Councillor Jim O'Boyle in Bayley Lane - Video and audio transcripts

Jim O’Boyle: Well, hello, here I am today in Bayley Lane where I’ve got the old Cathedral to my right and of course, to my left, you can see we’ve got Drapers’ Hall, which is being regenerated as part of our new cultural offer for Coventry. Don’t forget Drapers’ Hall has been closed for a number of years, this is a great project, part of the Historic Coventry Trust portfolio for properties, to bring them back to use. The reason why I’m here today though is because, as I said, we’re here in Bayley Lane, and I’m standing on some cobbles? Why is that significant? Well you’ll know that as part of our regeneration of the city, we’re also doing the precincts at the moment, and in particular, Upper Precinct. When we were busily working down there, we found what used to be Smithford Street. So here we are, we found these cobbles. So what I said is that we needed to incorporate these cobbles into another part of Coventry. So what you’ve actually got here today, as this vehicle goes by, come down here, cameraperson. You can actually see it goes quite a distance all the way up to the museum here as well. So again, this is something that we say all the time, this is part of using what was old and incorporating it into a new part, but of course, it’s the old part. It’s the Cathedral Quarter, so instead of saying “the best of the old with the best of the new”, today I’m saying this is the best of the old with the very best of the old of Coventry.