Eden - the letters of complaint pour in

5:34pm Friday 28th March 2008

Comments (21)   Have your say »

WE WENT down to see the new Eden centre on March 14, and really cannot see what all the fuss was about. Months of chaos on the roads, upheaval for everyone and for what? Lots of shops with posh names.

The only decent shop I could afford to go in was Superdrug and their prices have all gone up. I bought a 99p comb and walked out in disgust.

Their shops are for the "well to do people who were born with silver spoons in their mouths" and talk posh. I shall be going to my usual charity shops in Frogmoor and surrounding areas.

The only decent thing about Eden is the pathway from the bus station to Tesco's.

Our verdict: we shall give the new town a miss and shop in the old town.

Mr and Mrs Revel, Bourne End

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LIKE last week's correspondent I too went to Eden using the Eden car park for the first time since all the works.

I too was horrified, but for other reasons.

I understand that both management and WDC are hoping to attract many out-of-town shoppers.

If so, the car park needs to (literally) clean up its act, the entrance ramp is dingy and littered with vans, lorries, waste skips, machinery and other items which clearly have no proper home.

When you emerge into the light the signage is rubbish - not nearly enough arrows to tell you the preferred direction, and very little signage to help you exit.

Come on Multiplex - the profits at the Eden centre look to be secure already - get the car park clean and clear.

Kate Phillips, Pinewood Rd, Sands

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I WENT to Eden on Saturday evening with my family for my grand-daughter's birthday.

As there were nine of us, we had to take two cars. We spent a very pleasant evening there bowling with a meal afterwards.

Everyone had a really pleasant time until we retrieved our cars from the car park and were confronted with a bill for £16 which spoilt the experience completely - so much so that I don't think I will visit again.

Michael Farmer, Stock Field Close, Hazlemere

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NEVER have I been so disappointed as I am with our new shopping paradise' Eden and never has anything been so inappropriately named!

After all the years of waiting, all the expense and all the hype, I cannot believe what we have been given.

The Octagon has been upgraded very nicely and then we go out into the draughty, unwelcoming Eden. Why on earth couldn't it have been enclosed? The flagstones are cold-looking and who on earth would wish to sit on those seats?

The House of Fraser, our so-called, much-awaited store' is just a load of franchises for expensive designer labels.

Marks and Spencers is good but why on earth has it been stuck out at the end, open to the elements?

Then there is the car park, VERY expensive and no concessions for the disabled.

I think visitors will come once out of curiosity and never return, there is nothing to come back for!

This is not what Wycombe needed, the planners have got it very wrong.

Patricia Dunn, New Road, Stokenchurch

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MY DISABLED son and my mother-in-law along with my wife visited the Eden project for the first time on Tuesday March 18 and parked in the Eden car park. On going in to the car park there where no signs up to say that disabled badge holders would have to pay the full parking charges.

It is not until you go to leave the car park that you learn that you have to pay which absolutely enraged us. To pay £2.50 to look around with a disabled step-son and a wheelchair bound mother-in-law.

Any able-body person could have looked round in half the time. How can they justify charging disabled people? That is why there is a blue badge scheme.

Why do they have disabled parking spaces in their car park when anybody can park in it and pay the same charge?

Us as a family will not be going into the project again. They have alienated all the disabled people in Buckinghamshire.

Colin Robert Warren, Wheelers Park, High Wycombe

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HAVING visited today for the first time, I certainly am in no rush to return, what has all the hype been for? We have built nothing more than a cold and windy glass concrete shopping area.

You can't even call it a centre. I expected Eden to be enclosed like Watford and Uxbridge. Thankfully I had walked so had sufficient clothing on.

Had I been driving to Wycombe I would have left my coat in the car presuming it would be warm in the shopping centre and shops.

Wycombe council would have been better to have given us all free bus passes to Watford or Uxbridge so as we can shop and relax in a shopping zone that befits its status!

Sorry Wycombe... you've got it wrong yet again!

Lorraine Akerman, Manor Gardens, High Wycombe

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READING the letters printed in last week's BFP, it is difficult to understand why anybody would wish to come and shop in High Wycombe. Virtually every letter was of a negative and critical nature, with particular reference to the Eden Centre.

People I have spoken to over the years have considered shopping in Wycombe to be "the pits" and judging by the tone of letters last week not much has changed since the Eden Centre opened.

One writer was absolutely correct, when stating that many shops in the centre had simply moved there from their old Wycombe location, which will no doubt have the effect of killing off the old shopping area.

Even before the Eden Centre what an awful name was built Wycombe was not an easy town centre to access, with its few major routes and the council's apparent love affair with traffic lights, which do little to keep traffic moving in an already congested space.

One cannot see the opening of this monolith making matters any easier.

J Everson, Rays Lane, Penn

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I WAS interested to read the comments regarding the Eden Centre on March 21. I am a wheelchair user and paid my first (and maybe last) visit to the Centre last Thursday. My first stop was the House of Fraser.

WHY in a new build do they not have automatic doors? Then on to M&S the lift was out of use, although I was offered the use of the goods lift, which I declined.

The centre is only partially covered, WHY? Exiting from the badly signed car park was not easy even with a medium sized car, there will be many bumpers scraped as you negotiate your way out round the ridiculously narrow circular exit slopes. I will be back to Milton Keynes for my shopping trips in future where everyone is catered for. It is fully covered, easy parking and no shop doors to negotiate. The Eden Centre could have learnt a lot from there!

Mrs Ann Speechley, Aston Park, Aston Rowant

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CONGRATULATIONS are due to all involved in the completion of the Eden project.

It has been a long wait and a new Sainsbury's will provide a stunning backdrop.

The only damp squib at the moment is the Tesco building, looking somewhat out-dated and forlorn. Unlike Gerrards Cross and Bourne End, where there have been vociferous opposition to new Tesco stores, Wycombe has needed one, and still does. What a missed opportunity!

Andrew Ross, Harlow Road, High Wycombe