I lingered in Laxton Square and perused the plaque that commemorates Ray Laxton and his services to 'the building of the new Peterborough'. Laxton was a member of the Peterborough Development Corporation, the body set up when the city gained New Town status in the late 1960s. The plaque states he died in 1980. Too early for the opening of the Queensgate Shopping Centre or the advertising campaigns promoting 'The Peterborough Effect' featuring Roy Kinear dressed as a Roman Soldier. Both were events that marked a peak in the City's fortunes in the mid 80s.
The square is part surrounded by large office buildings including the Passport Office. It is occasionally used for union gatherings and public meetings. But today, like most days, it was occupied by a handful of coffee drinking workers, depressed looking vapers and a man staring vacantly into the distance.
I moved on before stopping to observe the pigeons that occupy the roof of the former 5th Avenue nightclub among feral grass and other vegetation. The building has been unused since the nightclub closed in 2002. Prior to that it had been used as the County Court and Probate Office.
Recently planning permission was granted for conversion of the building into 'co-living' space accommodation. The Brightfield Group, who's Managing Director recently stood as candidate for the Brexit party in the Peterborough by-election, are behind the plans. In the local rag their CEO was quoted as stating, 'it will attract all ages but with a core focus on embracing the increasing mobility of Millennials and their stronger sense of community and connected living'. In the market today there was an apparent lack of 'mobile Millennials'. Whether they will materialise and come to embrace this sort shared house/youth hostel/university halls of residence sounding amalgam, or if not whether a planning variation for short stay hotel/air b n b style accommodation will be required as plan b, only time will tell.
Thoughts and fears of future dystopian housing arrangements abated as I was drawn to the remnants of an old fly-poster underneath the clouded aperture of a long disused window. It was stuck on top of the grey and blue abstraction of ancient looking peeling paintwork from an earlier decade. I could make out the poster had advertised a gig and tickets had been available for £2.50 from Andys Records.
Andys Records was the foremost record shop chain in East Anglia, rivalled briefly by Parrot Records in the 80s and 90s. Both had long gone by the time the current vinyl revival had begun. The ghost fly-poster had drawn me away from visions of overpriced communal shoe box accommodation to memories of hours spent rummaging through racks of records in my teens in Cambridge. I recalled the comforting smell of secondhand vinyl at The Beat Goes On (Andys' secondhand department) and the epic (at the time) walk from Cherry Hinton to the Mill Road shop to buy punk records when I had just started secondary school. On an a rare early trip to Peterborough around the same time I visited the local branch and bought 'Bomber' by Motorhead on blue vinyl.
Andys had its origins on Felixstowe Pier in 1969, with a stall on Cambridge market following soon after. By the 90s it had expanded outside of East Anglia and was a national high street chain. The Cambridge shops on Mill and Hills Roads later amalgamated into one larger concern located on Fitzroy Street. It traded there for some years and although still a necessary Cambridge institution, I can't help feeling it's proximity to the much maligned Grafton Centre played a part in the chains' eventual downfall. It would have been much more suited to the considerably less sterile pre-Grafton Fitzroy Street as part of the old Kite area, a place that the fly-poster I was looking at now could have belonged.
Feeling somewhat cleansed by nostalgia, I drifted across the road where I observed the signage for the Hereward Cross Shopping Centre. The name of course refers to Hereward The Wake, the semi mythical outlaw/mercenary who resisted the Norman occupation of Britain. References to Hereward abound in The Fens. The shopping centre stands across the road from the Cathedral which Hereward helped sack back in the 11th century. The Cathedral was later rebuilt. The shopping centre is it's physical and spiritual opposite. A 60s flat roofed carbuncle with a car park and tower block attached. The signage provides a bullet pointed list of 'nos' below the symbols of the cross keys and the lion. The cross keys commonly refers to the gates of heaven. Neither the shopping centre nor the forthcoming 'co-living' development struck me as being particularly 'heavenly'. In heraldry, the Lion symbolises strength, courage and nobility. I couldn't make any connection to that other than maybe the brute strength of the concrete used in the construction of the building.
Moving on, I reached the grease cafe on the corner which sits underneath the large brown Northminster multistory car park next to the market. I had never ventured into the car park and considered going up to the top floor for a look round and to check out the view. But the notice near the (closed) toilets underneath confirmed this was no longer possible and I'd missed my chance. The car park was closed in July due to 'safety fears'. Structural engineers have recommended either that significant investment is needed to repair the buiding or it is demolished. Some, including the Peterborough Civic Society, are suspicious of a hidden agenda. Rumours have circulated that the council already has a deal agreed for development of the car park and the market. A glance at LP47 in the Local Plan does little to quash these rumours with it's references to the 'Northminster Opportunity Area', 'mixed use development', Student Flats, possible relocation of the market and a reduction in the number of vehicles in the area. Anyone who has still to retrieve their car from the car park would probably be best advised to call the number below sooner rather than later.
