Not a bad local idea, and apparently backed with £2m of private money from a Cobridge businessman…

“the Burslem end of Waterloo Road” could become “Stoke-on-Trent’s very own ‘curry mile'” of curry houses.”

The Burslem end of the road is just down-a-bit from the town centre. Ideally you’d have Burslem town centre itself for such a thing. But I guess the business rates, car parking, and the Council’s retail use-zoning / liquor licensing / policing worries are all probably against such a notion. So far as I know Burslem is not about to become one of the new Investment Zones and sweep away such restrictions on trade.

So down on the Waterloo Road looks a good and probably cheap location. Perhaps the shop-fronts could also be nicely restored, so the road would not look like a wall of garish plastic tat. The adjacent olde church might even take in any spare food each night, and feed the homeless with it.

Old picture of this bit of the road, leading up to the town centre, circa the 1910s…