Opinion : My predictions for Wycombe in 2018

A new year is nearly upon us, indeed in just a few days time it will be 2018.

Lot’s of things happened in Wycombe over the past twelve months, many of them were good but sadly many of them were bad for the town.

There’s nothing we can do about the past so we must look to the future and make sure that Wycombe recovers to be a successful and prosperous town once again.

So what will happen in 2018? Well, in the next few paragraphs my good self will stick my neck out and make a few predictions as to what may happen in the forthcoming new year.

Uncannily yours truly has a good track record when it comes to predicting the future, indeed at one time in my younger days your humble servant nearly took up a career as a clairvoyant.

So here they are, my predictions for 2018 :

1. A large, non-municipal, employer in the town will falter leading to many job losses.

2. Local government in Buckinghamshire will be restructured resulting in a single unitary authority taking control of all municipal services throughout the whole of Buckinghamshire.

3. The old library building in Queen Victoria Road will be re-purposed at the ‘one stop customer service’ satellite office for the new single unitary authority in Buckinghamshire where residents in High Wycombe can go to.

4. As a result of the creation of a new single unitary authority in Buckinghamshire a large building in Queen Victoria Road, on the opposite side of the road to the old library, will no longer be needed for its current purpose. The building will be demolished with some of the 10,000+ new homes planned for the Wycombe District built on the land.

5. The town centre Masterplan will prove to be a failure resulting in gridlock in the town centre. The roads affected by the Masterplan will have to be widened and put back to how the were at huge expense to the public purse.

6. Yet more shops will close in Wycombe town centre leading to further decline in the prosperity of the town.

7. Credible plans to re-open the railway line from High Wycombe to Marlow will be put forward linking High Wycombe to the new Crossrail development.

8. Vagrancy in Wycombe town centre will get worse resulting in the need for the powers that be to take drastic action to solve the problem.

9. Sadly the A&E department will not return to Wycombe Hospital in 2018.

10. Wycombe High Street will be re-surfaced, possibly in asphalt, due to excessive sinking of the current cobbled surface.

So there they are, my predictions for 2018 in High Wycombe. Remember where you read them first!

It will be interesting to see how many come true.

What do you think?

My blogs are published every Tuesday and Friday evening around 8.00pm here on the WycombeToday.com website.

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