What will Preston look like in 1992? A slideshow from the 1972 Preston Guild predicting what the town could be like in the future.

The video, with narration, was posted on Vimeo by the Harris Museum about a year ago and is a short presentation from the time of the ’72 Guild looking forward 20 years to what Preston may be like in the next Guild year.

Lots of fascinating and nostalgic shots of seventies Preston including interesting ideas of what Preston Railway Station could have been if the town had an integrated transport system.

The narrator looks forward to a fully pedestrianised city centre with a roof over Fishergate (an idea used in Leeds at the new Trinity Shopping Centre).

Sadly the “obvious” idea of building a weir on the Ribble to create more leisure space has still to happen and optimistic plans for a bigger and busier docks were dashed by the docks closure in 1981 (the council decided to scrap the docks as they were losing them money – sound familiar?).

At the end of the slideshow the narrator says about the future of Preston: “we want people who are more concerned with helping to make the town a better place than complaining about the things they think are wrong.” A very apt thought for today.

What Will Preston look like in 1992? from Harris Museum on Vimeo.

What do you think of the video? Do you think any of the ideas will happen by the time of the next Guild in 2032? Let us know in the comments below.