Basing View is Basingstoke’s unforgotten, unloved legacy from the 1970s. Basingstoke and Deane council, Hampshire County Council and Basing View marketing seem determined that it will remain marooned in a time gone by.
From time to time another 70s monstrosity bites the dust…
“Our view is changing!
Basing View is constantly promising to reinvent itself. Recently it got a John Lewis (see bottom of the blog). The two years that it took to build meant that those who couldn’t drive to the office were forced into a 3/4 mile detour around the extended site. Only in the final months did we pedestrians get a way to cross the main road into the Basing View Business Park.
For Basingstoke does not believe in the pedestrian or by cyclist, it believes in the car. Last week, as the snow fell, Hampshire County Council gritted the roads. They did not grit the pavements, pedestrians were left to grit their way back to the railway station.
Here is the wonderful conversation that ensued
My statement that Basingstoke doesn’t believe in the pedestrian or cyclist is borne out by 7 years of commuting to Basing View. Bicycles and pedestrians are required to share the pavements (even after a road has been rebuilt).
the new pavement outside John Lewis
The cycle ways don’t last long – they give out for no reason!
Pedestrians have to cross the traffic filled roads without dedicated crossings, occasional underpasses are desperately in need of renovation
“to Town Centre”
Evidence of decay and neglect are everywhere.
where that demolished office stood
The only colour is provided by the vandals
London is only 50 miles away but Basingstoke is separated by decades in its attitude to those who walk or cycle its streets. The bosses don’t kick up a fuss because the people who commute are “cheese-eating surrender monkeys”. I see them driving into the capacious car parks of Basing View in their Mercedes and Cherokee Jeeps. The phrase “carbon footprint” is countered in Basingstoke with “please wipe your feet on the mat”.
Even though it has a mainline railway station half a mile away, Basingstoke (the home of the AA) has only ever been interested in the motorist
commuting through Basing View in the early days (AA building ahead)
The M3 – not the line to London, the A33 , not the line to Reading, the A303 not the line to Exeter – Basingstoke’s public services are for the rabble!
But don’t take my word for it – why not sample Basing View’s marketing video which manages to last for 1.42 minutes without taking any shots of Basing View at all!
http://www.basingview.co.uk/vision/
I am bracing myself to make a formal complaint to Hants CC about the lack of care of the pavements, but there is little point, after all, look at how wonderful this place really is !
