PARKWAY & WOOLWORTHS

Oh well, it obviously didn't make sense for Iceland to move into the old Woolies store - seems ours is not in the list of store Iceland are taking over.
Did anyone see Costain 'marking up' in Northbrook St at the southern end, nr Newbury Building Society? Yellow spray paint on the new(ish) block paving. It'll last forever unless it's water blasted to remove it.

West Berkshire Museum

Still no news of the museum. Wonder if some of the exhibits could be displayed in Shaw House? Lots of space, owned by West Berkshire. Makes sense doesn't it?

Parkway Development Newbury

This is how it used to look. Rumour has it 'Iceland' are taking the premises - their current building is going to be demolished so it makes sense.

Hoardings still haven't been erected to site still open to view. Lots of plant on site. Some buildings yet to be demolished.

NEWBURY CHEQUERS HOTEL & CINEMA

Scaffolding has now been removed from newly painted Chequers Hotel. Great improvement. Ground floor window frames still await restoration but building looks quite grand now.

Activity on cinema site - steel framework is appearing.

PARKWAY NEWBURY VIEWS OF CLEARED AREAS

The clearing of the old buildings continues. Today the area was being levelled and compacted - looks as if we're getting a new cricket pitch! Plenty of staff and plant on site.

West Street did re-open on Monday. Found a programme of works on the web - runs to 116 pages.

CHEQUERS & PARKWAY

Good to see the renovation of The Chequers is making progress. A rather more extensive project than anticipated I think? It was looking very sad and hopefully will be restored to former glory.

In Parkway the demolition of the small buildings and parking areas is more or less complete. A lot of plant on site and activity in many areas. One of the interesting things this week was watching the recovery of topsoil. It was being 'sifted' out of a digger bucket and gathered in heaps around the site - see image, taken through the mesh fences. Good to be able to see this activity - if the site was surrounded by hoardings we shouldn't know what was happening on the site - as is the case with the cinema site!

BROADWAY BLOCKED

On Monday 3rd. November West Street was closed. Park Street was still closed to through traffic - it was open for access and 2 way traffic as far as the barriers near the eastern end, so, as predicted, The Broadway became a dead end between 10am and 6pm. Might be an idea to put up a sign near the clock house to prevent traffic entering The Broadway and then having to turn round and come back again.