Tag: Orbital

March 5th – Back to the wet, blustery weather. Escaping after a period of spannering the bike in the afternoon, the rain held off as I rode to the Orbital Centre at Bridgtown on an errand. I used the new road that curls through the industrial area that’s being developed there. It’s fast, but soulless.

This is a good area for such development – former brownfield, with mining and historical contamination issues, this land is scarred, ugly and ideal for the warehouses and factories it’s sprouting. But bless me, it’s a dull ride.

Nothing is on a human scale. Everything built here is huge. Everything is massive, and punctuated by huge amounts of open space.

Modern development is a curious thing.

October 15th – I passed through Churchbridge on the A5 between Cannock and Great Wyrley. This is a horrid, horrid landscape; there is no accommodation within it for pedestrians or cyclists, who do battle with it rather than inhabit it. The architecture and urban design is on a massive, non-human scale which dwarfs pre-existing houses and even the the electricity pylons.

This is not a place for those without a car. An utterly discriminatory piece of urban engineering. I hate it with a passion.