STOCKPORT INTERCHANGE 2021-24 | Celebration & Criticism Then & Now + Drone

This video is a personal celebration of Stockport’s new transport interchange, which opened on Sunday 17th of March 2024. I arrived on the very first in-service bus service to use the interchange – what was it? I explored the pristine interior and got to see the bus stands, windows, doors and other facilities for the very first time.

01:20 First glimpse inside the interchange
03:35 The new interchange on its first day
04:35 Photos & videoclips of the construction 2021-2024
08:35 Five minute walk from station to interchange
09:15 View of the magnificent viaduct… and tall block
10:45 First bus in-service bus to use the interchange.

People have said it’s ‘only’ a bus station and should not have been called an interchange, but that’s wrong. The new path for pedestrians and cyclists provides a link to Stockport station. It took me less than 5 minutes to walk between the two.

The title says ‘criticism’, but I have no criticism of the interchange, only praise. My criticism is reserved for the tall block of flats put up directly in front of the Grade 2 listed railway viaduct. It is part of the neighbouring Weir Mill project by developers Capital&Centric. I will focus on it in another video.

On Monday the 18th of March visited the new Viaduct Park, built on the roof of the interchange. I was very impressed with it and there are great views down onto the buses.

All in all I am very impressed with the new interchange, which was designed by the Harris Partnership. The residential building that rises up from the Interchange (NOT the one in front of the viaduct) was designed by Leach Rhodes Walker.

Drone views by @Cinemaker Check out his channel for longer sections of drone shots featured in this video.

On the AidanEyewitness channel, I produce snapshots of the ongoing development of Stockport, Manchester, Liverpool and connected cities, focusing especially on new construction, renovation and renovation of heritage buildings, modern architecture in general, public transport infrastructure, future construction plans as well as questions of urban identity and the uniqueness of cities. I like to document the construction of buildings, taking images at regular intervals and mergin them into timelapse sequences.

I’ve been interested in architecture and city development since I was a child. I was doing projects on Manchester architecture in primary school. From 1997 to 2005 I produced my website Eyewitness in Manchester which documented the reconstruction of the city after the IRA bomb in photos and words. I’ve contributed photos and writing to books, magazines and newspapers.

The AidanEyewitness YouTube channel is the latest chapter, I dream of a big audience and lots of success, but there is still a long way to go! Please help me by liking, subscribing, sharing, commenting and providing some financial support, so I can fulfil my dream of producing AidanEyewitness full time.

[Piano music] Hallo und willkommen! Welcome to AidanEyewitness.  When I was a kid, I used to wait here on Mersey   Square, just in front of the plaza cinema  with my mum, and we waited for the 71   operated by Northwestern, the North Western  Road Car Company. Sometimes we’d get the 30,  

That was operated by Stockport Corporation from  the other side of Mersey Square. It was a bit   difficult in those days because the buses just  parked in the square there were no shelters.   There was a kind of building with a sloping roof  and steps up to it, but it didn’t really provide  

Proper shelter. But today, things are different,  because the Transport Interchange is open. In fact, I was on the very first  bus to arrive at and depart from   the interchange, and which bus was that? We’ll find out later. It’s 05:27 am on the  17th of March 2024, Saint Patrick’s Day as  

We enter the new interchange from Mersey  Square. The doors open in front of us,   and immediately there is the smell of  plaster that hasn’t dried completely. Inside it’s plush, modern, pristine. There’s a  line in the middle to provide orientation and  

We go through this tunnel. It looks so new  and clean, this could be the tunnel used by   astronauts on their way to their spaceship  at NASA, but actually we are passing under   a viaduct that was built in the 1820s carrying  one of England’s great highways above our heads,  

The A6, used by the 192 bus, which is  reported to be the busiest route in the UK. The plan of the interchange looks organic: Is  that a black and white whale? As we enter the main   concourse, it’s clean, spacious, bright and so  wonderfully new. It won’t look like this forever.

Walking outside, we can see those massive windows.   We’ll return when it’s daylight  but right now the light pours out   from the inside. It’s like the Château de  Versailles, but more modern and curvier! There are the steps going up to the upper level,  the level of the park, but the park is not open  

Yet. It will open tomorrow on Monday, the 18th  of March. The stands curve gracefully along the   concourse. They are labelled with letters. The  poster days: Welcome to Stockport Interchange. At this time of the morning, you’ll have to spend  20 pence to get into the toilets, but during the  

Day they are free to access. On the display we can  see the departures, like at an airport, the next   bus after the one I arrived on is at 6:55. It’s  the 368 to Wythenshawe via Cheadle Hulme. Soon,   railway destinations will be displayed, Maybe  they should display plane departures also. Thanks  

To the 199 bus from Buxton, that runs along the  motorway, the airport is just 15 minutes away. These are all the buses that will  operate from the interchange. The   192 is listed, though stop AA is on  Wellington Rd, some distance away.

To access the south part of the oval, where  the 199 stops, you go out of the concourse   and cross over the vehicle exit road. Under  the oval, it’s a wide open space, and outside,   there goes the 368 to Wythenshawe  as displayed on the panel earlier,  

And the bus in the yellow Bee Network livery is  going operate the 192 service towards Manchester The interchange exit is overlooked by  the venerable Plaza Super Cinema and   Variety Theatre, which has been there since the   early 30s. What changes it has seen  over the past – nearly – 100 years.

Later in the morning, I return and the  viaduct looks magnificent through those huge   windows. People are starting to get to know the  interchange now, and I can confirm the entrance is   sufficiently high to allow buses to enter, unlike  the Arndale bus station in 1980 whose opening was  

Delayed by months as the original design didn’t  allow enough clearance for double decker buses. There are lifts to the upper level. I  like the use of wood on the ceiling and   on the side of the units housing the  information centre and ticket office.

Inside it’s bright and cheerful, with  those huge windows on both sides. Here are the stands with the buses, the new Bee  Network livery on the left, the old Stagecoach   livery on the right. That’s the 203 heading  into Manchester via Reddish and Belle Vue. Buses on this side of the oval reverse,  

A bit like planes but under their  own power, and make their way out,   either via the north or south exit. That’s the  384 circular route through Romiley then Marple. Now let’s return to my favourite viewpoint  and turn the clock back and see it as it was.

We will have a look at a selection of  my photos and videoclips of the old bus   station and the interchange construction  site taken over a period of three years. As stated on a plaque in the old bus  station, it opened on the 2nd of of March,  

1981. 40 summers later, the old bus  station was in its final months. It   consisted of six long bus shelters.  It was rather bleak at night as the   wind whistled through those shelters and  at the far end of the station it didn’t  

Always feel one hundred per cent safe. But it  had served the town, leaving many memories. There was heavy snow on the 10th of April and  bright sunshine the next day. Buses are still   arriving and departing, including the 199  that always seems to appear from somewhere.  

It’s one of my favourite services, with those  distinctive bright red single decker buses. There’s the 25, this one is a Stockport  school service and the 382 to Woodley   one of the low emission buses operated by  the now defunct Little Gem bus company.

The old bus station closed on the 29th  of August, 2021. On the 31st of October,   the site had been fenced off, the bus  shelters were standing ghost-like for   a number of weeks. We we can enjoy our final  pre-construction glimpses of the railway viaduct.

By February 2022, the site was a field  of mud and puddles. It seemed unlikely   that anything solid could ever arise from  this mess, but arise it did. First we saw   one of the two concrete cores of the  residential building. We could still  

Enjoy the uninterrupted view of the rest of the  viaduct, but that would not be for much longer. By August 2022 the second concrete core  had joined the first, both part of the   residential building that would rise out of  the base of the transport interchange. More  

And more of the structure started to appear  and the lower floors began to take shape By April 2022 something resembling  a building was beginning to emerge,   like one of my Lego brick constructions, a complex  amalgam of concrete, steel and other materials.

Soon the exterior was visible – rather beige,  recalling that other bus station in the Arndale   Centre that never re-opened after the 1996  bomb. At least this is a lighter shade of beige. The new residential building was already  making its presence felt in the town centre  

And from my favourite vantage point,  we could see work was proceeding well. That house on Wellington Road south  will hopefully be brought back to life. The River Mersey and the residential building  are getting much closer to completion now but  

We still can’t see the final colours. The buses  use the road next to the site to exit the bus   depot. On the evening of Friday the 10th of March,  2023, the pedestrian bridge was lifted into place. It will carry pedestrians, cyclists and anyone on  

Wheels – except road vehicles – between  the bus station and the railway station. At this point I’m including some improvised  voiceover that I didn’t use in the videos,   published here for the first time. “And we can go around here, we can see  the taller building next to the viaduct…”

“So this is the rear of the bus interchange… it  will be accessible via the bridge on the left…” “An interesting design, and then the  tall residential building just behind…” “And there it is the River  Mersey, wendin its way west…” Actually, I think I’ll stick  to scripted voiceovers!

The neighbouring residential tower,  part of the Weir Mill project,   has now risen up to the level of the viaduct.  The area in front is still a field of mud,   but the visualisations remind us of what  is to come in just less than a year.

It’s September 2023 and the Weir Mill residential  building has now completely hidden one whole arch,   and towers high above the Grade 2 listed viaduct,  the first to do so in its 183 year history and   there’s the spiral ramp that links  ground level with the rooftop park.

In February 2024 the Stockport Interchange  sign appeared. We knew that completion was   very close. A long freight train crosses  the viaduct, the future has nearly arrived. Here they are laying down some nice  stonework next to the Mersey Square   bus exit. It’s only three weeks until  the opening of the bridge and it looks  

Like there’s still a huge amount of work to  do. The pavement is still blocked but from   my favourite vantage point, it’s looking  more and more like a finished interchange So let’s now take a look at the footpath and park  on their first day of opening, Monday the 18th  

Of March. It has turned out exactly as expected.  The footpath snakes down from the station leading   past the oval opening. I walked down to check  the journey time. It’s just under five minutes   at a brisk pace from the station entrance to  the entrance at the pavilion next to the park.

Looking down at the buses, arriving and departing,  they appear almost like toys. We proceed to the   oval-shaped entrance in the corner of the  park, leading down into the interchange. From inside, the park looks inviting. It’s nice  to walk along the footpath, bikes on the left,  

Pedestrians on the right. The name of the park  is Viaduct Park. We have this fabulous new view   of the viaduct… Yeah, I heard other people  complaining about that building too too. Let’s focus insead on on some of the flora  in the park, the gardens are pristine,  

But they will need some taking care of. I think  more security guards are needed, I noticed some   anti-social behaviour. I love the two entrances  from Wellington Road, nice stonework on the gates Looking towards the west, the viaduct is an  iconic presence. Let’s just reimagine it. We’ll  

Finish with some aerial views courtesy  of Cinemaker. I think the interchange,   park and link are excellent and I’ll be using them  most days. The 41 bus services serve Stockport and   beyond and before too long, the tram will  be arriving. Keep watching AidanEyewitness Stockport is fantastically well connected,  

By train, 8 minutes to Manchster, an hour to  Liverpool or Sheffield, two hours to London. The M60 runs right through the town centre, just a  stone’s throw from the interchange. I think there   should be more long distance coach services  from Megabus, National Express and Flixbus.

Thanks to the High Peak 199 bus, the  UK’s third busiest airport – Manchester,   Ringway – is just 15 minutes away. We can see  the planes flying directly overhead all the time. The interchange is on the Transpennine  Trail, I’ll be using my bike as well.

So I’m very happy to capture for posterity  a happy and historic milestone – the opening   of Stockport’s transport interchange,  rooftop park and railway station link. Oh, and one other thing: My dad would  have liked it. He liked to ride the bus.

Oh, and like I said, I was on the very first  service to arrive and depart from the interchange. A Transport for Greater Manchester official got  on at the stop before and guided the driver into   and around the interchange to the stop, where  officials and photographers were waiting. It  

Arrived at about twenty past four. It was  the 199 from Buxton to Manchester Airport,   the one with the friendly drivers and this  one was making the most of the occasion,   with lots of humorous comments. I  stayed on so I could be on the very  

First departure from the Interchange and came  back from the airport on the return journey. So if you found this video informative,  please like and subscribe and if you have   any opinions or insider information to share,  you can post a comment, please be courteous. With YouTube channels, time is  of the essence, especially mine,  

So if you can help me reach my goals  more quickly, please tell a few people   about my channel and consider donating via  www.buymeacoffee.com/aidaneyewitness, link below. Vielen Dank fürs Zuschauen und auf  Wiedersehen in Stockport Interchange.