Good topic TDH, can I suggest we avoid turning this into another bollard debate
If it were me I would:
Improve traffic flow through Newbury - Maybe trial a switch off of the Sainsbury traffic lights as this roundabout appears to be a major bottle neck. Allow traffic through Northbrook St, the town isn't busy enough to warrant being pedestrainised and I cannot remember one single accident i.e. car hitting somebody. Also when you only have limited bridges in a town you need to utilise them all, you close off all the arteries and then eventually the road network will suffer a heart attack i.e. the A339.
Sort out the traffic issues at the retail park, maybe creating a traffic exit round the side of Currys so you have a in and a out system. Or build a pedestrain bridge over Pinchington lane and remove the traffic lights which are just clogging up traffic. I would certainly not allow any further development up there, either on the retail park or by Tesco until things were improved.
Newbury is a market town so lets have a decent market and make it a feature, quality stalls selling quality produce.......not cheap tat! Thursday can be cheap tat day but why not on a Saturday have themes e.g. Farmer's markets, German Markets, Italian Markets etc etc, this sort of thing is extremely popular and will bring people in. I have lived in Newbury all my life and never use the normal market!
Victoria park needs a revamp but not the stupid scheme currently being talked about...........total waste of money springs to mind. The park should be used to attract the people of Newbury into the town. I am not talking million pound investment, it is tweaking that is required e.g. the playground facilites are extremely popular despite being very out of date and dangerous, if investment was made in these then families would come visit in their droves (look at the new park up at Wash Common as an example) it is hideously popular. A proper all year round cafe should be bulit on top of the dump currently there, with indoor and outdoor facilities. The sports facilities should be more modern i.e. tennis courts and changing rooms for football. The gardens should be high quality and larger (Forbury Gardens in Reading is an example of how this should be done) etc etc A park is like the lungs of a town and Viccy park is in a prime spot, even more so in the near future, and needs to be better.
Kennet Centre or as it has been renamed to spice it up......Kennet Shopping
needs to be gutted and they need to start again. What began as an ok shopping centre has now descended into the pits. If you go to other towns think Friar Street in Reading, think The Walks in Basingstoke. Too many low quality shops attracting low lifes. Yes it is ok to have some of these shops splattered around towns, they serve a purpose but to fill a whole centre with them is just stupidity. Also the unit sizes are too small and do no attract the decent shops. Gut it and start again.
That'll do for now but I will try to think of some more