consumption will fall and other sectors are likely to be hit. Construction is likely to take a hit from Government cuts and we are yet to see figures published from other industries. However some indicators do not look good.
The housing market has been falling dramatically; this is a good indicator of an impending recession in the UK. Also if we analyze these consumption and confidence graphs we can see that as the recovery took hold consumption and confidence went up however now it is falling again! These all point towards a double-dip. 

The OBR has altered its prediction of public sector job losses to 330,000 instead of 490,000. This however does not take into account all those on contract, the job losses may be made up elsewere, this is statistical fiddle because contracted workers are not public sector. The reason stated however was that benefit cuts have been higher and departmental cuts lower, this would of course lower the job losses but it is still likely to hurt the economy. Benefit cuts give consumers less to spend, which will cut consumption away. If anything direct benefits cuts have more of a direct impact on the economy.
The OBR is yet to truly be tested, its independence is questioned but it appears to be more optimistic than bias. They are not the only ones though:

We shall see what 2011 holds but I don’t believe it will be a good growth year!

I would predict low growth for this year 0.2-04% for the 4th quarter, but next year will see us slipping into negative growth.

UK Debt is not a problem!

Liberal-Conservative coalition is convinced that their emergency tightening of the budget is the right thing and that the economy will cope. I'm not so sure and here is why.

I’d hate to repeat my self on the topic of why the UK economy is a mess… as discussed in my article on the fallacy on the 0.8% growth figure and my analysis on the latest OBR prediction the economy is not doing as well as the present Government would suggest with its policies.
Basic theory dictates if you withdraw fiscal stimulus (low taxes and high Government spending) then you will strain the economy and perhaps knock it back into recession. In this case we have a very weak recovery with a Government about to introduce tax increases, public sector cuts and benefit withdrawal, this would point to economic suicide. But why is the Government doing this? Because the country is ‘bankrupt’ we have the ‘worst deficit in the G20’ a ‘debt time bomb’ and we have to do something about it! Here is a novel idea… how about not bothering about the debt?

101 reasons not cut Government spending (now)

1) Firstly lets look at what economists consider the main objects to target in the economy. 1: GDP growth, 2: Inflation, 3: Unemployment, 4: Balance of payments (money going in and out of the economy). To pure economists these are the main objectives to target, is Government debt one? No... Government debt or what economists call the PSNCR is the 5^th objective that is often omitted from the list. Why bother about it?

2) Ok so just because economists don’t list it, as a main objective does not mean it is important, in fact in resent years focus has been on equality and happiness also. But still number two Government debt does not have a direct effect on the Economy.
3) When a nation goes into recession something know as automatic stabilizers kick in.  These help stabilize the economy but increase Government debt short term. Automatic stabilizers consist of: lower taxes because of higher unemployment, lower wages and less profits and higher benefits to unemployed. A vast proportion of the debt is automatic stabilizers.
4) The UK Government bought out RBS and shares in other banks to stabilize them, this is not lost money! These shares were bought low and can be sold back later… that’s not debt that’s investment.  Bank bail out shares can be sold back at profit!
5) The Government is not anywhere near bankrupt! We have AAA rating that’s far from bankrupt. If we were bankrupt all our money would be worthless
6) The way the Government raises finance is by selling bonds, these are promises to pay the barer the sum of money on a date, these bonds are fixed we have a long time to pay them back. Why not wait?
7) Ahhh but you say that who will buy these shares? Well shares are bought on the bond market, so has this market been more reluctant to trade out bonds? Has it heck! People will buy our bonds. 8) But that’s not the issue, the issue is that our interest goes up because we have to attract people to buy them. True the price is increasing (which is bad) but it is by no means much by international standards and at just under 4.5% it is less than most consumers could get a loan.
9) Journalists like to compare debt to a persons debt… well consider this how much was your house worth when you bought it? How much were you earning? Now work out the value of the house against your yearly salary… that is your equivalent to government debt now. I should image its quite high? Government debt is around 70%.
10) How about me? Well a rough estimate tells me after I’ve taken my university loans and worked out my income its rough estimate of 660%. Oh no I best panic and sell my laptop… what!?
11) This is a key one: DEBT IS REDUCED WITH TIME – INFLATION ERRODS DEBT. Take out a loan for £100 now, and spend it when you come to pay it back a  year later assuming inflation is 2% your debt is worth 2% less because the person you are now paying £100 too will need £102 to buy what you bought with it last year. That’s inflation!
12) So remember that figure of 4.5% interest on Government bond repayments. its actually 2.5% if you negate inflation. That’s assuming inflation is 2%. It is actually 3%+ at the moment.
13) Compared with the past our debt is minimal:

14) compared to recent past it is minimal:

15) Debt is at a fixed point in time. If our debt is 60% of GDP in 2010 by 2030 it is likely out economy will have grown by 40% so the debt will be proportionally less of our countries income when we come to repay it.
16) If we cut spending now we will lower Government spending that will lower AD (total demand or spending) which will lower GDP17) If we cut spending now we will cause unemployment, like the 2+ million predicted from the budget.
18) If we increase unemployment we will likely increase crime.
19) If we decrease public sector budgets there may be union action20) Cuts to infrastructure will damage UK business! (damages AS)
21) Cuts to the education system will mean the next generation will have less knowledge/skills so the economy will suffer in the long run. (reduction in supply side)
22) People made unemployed in the public sector will spend less money, so those in the private will suffer! 23) People with less benefit will spend less money, so those in the private will suffer!24) The last time we were in this situation we found our self in a depression then WW3…
25) maybe we should not cut our military in just in case.26) Increasing Taxes such as VAT to 20% is recessive creating more inequality.
27) If we go into double dip the automatic stabilizers that are out of the Government control will increase making the debt worse!
28) If we continue to support GDP by spending then automatic stabilizers will fall and are falling! 29) Government deficit is already falling; even without a budget slashing Spending things will begin to get better.
30) Next time the economy is in ‘overheat’ we can reduce spending to stop a positive output gap and prevent another recession. 31) Next time we have high demand pull inflation we can deduces spending to create a positive Government account and pay back some of the debt and sole inflation problems.
32) Ireland is in economy difficulty and so it 33) USA this means we will have less exports to these countries and they are our main exports. This is bad for the economy Government needs to make up for this fall in exports.34) House prices are falling, this is a signal that the economy is becoming heading towards recession, surely this would suggest we do not have a strong enough to take the hit of cuts. 35) Equally consumer spending is falling36) Unemployment is a lagging indicator, so if we go into a double-dip which theory states we may do if we cut back now then unemployment will only get worse and say like that for a long time.
37) Those employed by the public sector have skills that are not valued by the private sector! Crowding out theory suggests the private sector will create jobs with cut backs, how can this happen. What kind of private sector business wants to employ millions of civil servants? 38) Those unemployed require training to get back into the labour market, how can they do this with increased tuition fees, less adult education etc..
39) The longer people are unemployed the more their skills depreciated, the focus should be spending to get unemployed back to work not creating more unemployed making it more competitive for people to find jobs.
40) “the number of vacancies for the three months to October 2010 was 453,000, down 27,000 over the quarter” –ons Where are the jobs for the unemployed and soon to be unemployed?41) Front line services will be cut WITH implications to their service provided.
42) Government bonds are sold to the general public, the government represents the public. we owe our selves money? – a bit of  a silly argument granted. However:
43) The UK created £200bn in Quantitative Easing, the other name for this is Asset purchasing. This means we purchased £200bn worth of bank and Government debt. The proportion we bought from the Government can be written off.
44) If we do go into a double-dip then we can’t lower interest rates to raise AD and help us back into recovery because they are at 0.5%
45) Equally if we go into double-dip it would cost more to launch a new stimulus package to bring us back to positive growth than it would be to simply wait before cutting the debt

At this point the time opportunity cost of listing another 56 would out weight listing them so I will chose to stop this list here… 

The point is why are we so concerned about this debt! Yes it is a problem but we can pay it back later when we have good strong growth, as Labour should have done during the recent boom.

Another interesting read on the subject can be found on the Hutton Economics Society website: The National Debt? Timebomb?

Low Swiss Taxes (and a history of Switzerland)

As Ireland falters the Swiss Cantons are seizing the opportunity, but what are cantons and what is going?

A History Lesson
Switzerland contrary to what most people think is not a country as we think of today, it is a confederacy, which is why is official name is: Confederacy Helvetica (which is why you see CH crop up on documents, including in their number plates). 
During the middle ages 3 groups (or tribes) in the region of Helvetica (switzerland) know as The Uri, Schwyz and Ob/Nidwalden rebelled against the largest empire at the time the Holy Roman Empire. Unable to survive on their own they signed a document swearing to work together and protect one another. From that day onward they acted as one to fend off their foes, share resources and increase political leverage. Soon others wanted to join, rich city states such as Zurich joined making Switzerland ever stronger. Each one of these small separate nations or states within Switzerland is known as a canton.  
Because of nature under which Switzerland was formed each canton is very independent and can control is own taxes and most of its own public services (or to economists fiscal policy). 


Taxes
Because of this independence some smaller cantons such as Zug (population of 110,000) can set an extremely low tax rate but by doing so can attract many wealthy people and business HQs so make a huge amount of tax revenue. Taxing 100 people earning £10,000 each at 20% equals £200,000 tax income but taxing 5 people earning 6 billion each at 1% equals £0.3 billion tax income, which is why Zug is very rich. 
Switzerland's tempting tax regimes attract UK firms


Benefiting from Ireland's suffering
Ireland  has also played this game, it's corporation tax rate is 12.5% but pressures are mounting for Ireland to increase its tax to deal with its debt. The EU is also putting pressure on Ireland because it is taking business away from other European countries.
Switzerland however is free from this, not in the EU Switzerland can simply tempt firms away from Ireland with low stable rates! 
Cantonal eyes smiling at Irish Woes


Hollow Irish victory
Even though Ireland appear to have won their battle with the EU and can keep their corporation tax rate down they have had to increase VAT and a new property tax. Also firms are more jittery at locating their HQ in Ireland because of social unrest and threat of future tax hikes. 
Switzerland in contrast, favours bigness, has a history of low taxes, less risk of unrest and have many things directors expect around their HQ (world class food and hotels, lakes with yachts, skiing, high end market shops...). Due to language barriers within Switzerland many of the population speak English as well, reducing language barriers for locating firms.
Locating in Switzerland looks a better option for now and Ireland may suffer for it. 
Irish unveil tough four-year austerity plan  

The Tithebarn Debate!

17th of November 2010: Preston gets go ahead of Tithebarn project

The Tithebarn project is a project is a project of great significance to me. It is a plan to develop the city centre of Preston the city in which i live (around). I personally am opposed to it for a number of reasons but may think it is a great idea.

The plan is to knock down Preston bus station (a dump but is very widely considered an building of architectural significance, it has been in may books of buildings to see before you die and TV programs) and build a smaller bus station further away from town... and build a huge new shopping complex. It is designed to rejuvenate Preston's economy however i argue that it will only hurt the economy by attracting huge monopolies to wipe out smaller shops and retail is not what the city needs. 

 I felt so strongly about it that i posted a wall post on the Preston City Councils facebook page and what followed was a heated debate, in which i used everything in my economic and political armoury and they responded in kind! It makes a great reading (if I don't say so my self) if you have time to read a young student spar with the city councils facebook page administrator! 

Putting it to the city council via facebook

(1st of September 2010)

Jon @ preston council: I have you seen the number of people in this group? if you so up for finding out what people want and being on Facebook then pay attention to this.

'save preston bus station' - fans: 1815   (Tithebarn - fans: 3) (Proud Prestonian - Friends: 2930)

Preston council (Proud Prestonian): As part of the Tithebarn scheme, the bus station is due to be demolished to make way for £700m regeneration of the city centre. The bus station is not fit for purpose, it is too big and costs too much money to upkeep and inside it is run down. It is essentially a huge car park and the space can be made better use of. The minister for local government agreed that it wasnt worthy of listing and we are now awaiting the outcome of the Tithebarn public enquiry which is due any day now.

Also, there is obviously support for saving the bus station but there is just as much support for not saving it and for regenerating the city centre which is in need of investment. Without demolishing the bus station the scheme would be over and we would lose all that investment for the sake of a bus station which is not fit for purpose and which is a drain on ratepayers money

Jon: Thanks for the response, I appreciate it. 

The city centre does need regenerating, granted. But I disagree that demolishing the bus station is key to that. The fact that it does have large parking facilitaties is surely an advantage if you are attempting to attract further people into the area. Why remove parking spaces if you intend to bring more people into the area? Its is not normally empty it is certainly in use. It is run down but why to use renovate it? Its iconic architecture could be used to help the cities economy.
 The minister for local government saw it not fit for listing surely that is a conflict of interest if he wishes to see this project go forward?
 There are to my knowledge a number of empty shops in the city, if we are not at full capacity for what space we have now why do we need to build more shops? Also why is it assumed that bringing in huge department stores will help the area, could it not just shift business away from other shops? 
Given the economic circumstances it would surely not be wise to risk the start of such are large project until we are confident we are clear of a double dip recession nationally. What if investors pull out?

I have talked to many people about this project just generally since the time I heard about it, and the best response I’ve found is at best scepticism. These are from different people of the city in different professions and age ranges.
I am young, I have lived her all my life and I care deeply about this city. It seems to me your are not looking at the needs of the people and making an assumption that there is a quick fix – building a huge John Lewis. There is no quick fix.

Please point me in the direction of groups of local residence, that are protesting to tear down the bus station... there are no as i am aware.. although i may be wrong

Preston council:  The project would not be complete for a number of years and so the threat of a double dip recession this year is irrelevant, the developer has the money available for the work to go ahead. There is no guarantee that the economy would be back to where it was when the project is finished, but we cannot just sit around and do nothing and let Preston fall into a poor state whilst all our neighbouring towns improve and regenerate leaving us behind. 

Some of the buildings in the city centre are in a poor state, the redevelopment will encourage investment in the city which has been on hold for many years.
The city needs to move forward, we cannot be held back because some people object to change. We receive complaints about how there is no regeneration happening in Preston, there is no way we can please everyone.
It is not a conflict of interest for the Minister to decide, that is their job! It would be if we gave ourselves permission!
Building a huge John Lewis is not the whole of the project and it cannot be referred to as that.
I am not aware of any Facebook groups around demolishing the bus station but from looking at forums including your own page, there are plenty of people who do not want the bus station to stay.
Not everyone will agree on this issue but we must await the outcome of the Tithebarn enquiry and then go from there.

Jon: I agree that development is need, peoples complaints for redevelopment can't be seen as a vote for the project.. they are telling you to come up with a solution not telling you they agree with the solution. Only time will tell if they do.

"some people object to change" is not strictly true, i certainly don't object to change. I just disagree with this proposed change. Sometimes we are so for change we don't look at what we have. Something does need to change in Preston.
On the point of it being a conflict of interest, the point I'm addressing concern to is that the Minister for local government and the city counsel and the tithebarn enquiry are all the same thing.. are they all not just local government? Are they not all open to influence by the same people? Please do correct me if I'm wrong, I'm merely enquiring not slandering.
The building of the John Lewis is the main bulk of the project.. it is marked on your vision for the project and named. Yes it says other shopping developments but these are not named, also headlines in local new papers have centred on the John Lewis.
Yes we can't be left behind, but if all these other towns and cites are developing should we be doing the same as them exactly? We should not be copying shopping developments on the assumption it will save the city. If all the towns build huge shopping centres then they will have no effect because you have to take customers from elsewhere. An example: You take custom from blackpool with the tithebarn, so they build a huge shopping complex and then take it back.. why not try something different to just building shops and hoping for the best. We could just make preston into an other cone city of britain with endless chain stores, which could just move out if they wanted.
People always have conflicting views on projects like this, but can blame me for expressing mine to you? I just hope that we will get whats best and what everyone wants.

Preston Council: Preston has always been known as a good shopping destination, people come from neighbouring towns like Blackpool for shopping, whereas people go to Blackpool for its tourism.

You mentioned car parking, the scheme will see the creation of more parking spaces than we currently have.
 No the minister for local government is a cabinet minister in central government and considers the application for the building to be listed.
The enquiry is completely independent and hears the arguments for and against from ourselves and those opposing it, Blackpool and Blackburn. Then it makes a decision based on the evidence submitted. This is not linked to gevernment in any way, but the minister will usually go with their decision.
Preston has suffered from a lack of investment in the last decade as investors wait to see what happens with Tithebarn. If you look at cities like Leeds, Manchester and Liverpool whose universities and jobs have helped them expand hugely in the last 10 years. despite the growth in our university that hasnt quite happened in Preston. No city centre apartments have been built, no new shops or offices in that time either.
This would be the springboard for the city being redeveloped.
We lose a lot of our talented garduates because they dont want to stay in Preston when they leave as the jobs and opportunities and even culture that a city should provide is not neccessarily here for them.
The Tithebarn project is not just about John Lewis, it is about transforming the city and bringing it into line with 21st century cities in the north.
The bus station simply does not fit into that. Why does Preston need the biggest bus station in Europe? It doesnt! Its too big, it costs too much to upkeep and its not in the right location.

 Jon:  I was merely using Blackpool as an example. I agree with you that Preston is used as a shopping area from people around Blackpool, Lytham way, considering that it does make sense to regenerate that sector. But could the development just take business away from the market? The tithebarn would have to bring in a lot more people or you would just shift customers around from existing business to the new huge stores. Which would hurt the economy because actually the new stores would simply drain money out of the local economy to their head offices. 

If the minister for local government is totally independent from the counsel in every way then i apologise.
 Yes the bus station is not prefect for the job but it is more than a mere bus station, its one of a kind and it just seems a shame to loose something that is unique to something that will be near identical to Manchester or Liverpool.

Preston Council: There is more than enough trade for Preston to sustain this size of retail complex, that is why it has been designed in this way after careful planning by the council and the developers, who would not put £700m if they thought it wasn’t sustainable. You must remember that a lot of people go shopping to the Trafford Centre or to Liverpool One and we would like to keep that trade in Preston but at the moment we don’t have the capacity to compete. 

We simply cannot keep the bus station because it is unique, it is a drain on finances, to bring it up to standard would cost £4 million alone! People often the quote the £700 million investment here but that isnt our money, its the developers money and they wouldn’t pay £4 million to clean up the bus station i'm afraid.
 Obviously people have different opinions on everything and we are aware that some people really want the bus station to stay but this is about moving forward and our elected councillors are doing what they genuinely believe is the best thing for Preston.
 The best person to speak to about this would be the Leader of Preston City Council, Cllr Ken Hudson, his office is here in the town hall if you would like to write to him. I think I have told you all I can tell you and at the end of the day he is the person in charge and I am sure he can answer your concerns better than I can.

Jon: ok, well thank you anyway. We shall see what the enquiry comes up with. Have a good day.

Preston Council And you!

What do you think?  Good or bad? Disagree with any of my points or the councils? Please comment.