I agree that the factory could do with going. It's a couple of generations out of date and only seems to employ about 15 people! What a waste of space and resources.

Regarding your first paragraph, there was a time when all the things you mentioned would have been in close proximity, and in just several streets. In the little part of town my mother lived in, in the 60s, they had a poodle parlour, a hairdresser, a butcher, 5 pubs, a corner shop, a vehicle repair garage with 3 mechanics, a chip shop, a shoe shop, a bookies, a post office, a place that used to do clothes and shoes repairs, and several other little businesses...including 2 little factory units (not too unlike the underwear factory in Corrie.) They weren't all in the same street, but they were all within 10 minutes walk of one another.

So as I said, the stuff in Corrie would be perfectly valid and believable if it was the 60s or 70s. Even in the 80s some of the businesses were there, but by the late 80s, they had mostly folded, as large shopping centres took over, and they couldn't compete.

Very few places - if any - are like this now. Most towns and cities have large indoor or outdoor shopping centres, where all these kinds of places have moved to, and many post offices are inside WH Smiths or something similar.

The whole concept of Corrie is incredibly stupid now. I don't know how much longer we are meant to believe that places like this still exist, and that the things that happen actually happen. Eastenders is just as bad. Everyone lives in, works in, and socialises in the street or square. People rarely socialise with anyone outside the street/square. And if they do, that person comes and lives in the street/square! In addition, relatives who have never been mentioned before just turn up, and get a place to live and a job within a day. And people always manage to pull 10s of 1000s out of their backside to buy the pub/garage/factory etc etc etc...

Freddie getting a job with Kevin, when Kevin had not even mentioned a position available was laughable. Did he fill in an application form? Was he even interviewed? Did Kevin get any references? Does he even have his national insurance number? Idiotic, and pure fantasy. Nothing like this would happen in real life.


Hmmmmm, it may be a good idea, and the people who work in the factory could work in the retirement home. You don't need qualifications to be a carer or a cleaner!

This is why I and many others LOVE your posts on here KK!

Absolutely love that idea above. Corrie never used to be so precious about preserving the past, it's time to update bits and bobs as that's how life works!

You do to be a carer these days, albeit they could be trained on the job.

I don't think that's the right route to go down though. I'd rather see them working outside of the street. Elsie, Susie and Gail worked in a shop off the street in the 70s, Alf worked as post depot worker, Eddie as a binman again in the 70s, it's really not a ridiculous concept to have these guys off the street in the modern era. All they need to do is bring back the Sunday episode and the impact is neutralised somewhat.

I could see other jobs for most of them.

The management could be running other business or in middle-management secular jobs.

Sally could work as manager in another business.
Beth could work as a children's carer. Could actually do this from her house.
Sean Tully could do the bar job full time.
Izzy should be entitled to disability benefits, she could work in the community centre.
Fiz could work in retail.
Sinead could work in retail.
Kirk could work in security.
Kate could work as a bar worker, or start up her own business.
Jenny could work as a cleaner elsewhere.

The other drastic solution is to turn the place into a packing centre for an online shop, much more believable.

This is Corrie's problem; stuck in the past. It's beyond stale. Even Fiz and Tyrone living at Jack and Vera's - NOTHING has changed! I get they're skint at the moment but blimey, a lick of paint?

Corrie production team are afraid of change, when they should be embracing it. I LOVE the idea further up thread about the Kabin - expanding it to a little bookshop/coffee shop.

It's time the show burst into 2016. Nothing lasts forever - even Corrie if it doesn't change.

Why couldn't they work off the street? Elsie did in the 70s, Liz did in the 90s? Heck, even Marcus did when he was around. There's the job centre too............what shame is there having a character on benefits?

Corrie could also do with characters who work on the street but don't live there. I'd love to see a barman at the Rovers who makes recurring cameos like Tracy or Marie do in EE and doesn't have any connections to the regulars.


No it doesn't.

It's just a dumping ground for characters because the bosses are too lazy to have them work some place else.

There's no concept of health and safety either. At least in Mike Baldwin's time the characters were actually seen sewing and wearing overalls. They don't even bother making it look realistic.

Thing is,though,virtually nothing about modern day soaps is remotely realistic. So,I can't understand the argument that this is the reason why the factory should go.

How about they reinvent that area to have apartments with shops and office space. (Very 21st Century) and you would still be able to get some of the girls gossiping in the office places. It would also make the street have atleast some educated people.

With all the train crashes, car crashes , falls , assaults, arrests, drug dealing, food poising, unfair dismissals etc ,Corrie should be awash with compo claims , it needs a nice Solicitors Practice to deal with them , it would be perfect for Shopie to became paralegal and eventually a brief. Then a lot of the characters would have nice windfalls. Like that transit crash when stevo was driving not one claim even though wee blondie was badly injured,its not reality in todays 2016.

Sally could become a good wife going back to Uni and getting a law degree and her hubby a process server/investigator

It should've gone in the 90s at the latest, it should be a call centre or something now.

Yes I agree, some people did actually work away from the street. (Pre 21st century....) In addition to what people have already said, there used to be betterbyes and freshcos, where a number of people worked (Curly and Reg and a few others.. Vera maybe? I could be wrong there.)

Also Sally worked for a car sales place (remember she has a fling with the sleazy manager?) And I'm sure Deirdre worked for the council in offices away from the street? And John (who ripped off Deirdre and got her in the shit,) worked as a pilot/at the airport shop!

Also, I may be wrong here, but I am certain that the factory only makes knickers and bras. In this day and age, any company who only made one or two things would struggle to survive.

Stitching factories don't exist anymore in the UK it has to go.

It's like having a Victorian Mill still operating today it's just unrealistic.

The sole purpose of the factory is to have a place were many of the characters work and interact, and there's a place where there are bosses and underlings.

Other than a factory and the bistro what other business could you have where most of the street's residents interact with each other and with those from the posher houses on a daily basis? At work and in the pub lunchtime and evenings are the main places. It would be individual stories in individual houses otherwise.

i agree that after 2000 or so, a sense of cloying nostalgia has stopped the natural tide of change in Weatherfield- the interior of the Rovers hasn't really changed since the 1986 revamp for example (when it look reasonably modern for the time).

Yep moving the action to Bettabuys/Freshcos in the 90s seems incredibly radical now. Some eps would have loads of supermarkets scenes back then. The show felt incredibly fresh at the time with all the possibilities it brought. I think i read they scrapped the supermarket setting when Corrie went to 4 episodes, and it was logistically difficult to film each week in a real-life store.

The Bistro has been a good addition to make the show less Rovers-centric, but the Corner Shop has really declined as a setting. And the gym has been a bit of a non-starter sadly.

The factory is a complete anachronism in 2016. Even if there was such a factory in real life, probably 80% or 90% of the staff would be from Eastern Europe or Asia and I'd expect any of the British workers to be mainly elderly (what person under the age of 40 would want to train up as a machinist in a backstreet clothes factory in this day and age?).

As part of a Channel 4 production, Mary Portas started up a factory in Manchester in 2012 called Kinky Knickers and took on 8 young apprentices. It went bust in January 2013 with the loss of 33 jobs, but was revived the following month saving 12 of those jobs, and is still going strong selling direct to customers on line:

http://kinkyknickersuk.com/

I watched the Channel 4 series, and the apprentices were thrilled to be getting jobs as they'd all been unable to get work since leaving school and were happy to be trained as machinists because they were also learning a skill.

and its location is right on the doorstep of a load of houses.

shock horror, Corrie not all that out of touch then

Well, it is a bit. The Corrie factory employs more than 12 people and they supposedly sell to other businesses rather than on line.

But it does show that youngsters are prepared to be machinists and that there is still a small market for British made knickers.

No, mainly because the alternative suggestions I've seen on here sound rubbish. A call centre is the pick of a bad bunch. At least when they're doing the stitching in Underworld, they can talk while they're doing it. At the call centre, the scenes would have to either take place during lunch breaks, or when there's conveniently no calls for at least two characters. Plus, we'd have to see the characters wearing silly headsets most of the time. No, it'd get on my nerves quickly.

While I do think the Kabin is outdated (it seems they only sell newspapers), I don't see the point of a coffee shop when you've got popular Roy's Rolls around the corner. Just do a storyline where he's convinced to modernise it with Wi-Fi and leave it at that.

I wouldn't have any posh apartments on the Street. I just don't get why someone would want to spend a reasonable amount of money overlooking old terraced housing and above a busy mechanics; or a builder's yard unless it was slap bang in the middle of Manchester city centre.

It amuses me that so many people are getting annoyed by the implausibility of a factory like Underworld in 2016. In a soap landscape where murder is an everyday occurrence,and people are unfazed by the return of dead characters,the factory is grittily realistic by comparison.

With Carla leaving, I think they should CHANGE the factory to spice it up.

Srry but call call centres/helpdesks are the future. You shouldn't be allowed to gossip during worktime - that should be saved for breaktime

hollyoaks did a call centre a few years ago that some of the students worked in, including brendans sister (cheryl or whatever her name was) it was awful, didnt work and didnt last long and so I agree it wouldnt work in any of the other soaps.

aren't the victoria court apartments meant to be the posh apartments?

they did away with slave labour quite some years ago.

talking to your colleagues and building a rapport is important for your happiness, health and wellbeing at work. a happy workforce is a productive one

A call centre would be a terrible idea. Hotel wouldn't be so far-fetched, Neighbours has/had one back in the 2000s. I still think a consortium buying the place out is the best way forward, gentrification is a hot topic in cities and towns now. Weatherfield wouldn't be so insular, would it, and it'll guarantee some investment. You could have the oldies dead set against it, maybe one open to the idea, the Underworld staff worried about their jobs and actually portraying what it's like to have no job security in 21st century Britain, Phelan fighting to get a slice of the pie, Sally using her councillor 'powers' for comical value.......better than holding on to the past.


The fundamental problem with Underworld is its business plan. What is it exactly?? Why haven't they branched out to e-commerce and put an online range? Why must they always rely on the same sleazy contacts to bail them out?

At least Kinky Knickers has a website! Underworld it's all 'we'll talk over the phone, let's go to the bistro and discuss further....' Ha!

Plus in this particular street we have so many different shops and businesses such as a Bistro, newsagents, corner shop, hairdressers, pub, cab office, cafe, takeaway, fish shop, etc bu on here it is suggested the "unrealistic" factory should be torn down and replaced with either a care home, supermarket or call centre, because that wouldn't add to the ridiculousness of this cramped street.

So the factory can remain, taking it away won't make the show anymore realistic or grounded.