Love Me Do...

Post updated 17th September: Secretary of State Eric Pickles joins the campaign!

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/local-news/2010/09/16/secretary-of-state-eric-pickles-weighs-into-liverpool-welsh-streets-row-100252-27277819/

As for Mary Huxham, I'd suggest that if you don't want to live there don't, but others do.

Mary Huxham - Liverpool Welsh Streets from ciara leeming on Vimeo.

If you remove the gloss paint from the walls, and ensure the building can breathe in other ways, eg lime mortar (see SPAB for how to make that work) you might find the claimed damp disappears.

As for the claim of £150,000 to renovate? I doubt that very much! It's so much hogwash.


Post updated 2pm 9th Sept Latest SAVE News, with details of this, the wider Pathfinder and other SAVE campaigns:

http://www.savebritainsheritage.org/docs//newsletter%20april%2010%20final.pdf


PRESS RELEASE 9 SEPTEMBER 2010

SAVE IN DRAMATIC BID TO LIST BEATLES HOUSES

AS BULLDOZERS CLOSE IN ON RINGO STARR’S CHILDHOOD HOME, SAVE AND THE MERSEYSIDE CIVIC SOCIETY APPEAL FOR THE IMMEDIATE GROUP LISTING OF BEATLES HOUSES

National preservation charity SAVE Britain’s Heritage has joined forces with the Merseyside Civic Society (MCS) to apply for the listing of 9 Madryn Street, Liverpool, the birthplace and childhood home of the Beatles drummer Ringo Starr, together with five other buildings in Liverpool with intimate connections to the Beatles. The appeal comes in response to the City council’s bid to demolish Ringo’s birthplace in the Welsh Streets area of the city. Currently, none of the former Beatles homes in the city are listed, although two houses are owned and operated by the National Trust.

9 Madryn Street, where Ringo was born and lived until he was four, is earmarked for clearance as part of the government’s controversial Housing Market Renewal (Pathfinder) Initiative, described by the Urban Task Force as a 'crude, insensitive and wasteful' return to mass housing clearance, and criticised as ‘high risk’ by the National Audit Office. The programme has already resulted in the demolition of large swathes of northern towns and cities, leaving communities decimated and whole neighbourhoods destroyed.

Nowhere has this insensitivity and waste been more apparent than on Merseyside where entire districts of the well planned Victorian and Edwardian inner suburbs of Liverpool, a UNESCO World Heritage city, have been laid waste by blight imposed at immense public expense. Edge Hill, Toxteth, Kensington and Anfield have been subject to long term land banking, with communities, businesses and urban fabric forced to make way for acre after acre of vacant lots.

SAVE and the local Civic Society are calling for the immediate listing of Madryn Street, together with 10 Admiral Grove, Ringo’s subsequent childhood home; 12 Arnold Grove, the birthplace of George Harrison; Mendips, Menlove Avenue, where John Lennon lived from 1945 to 1963; 20 Forthlin Road, childhood home of Paul McCartney, and the ornate iron gates and stone piers of Strawberry Field, all that remains of the house and gardens which inspired one of the Beatles’ most famous songs.

William Palin, Secretary of SAVE says ‘This is a bid for national recognition and statutory protection for a group of buildings which are intimately associated with the four men who, together, became the greatest cultural phenomenon of the 20th century.

‘In 1973, Liverpool’s celebrated Cavern Club, birthplace of the Beatles, was demolished because of a council compulsory purchase order, to make room for a ventilation shaft that was never built. The destruction of Madryn Street would represent another tragic loss and a further assault on the heart and spirit of the city.’

‘It is astonishing and distressing that Liverpool City Council retains such a callous disregard for its cultural heritage, and sad that it should fall to organisations such as SAVE and the MCS to protect and promote buildings within the city that have such huge historic and socio-economic importance.’

Marcus Binney, President of SAVE says ‘From the very start of listing in 1945 the Act provided for listing buildings for their special historic interest as well as their architectural quality. The earliest guidelines for listing specifically mention buildings which are associated in the public mind with famous people. The Liverpool sites associated with the Beatles including their childhood homes are clearly of the strongest interest to the British public as witnessed by the thousands of visitors to the Beatles homes owned by the National Trust’.

Merseyside Civic Society planner Jonathan Brown says: ‘20th-century Liverpool and its port helped shape the Beatles phenomenon; in the 21st century their global stardom illuminates Liverpool’s place on the world stage.’

‘The international public have an almighty appetite for sites and buildings associated with the band’s early story, a blessing city authorities have been slow to acknowledge.’

‘If allowed, demolition of their homes and birthplaces will eclipse loss of the Cavern Club as an act of crass cultural vandalism. In fact, it would be far less forgivable, because of what we now know about the importance of music and tourism to economic revival. We appeal to the Secretary of State to stop the bulldozers unleashed by Mr Prescott’.

‘Of course, the listing application is about much more than the birthplaces of four individuals; it is also about protecting the inner city communities of Liverpool from being sold out to narrow developer interests by public officials. The Pathfinder clearances have wiped out swathes of entire historic districts like Edge Hill, Anfield, Bootle and Toxteth; demolition of Beatles’ heritage is just a symptom of the scheme’s indifference to social values beyond land assembly.’


NOTES

SAVE and the MCS have written to English Heritage to request the listing of the following buildings at Grade II:


9 Madryn Street, Liverpool, L8

The birthplace of drummer Richard Starkey (b. 7.7.1940), best known by his stage name, Ringo Starr (coined when he joined the Beatles in 1962). He lived here until the age of four.

The building is a two-bay, two-up two-down ‘back of pavement’ terraced house in the ‘Welsh Streets’ area of Toxteth, Liverpool developed in the late 19th-century to house migrant Welsh workers, most of whom were employed in the building trades.

The house and the area have been often recalled by Ringo during his career. ‘I was born at Number 9 Madryn Street, Liverpool 8’ are the highlighted first words in his section of the Beatles Anthology, the band's authorised autobiography. And his valedictory solo album Liverpool 8 features the single Liverpool I Love You and the lyric ‘Said goodbye to Madryn Street’. The house is visited daily by coach tours on the city’s Beatles trail, and plans for its demolition have attracted international press attention.

Photo: Marc Loudoun

10 Admiral Grove, Liverpool, L8

Ringo’s single Liverpool I Left You also referred to this house where he lived after moving from Madryn Street: ‘Liverpool I left you, said goodbye to Admiral Grove’. Two-bay, two-up two-down ‘back of pavement’ terraced house.

12 Arnold Grove, Liverpool, L15

The birthplace of Beatles guitarist George Harrison (b. 25.2.1943 d. 29.11.2001). He lived here for the first six years of his life. A two-bay, two-up two-down ‘back of pavement’ terraced house close to the iconic Penny Lane.

Photo: Mark Getty

Mendips, 251 Menlove Avenue, Liverpool, L25

This semi-detached house, built in 1933, was the childhood home of John Lennon (b. 1940) from 1945-1963. It is recorded with a blue EH plaque. Lennon lived at Mendips with his Aunt Mimi after the separation of his parents. He was here during the formative Beatles years, and a number of early songs were composed at Mendips with Paul McCartney. It is now owned by the National Trust and, like Forthlin Road, is a successful tourist attraction.

Photo: Mark Getty


20 Forthlin Road, Liverpool, L24

This semi-detatched post-war council house in Allerton was the childhood home of Paul McCartney (b. 1942) from 1955. It is owned by the National Trust and is a successful tourist attraction. John Lennon and Paul McCartney are known to have composed and practiced here.

Photo: Mark Getty

Strawberry Field, Beaconsfield Road, Liverpool, L25

Ornate iron gates and stone piers of 19th-century Gothic villa and gardens demolished c.1970, immortalised by Strawberry Fields Forever, one of the Beatle’s most famous songs, written by John Lennon in 1966.

Photo: Mark Getty

SAVE Britain’s Heritage has been campaigning for historic buildings since its formation in 1975 by a group of architects, journalists and planners. It is a strong, independent voice in conservation, free to respond rapidly to emergencies and to speak out loud for the historic built environment.

SAVE has been one of the strongest critics of the demolitions proposed as part of the government’s Housing Market Renewal (Pathfinder) Initiative. SAVE’s hard-hitting report on Pathfinder, published in 2006, highlighted the devastating effects of these clearances on both the communities and the architectural cohesion of towns and cities. SAVE has also drawn attention to wastefulness of demolition. SAVE’s position has been vindicated by a report by the Commons Committee of Public Accounts published in June 2008. The report warns of ‘…a risk that demolition sites, rather than newly built houses, will be the Programme’s legacy’ and concludes that ‘the needs of those who wish to remain in an area should not be overlooked in developing more mixed and sustainable communities.’

SAVE continues to support communities threatened by Pathfinder clearances and highlight the social, and environmental cost of demolitions. Its latest report, Reviving Britain’s Terraces: Life after Pathfinder, SAVE has teamed up with architect Mark Hines to look at how housing earmarked for demolition can be adapted, upgraded and remodelled to a high standard of energy efficiency, creating a range of accommodation and forming exemplar 'eco-communities' of the future. For more information and to purchase the report, visit the SAVE website

http://www.savebritainsheritage.org/

For more information contact:

William Palin (Secretary), SAVE Britain’s Heritage, 70 Cowcross Street, London, EC1M 6EJ. Tel: 020 7253 3500. Email: office@savebritainsheritage.org

Merseyside Civic Society was established in 1938 out of a concern for the built environment of the Liverpool City region. As a registered charity, the Society is dedicated both to preserving and celebrating our rich built heritage, and to campaigning for new schemes to be of the very highest standard. Membership of the Society is open to anyone sharing these ideals.

For more information contact:

Jonathan Brown

www.liv.ac.uk/mcs/mcshome.html


The Save Madryn Street Facebook Campaign: http://www.savemadrynstreet.co.uk/

PRESS RELEASE ISSUED BY SAVE Britain’s Heritage, 70 Cowcross Street, London EC1M 6EJ. Registered Charity 269129

See also the blog and website of EMPTY HOMES  @emptyhomes :

http://www.emptyhomes.com/

the national charity which campaigns for the re-use of empty homes; it too has been campaigning to stop the demolition of the Welsh Streets and other wasteful demolitions. In a country where there is a desperate shortage of housing, and a housing market which has collapsed, it makes no sense to demolish houses which are capable of re-occupation with a small amount of cash and effort.

http://unlockingthepotential.blogspot.com/2010/09/last-days-of-welsh-streets.html

http://unlockingthepotential.blogspot.com/2010/08/last-chance-to-save-welsh-streets.html

For every two families that need a home there is one property standing empty. This isn't just inefficient it's unjust



Nina Edge - Liverpool Welsh Streets from ciara leeming on Vimeo.

Nina Edge is fighting to save her beautiful Victorian villa on Kelvin Grove, in Liverpool’s Toxteth neighbourhood, from the bulldozers. The house, along with all the other properties on her side of the street, is down for clearance under L8′s controversial Welsh Streets regeneration scheme, a Housing Market Renewal-funded project which aims to tackle what the authorities say is a failing housing market. The grand houses on Edge’s street have been lumped into a demolition scheme which mainly deals with small two-up, two-down terraces, and which will create a tempting plot of land for future redevelopment. Edge is convinced there would be demand for the houses on her street if the market was allowed to operate normally, and believes the other homes could also be saved and refurbished to a decent standard using modern techniques. More than five years after demolition was agreed in principle by Liverpool council, there has been no CPO and little substantial progress.

Another view:

http://www.liverpoolcultureblog.co.uk/2008/07/ringo-and-liverpool-saying-goodbye-to-madryn-street/comment-page-1/#comment-986

Past post on Pathfinder and Liverpool:

http://nemesisrepublic.blogspot.com/2010/02/elizabeth-pascoe-is-finally-evicted.html

More from Elizabeth Pascoe:




To take people's homes, for no good reason, is despicable... Elizabeth Pascoe


 Nem

Live or Let Die! Buildings at Risk 2010

Yes folks it's that time of year again, and this has pinged into my inbox, so please all get your orders in NOW!

http://www.savebritainsheritage.org/buildings_at_risk/

http://www.savebritainsheritage.org/buildings_at_risk/catalogue.php

Order form: http://www.savebritainsheritage.org/docs/articles/BaR2010orderform_updated.pdf

PRESS RELEASE May 2010

Live or Let Die

BUILDINGS AT RISK 2010 – 2011

Northwold Manor, Northwold, Norfolk

Foreword by Marcus Binney

Publication Date: 1 June 2010

Price: £15 Full colour

Every year SAVE sets out on a treasure hunt to find a selection of ‘sleeping beauties’ across England and Wales. Any building type can qualify, so long as it is curious, interesting, unloved and crying out for a new owner or new use. Many of the featured buildings cannot always be found on the books of estate agents and come from local authorities or local contacts who are keen to help towards a solution. Persistence, resourcefulness and diplomacy will be required in order to get hold of these properties but, over two decades, SAVE has seen an impressive number of successful rescues.

Mill House, Gedney, Lincolnshire

This year’s report, Live or Let Die, lifts the veil on over a hundred alluring properties. Remote farmhouses and grand crumbling country mansions vie for attention with Georgian townhouses, mills, redundant churches, town halls, schools, libraries and even post offices in what is a surprisingly diverse selection. Some of the featured buildings have been empty for years others whilst others are newly abandoned as the result of the recession.

Church Street, Isleham, Cambridgeshire

Live or Let Die is more than just an illustrated list, it also features reports on successful restorations; scandalous demolitions; pubs at risk and sections looking at individual towns such as Doncaster and Reading. For the first time, this year’s report looks at examples of buildings at risk in Scotland and London - areas not covered in the full list.

St Cuthbert’s Chapel, Worcester

The register continues to perform vital work as the only national source of information on Grade II listed and unlisted buildings at risk from all around England and Wales. Access to the online register (featuring over 1,000 properties) costs £25 for a year’s subscription. To become a Friend of SAVE or to order Live or Let Die contact the SAVE office directly.

A selection of five buildings at risk from Live or Let Die can be viewed in advance on the website from 25 May.

For further information please contact Rhiannon Tracy on 020 7253 3500 or email her at SAVE


NOTES TO EDITORS
SAVE Britain’s Heritage has been campaigning for historic buildings since its formation in 1975 by a group of architects, journalists and planners. It is a strong, independent voice in conservation, free to respond rapidly to emergencies and to speak out loud for the historic built environment. It has published a Buildings at Risk Register for England and Wales since 1989.

Rhiannon Tracy
Buildings at Risk Officer
SAVE Britain's Heritage
70 Cowcross Street
London
EC1M 6EJ
T: 0207 2533500
F: 0207 2533400


rhiannon dot tracy at savebritainsheritage dot org

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------


New Publications Available from SAVE Britain's Heritage:

Triumph, Disaster & Decay: The SAVE Survey of Liverpool's Heritage - £12.50

Brighton Churches: The Need for Action Now - £20



New Publications Available from SAVE Europe's Heritage:

Silesia: The Land of Dying Country Houses - £15

Moscow Heritage at Crisis Point - 2nd Edition - £18

See website for further details: http://www.savebritainsheritage.org/

Don't destroy the Madelvic factory!

                                      The Madelvic electric car


UPDATE May 7th

Short article (slightly garbled) in Building Design:

Fraser slams Maldevic (sic) demolition

6 May, 2010

By David Rogers

Architect Malcolm Fraser has spoken out against plans by Edinburgh Council to demolish the listed Maldevic electric car factory in the Granton area of the city to make way for new houses.

                                                                     Malcolm Fraser

Council-owned developer EDI has (had?) linked up with the Burrell Company to convert the factory, which opened in 1898, into apartments and commercial space. The developers will retain its office block but demolish the main factory building.

Fraser said it should not be demolished and added: “Is it the case that, in a recession, any listed building can be sent for landfill?”

 Read more: http://www.bdonline.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=426&storycode=3163001&channel=426&c=1#ixzz0nESuvUEN

UPDATE 30th April

Madelvic in the Guardian, excellent piece by Tom Allan

http://www.guardian.co.uk/edinburgh/2010/apr/30/madelvic-factory-demolition-malcolm-fraser-edinburgh


 A request has been made (by me) to have the factory placed on the Scottish Buildings at Risk Register:

http://www.buildingsatrisk.org.uk/BAR/

(Also of course there is the sad loss of most of the historic interest of this piece of motoring heritage in Glasgow.

http://www.botanicgardensgarage.org/ )

It's a worry, is Scotland, and failure to really protect listed buildings.  Cynical of me I know, but it does seem that it's so easy to override national policy...

Original post

The Madelvic Factory production block at Granton, Edinburgh, is under threat of demolition.  This is the oldest remaining purpose-built car factory in the UK; it may be the oldest in Europe. It dates from c1898. Alongside the small office block (not currently under direct threat) this is an important piece of historic industrial architecture.

Listed building description: 

http://hsewsf.sedsh.gov.uk/hslive/hsstart?P_HBNUM=45654

Requests for the permission to demolish by City of Edinburgh Council to be called in by the Scottish Government (Historic Scotland objected to the demolition, the Architectural Heritage Society of Scotland and SAVE Britain's Heritage all sought a call-in, arguing that not all avenues for retention and re-use have been explored and it is believed that  national policy has not been fully followed or taken into account) have been refused. This is a worrying situation, and this really should have been fully explored at an inquiry.

Urban Realm has taken up the story, and published yesterday and today two articles, one with the background, the other multi-award-winning Edinburgh architect Malcolm Fraser making a passionate plea for retention and re-use, if not with the scheme his practice has already designed then for another scheme.

I agree; landfill should not be an option, and the building should be properly mothballed and secured until such time as the market picks up again and viabilty of a re-use scheme can be looked at further.

Listed buildings should not be so lightly disposed of. Sadly, Edinburgh Council seems to see them not as an asset but a nuisance which get in the way of development.

And so our shared history and national heritage is wiped out, historic landmarks razed, because it's more convenient than imaginative re-use, and of course the profit motive is more important to some than those wider issues. No it's not a 'pretty' building, that's not always the point;  it is certainly of historic importance.

Urban Realm reports:

http://www.urbanrealm.co.uk/news/2336/Demolition_of_B_listed_Madelvic_factory_wont_be_called_in.html


http://www.urbanrealm.co.uk/news/2338/Fraser_mounts_impassioned_Madelvic_plea.html

and as Malcolm Fraser says:

“But the buildings are not dropped yet! And if there is any specialist developer out there who is interested, come and see me, and we can approach the site’s owner together.”


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9fQdYYB3vk



The Granton History Group has an excellent website detailing the interesting history of the Madelvic car and factory:

http://www.grantonhistory.org/industry/madelvic.htm

 Secret Scotland:

http://www.secretscotland.org.uk/index.php/Secrets/MadelvicCarriageCo


Nem

St John & St James: more Liverpool at Risk

UPDATE May 7th

The church has, sadly, now been demolished; see SAVE link for pictures:

http://www.savebritainsheritage.org/news/article.php?id=135

More Pathfinder madness as landmark Liverpool church is flattened.

Liverpool has just lost another important landmark building. St John and St James, a finely detailed and pleasingly quirky Edwardian church by James Francis Doyle, was demolished at the end of April, the victim of a deal struck between the Diocese of Liverpool and a property developer. The site, which is part of a Pathfinder 'regeneration' area, is to be developed as 16 dwellings.

The furnishings and fittings of the church were stripped out in advance of a listing inspection with many items sold at auction. The church, distinguished by its octagonal bell tower and good Gothic detailing, was a building of real quality in an area which has all but lost its identity and community. Even the leader of Liverpool Council recently conceded that the Pathfinder clearances had 'ripped the heart out of local communities'. Yet, his penitential words have come too late to prevent the tragic loss of St John and St James.

Further information can be seen on this dedicated website:

Save Bootle's Heritage; St John and St James Church http://www.monfaroad.info/

Original post:

I have been asked to give this campaign some publicity. So here it is.

A website and Facebook campaign have been set up in a last ditch attempt to save an historic Bootle church from demolition.

http://www.monfaroad.info/ (warning - the site has music, so if that's a problem, press the mute button)
Pictures, Youtube videos and a great deal of further history on the website.

The Church of St John and St James in Monfa Road, Orrell, was dedicated to two brothers, Sir John and Mr James Wilcox, who were proprietors and editors of the Daily Post and Echo.

Built in 1910 to the designs of Liverpool architect James Francis Doyle, the church also has a link to the famous Liver Buildings, whose designer was a pupil of Doyle. He worked with the celebrated Richard Norman Shaw on the White Star Line HQ on James Street, where news of the Titanic's sinking was first announced to a shocked world, and built the gold-domed Royal Insurance building on North John Street. 

Now the building has been stripped of its features and is facing the bulldozers, with planning permission granted by Sefton Council for 16 houses.

Conservation experts have criticised church authorities for abandoning heritage buildings to pursue land sell offs, and questioned English Heritage's decision not to grant emergency listing status by suggesting the Liverpool designer is 'not of national interest'.

Planning specialist Jonathan Brown from Merseyside Civic Society said:

"This church was the work of a man associated with some of Liverpool's finest mercantile buildings, and dedicated to the owner and editors of our great city newspapers, the Post and Echo. If English Heritage accept James Doyle is 'regionally important', from what is after all  World city, why isn't that of 'national interest', the criteria for listing? Would the same be true if the connection was with famous buildings and newspapers in London? Of course not - these are simply double-standards. It's one rule for Bootle and another for Bromley."

The website's designer Jonathan Wild, whose partner lived in the adjacent Klondyke terraced streets until recently moved out under the New Heartlands (Pathfinder) demolition scheme said:

"This is another case of a church losing its congregation to  a misguided clearance programme while the Diocese washes its hands of the building. As with the listed St. Cyprian's on Edge Lane and St.John's in Fairfield, church authorities have stood by while so called regeneration evicts families, draining community facilities of their life-blood. The result is loss of character and civic pride."

National campaign group SAVE Britain's Heritage have also expressed their alarm at the state of some churches in Liverpool's clearance areas. Secretary Will Palin said:

Bishop James Jones's chairmanship of the Stop the Rot campaign has given real focus to the city's historic environment, so it is very disappointing to see his Diocese still overseeing church closures that lead to demolition of well-loved local landmarks like this, and failing to speak out over the wasteful return to sixties style housing clearance."

For further information, contact SAVE http://www.savebritainsheritage.org/

Merseyside Civic Society has an excellent website:

http://www.liv.ac.uk/mcs/mcshome.html

The campaign:

http://www.monfaroad.info/

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=321731792630

Forum discussion:

http://www.bootlehistory.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11115

As regular readers of this blog will know, SAVE has been concerned about destruction in Liverpool for many years. Last year it staged an acclaimed exhibition to highlight the neglect and destruction.

The review from the Indie is below.  This picture is of a small section of the exhibition at the milkand sugar gallery, Liverpool RIBA (click to enlarge):

The book which accompanied the exhibition is still available from SAVE:

Triumph, Disaster and Decay: The SAVE survey of Liverpool's Heritage

as is the SAVE Pathfinder report, which also features Liverpool, and which has of course been highlighted in this blog a number of times, especially with the campaign to save her home from the bulldozers by Elizabeth Pascoe.

see Publications

http://www.savebritainsheritage.org/

A comprehensive Flickr set, Lost Liverpool:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/44435674@N00/sets/72157623086033785/


Nem


Triumph, Disaster and Decay, milkandsugar, Liverpool

Reviewed by Anthony Quinn

Tuesday, 24 February 2009

No city, with the possible exception of Jericho, has suffered such a dramatic collapse as Liverpool. Within 100 years, it has gone from being one of the wealthiest in the world to one of the poorest in Europe. The Second World War, the decline of its port trade and the rise of containerisation all figured in its economic perdition, to say nothing of its wildcat politicians and other wilful saboteurs – even in 1935, the Communist Party were calling the place “an organiser’s graveyard”.

Yet Liverpool’s agony has also been an internal one, witnessed by residents and visitors alike, in the unceasing destruction of its architectural heritage. A bomb-site necropolis long after the Luftwaffe had visited, the city began an extraordinary programme of self-mutilation, starting with the demolition of John Foster’s magnificent Customs House in 1947, despite the fact that its war damage was quite reparable. This story of a disappearing city, which continues to the present day, is chronicled in a superb exhibition of photographs, Triumph, Disaster and Decay, at the milkandsugar gallery.

Liverpool Customs House, demolished post-war a 'job creation' scheme

Laid out in two sections – the first an account of lost Liverpool, the second a report on those buildings under threat – its cumulative effect is at once heartbreaking and deeply shaming. That whole swaths of late-Georgian and early Victorian terraced houses still survived in suburbs such as Toxteth and Everton into the 1960s is almost as startling as the mass clearances that would soon condemn them. The city’s population crashed by half in the next 30 years. Jonathan Brown, in his catalogue essay “Liverpool Betrayed”, interestingly argues that the accepted history – people left because the docks closed – got it the wrong way round. The economy stalled because working people were cast out and marooned in distant housing estates.

Individual records of philistinism and neglect unfold across the gallery walls. Of the 19 churches in Everton described by Nikolaus Pevsner in 1969, only six remain. A photograph of Abercromby Square shows Foster’s church St Catherine’s, demolished in 1966 to make way for the university’s Senate House. More heartbreaking still is the fragment of wrought ironwork from a gallery inside the Old Sailors’ Home, a beautiful neo-Jacobean marvel senselessly destroyed in the 1970s.

The Old Sailors' Home

Canning Place, where it stood, itself no longer exists, swallowed up by the huge (and controversial) Paradise Street shopping centre, Liverpool One. It echoes another outrageous scarring, of elegant old Clayton Square, flattened to make way for another mall in 1986. By whose decree? The answer isn’t always clear, but a combination of rapacious property developers and incompetent councillors have usually done for it.

That legacy of near-criminal negligence seems to have been handed down through the DNA of Liverpool City Council. One might leave this exhibition feeling indignant and deeply depressed, for the disasters of the 1960s are returning, in the shape of the Government-sponsored Pathfinder schemes. Hearteningly, campaigns are being fought against further depredations. Elizabeth Pascoe still battles a road-widening scheme that would destroy 400 perfectly good family houses in and around Edge Lane.
(Alas, a battle now lost http://nemesisrepublic.blogspot.com/2010/02/elizabeth-pascoe-is-finally-evicted.html) Florence Gersten also continues a valiant rearguard against municipal vandalism, having helped to save the Lyceum building in Bold Street back in the 1980s. Save Britain’s Heritage itself deserves immense credit for supporting the fightback, and for mounting this exhibition, splendidly curated by Robert Hradsky.

Why does it matter? Because when you obliterate familiar buildings and street patterns, you cut people off from a sense of belonging. The writer Iain Sinclair recently described landscape as a “refracted autobiography”. If we keep losing that landscape, we lose our sense of self. It’s a bitter lesson that Liverpool, even after the infamy it has endured, still seems reluctant to learn.

Making a splash!

Infirmary Street Baths, Edinburgh... then and now

Update Nov Infirmary Street Dovecot Studios named in Indy top 50 Museums list

http://www.independent.co.uk/extras/indybest/the-50-best-museums-amp-galleries-2112967.html?action=Gallery&ino=39

BLOG UPDATE 20th May Delighted to see that Infirmary Street Baths has won a RIBA Regional Award. Eight Awards made for Scotland, so excellent news, especially so as it was such a challenging re-use. Sad that Scottish Ballet HQ did not receive an Award however; such a great building, contextually challenging, but possibly not quite 'safe' enough for  a RIBA Award?  Trongate 103 also received an Award, full list here: 

http://www.bdonline.co.uk/news/riba-2010-regional-award-winners-announced/5000153.article

Also delighted that Infirmary Street came second in the Civic Trust 'My Place' Awards, with a High Commendation. Given the strong list of entries, this is very good news indeed.

BLOG UPDATE 8th April Infirmary Street article on the Guardian website  http://www.guardian.co.uk/edinburgh/2010/apr/07/infirmary-street-baths-edinburgh-history

BLOG UPDATE 1st April Pleased to see Infirmary Street Baths (Malcolm Fraser Architects, Edinburgh) has been nominated for a Scottish Civic Trust Award by Edinburgh's Cockburn Association http://www.myplaceawards.org.uk/2010-gallery-of-entrants/infirmary-street-baths.aspx

Quote: from the supporting statements:

 Buildings user's view: "...Dovecot as a building is a pleasure to work in - a fantastic re-imagining of a former community swimming pool. The building represents a fabulous contribution to art spaces in Scotland and the UK...”

The Cockburn Association is Edinburgh's Civic Trust:

http://www.cockburnassociation.org.uk/

The RIBA Awards shortlist for Scottish architecture was announced last week.

RIAS Announces Strong Scottish Shortlist for 2010 RIBA Awards

The Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland (RIAS) has announced a Scottish shortlist of sixteen buildings for the 2010 RIBA Awards. David Dunbar, President of the RIAS, commented: "We received the largest ever submission to the UK's most prestigious awards and the result is a fantastic shortlist of sixteen very varied projects, including a masterplan, housing, major conservation work, hospital and education provision and even a distillery. All this comes at a time when life has never been more difficult or demanding for the architectural profession and the construction industry but all of it demonstrates that good architecture can have a huge positive impact on peoples' lives and Scotland's economy.

http://www.e-architect.co.uk/awards/riba_awards_2010_scotland.htm

That link gives the full list of 16 buildings, with further links to details and photographs (thumbnails, click to enlarge).

I'm pleased to see that certain of those which made the shortlist  feature the rescue and re-use of historic buildings. As a Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB) Mills Section member, I'm delighted that the already multi-award-winning rescue of Stanley Mills, Perthshire (and once in danger of demolition) has made the shortlist:

http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/stanley/stanleymills/index.html

http://www.historic-scotland.gov.uk/propertyresults/propertyabout.htm?PropID=PL_273&PropName=Stanley%20Mills

In 1995, Stanley Mills was bought by Historic Scotland with financial assistance from the HLF and other funding bodies. The buildings are category A listed, and the design work for the entire complex was undertaken by LDN Architects.

Stanley Mills

Then there's Trongate 103, Glasgow, listed buildings in need of substantial repair, turned into part of an 'arts hub'. Housed over six stories in a former B listed Edwardian warehouse on Trongate, Trongate 103 occupies almost the whole street block between King Street, Parnie Street, New Wynd and Trongate. The building has been designed by Glasgow based architects, Elder and Canon:

http://www.trongate103.com/130/the_building/

http://www.glasgowarchitecture.co.uk/trongate_103.htm


Scottish Ballet new HQ in Glasgow, about which I have blogged previously:

http://nemesisrepublic.blogspot.com/2010/01/on-being-industrious.html

which is in part the conversion of historic stables and in part exciting yet sympathetic new build, an addition to Tramway Arts, itself based in historic tramsheds, Malcolm Fraser Architects:

http://www.glasgowarchitecture.co.uk/scottish_ballet.php

http://www.malcolmfraser.co.uk/projects/?contentid=268&parentid=248

and possibly the most challenging of re-use schemes,  B listed Infirmary Street Baths, Edinburgh, Malcolm Fraser Architects, converted to Dovecot tapestry weaving studios, exhibition space, office space and housing, in the centre of Edinburgh's World Heritage Site:

http://www.dovecotstudios.com/

http://www.malcolmfraser.co.uk/projects/?contentid=308&parentid=250

There are some buildings which are on At Risk Registers for which it can prove extraordinarily difficult to find a new use, and swimming pools are amongst them. Of course keeping them in use is first priority, but for many reasons this isn't always possible. Yet the example here at Infirmary Street, and another in Kendal in Cumbria (swimming baths and wash houses converted to a Wetherspoons pub) are among those conversions which show how re-use can be rewarding, financially and architecturally.

As long ago as 1982, SAVE Britain's Heritage was drawing attention to the architectural interest and variety of swimming baths in the UK, with an exhibition and (now, alas, out of print) publication:

Taking The Plunge: The Architecture of Bathing

The companion to SAVE's exhibition at the RIBA Heinz gallery 26th May- 10th July 1982. It draws attention to the variety and quality of swimming baths throughout Britain. Marcus Binney and Hana & Alastair Laing Published May 1982.

The Twentieth Century Society and the Victorian Society have also campaigned for the recognition of the architecture of swimming baths, and for those with a further interest there are useful links here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/oliver.merrington/lidos/refs.htm#notes

As the Vic Soc says on its website:

http://www.victoriansociety.org.uk/news/council-urged-not-to-close-historic-staffordshire-pool/

Tunstall Pool on Greengates Street has been used by swimmers in Staffordshire for 120 years. It's a significant example of Victorian municipal architecture, but most importantly it is still open as a public pool.The building faces a bleak future if it closes to swimmers as historic pools are notoriously hard to find new uses for.There are only 14 out of more than 50 listed pools (in England) still open for swimming. Those that are still used need to be preserved...

Indeed, in order to bring attention to the plight of historic swimming pools, the Director of the Victorian Society, Ian Dungavell, decided on a marathon 'swim', and successfully completed his challenge to visit all of the listed Victorian and Edwardian pools still open for public swimming in England and swim a lap for every year each of the buildings has been standing:

http://www.victoriansociety.org.uk/news/category/swimming-pools/

In Edinburgh, the City Council took the excellent decision to refurbish and retain in use its legacy of beautiful historic swimming pools. Sadly, Infirmary Street had been the victim of a fire in the 1950s, since when the Ladies' Pool had stood roofless and overgrown; then it languished, unloved, on the Scottish Buildings at Risk Register* for a considerable number of years, while various plans for re-use were drawn up, use as a swimming pool not being considered possible. I gather that the fire had in part destabilised the building, and so an imaginative scheme which would enable the sensitive repair of what remained, and new build in order to help the cost of re-use, was devised. The baths, by City architect Robert Morham,** became the capital’s first public pool when opened on the site of the old Royal Infirmary in the 1880s. Infirmary Street Baths is one of several public swimming pools that the Victorians built in Edinburgh in order to combat cholera.

A couple of pictures here show the sad state the building, which closed in 1995, not without protests, was in prior to its re-use:

http://www.edinburgharchitecture.co.uk/infirmary_street_baths.htm

I'm a sucker for use of metal cladding (corrugated iron buildings being a particular pleasure) and the modern additions in zinc, clearly 'of our time' (very SPAB...) have given this building a new use which proves that even the most unlikely of  'basket cases' of disused swimming pool buildings can be given a future.

Pics with thanks to Malcolm Fraser, click to enlarge

Links to other information and recollections about Infirmary Street Baths:

http://www.edinphoto.org.uk/10/12_edinburgh_today_-_infirmary_street_baths.htm

http://www.edinphoto.org.uk/1_edin/1_edinburgh_history_-_recollections_infirmary_street_baths.htm

Times property article on the re-opening:

http://property.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/property/new_homes/article6804171.ece

Scotsman article:

http://living.scotsman.com/edinburghvisualartsfestival/Dovecot-Studios--Weaving-a.4365488.jp

You could say that Infirmary Street weaves together two distinct strands of Victorian idealism – the social vision of the baths... to provide sorely lacking basic washing facilities for a crowded Old Town, and the Arts and Crafts inspired vision of Dovecot, founded in 1912 by the fourth Marquess of Bute, a friend of William Morris....

...Amid the hard-hatted bustle and the snarl of machine tools of a building site fast approaching deadline, Weir takes me through the elegant spaces emerging out of the shell of the old baths, which closed their doors in 1995, although its women's pool had been roofless and overgrown since a fire in the 1950s. Basically, they have excavated under the smaller derelict women's pool and the larger general pool, to provide two spacious ground-floor galleries, while the first floor, on what would have been the main pool surface level, sweeps up into the lofty weaving hall, with its elegantly-arched Victorian roof timbers supported on cast-iron columns. Ideally fit for purpose, the weaving hall allows ample height for the biggest of Dovecot's looms, which was first assembled at the studio's old Corstorphine premises to create the largest tapestry woven in Britain during the 20th century, a commission for the British Library.

Generously proportioned skylights fill the work space with light, while the wide galleries have been cleared of their old bath cubicles and turned into a public viewing platform and further potential gallery space...


**Architect Robert Morham, City Architect and Superintendant of Works:

http://www.scottisharchitects.org.uk/architect_full.php?id=200385

http://www.scottisharchitects.org.uk/building_full.php?id=212373


The excellent website of Dave Henniker, which has several photographs including a terrific black and white one of the baths before it was closed, detailing  the delightful roof structure:

http://www.henniker.org.uk/html/_bridges1.htm


Building Design article, Malcolm Fraser on conservation (with pictures)

http://www.bdonline.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=3125060


Unusual pic and lovely comments on Occasional Scotland blog:

http://occasionalscotland.blogspot.com/2009/04/skywatch-friday-little-and-large.html

and a great set of Flickr  photographs, showing the beautiful interior, from Doors Open Day, and reproduced with thanks to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/deed.en_GB

http://www.flickr.com/photos/chatiryworld/sets/72157607552156863/

*Buildings at Risk Register for Scotland:

http://www.buildingsatrisk.org.uk/BAR/

C20th Soc:

http://www.c20society.org.uk/casework/reports/2001/bathing-belles-in-peril-lasting-lidos.html

SPAB (founded by William Morris in 1877)

http://www.spab.org.uk/

Great book on historic swimming baths:

http://www.playedinbritain.co.uk/books/great-lengths.php

Recent Times article by Marcus Binney on historic pools at risk:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/court_and_social/article7051623.ece

Nem

PS SAVE Buildings at Risk Catalogue 2010 -Live or Let Die -  order now! I gather this year Scottish buildings will be featured for the first time:

http://www.savebritainsheritage.org/buildings_at_risk/catalogue.php

Last year, All We Need is Love, Buildings at Risk 2009-2010 sold out within 6 weeks. To be certain of a copy this year, place a pre-order now. SAVE’s 2010-2011 catalogue will be available from June 1st 2010. It contains 100 new entries alongside focus topics and helpful information. To order your copy please download the order form and return to the office with a cheque made payable to SAVE Britain's Heritage or with your card details. The publication is priced at £15 (£13 for Friends) + £2.50 p&p (this will be more if you live abroad, contact the office for an estimate).

http://www.savebritainsheritage.org/docs/articles/BaR2010orderform.pdf

See Lucy Denyer's article for last year's catalogue in the Home section of the Sunday Times 7 June 2009.

http://property.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/property/article6432246.ece?token=null&offset=0&page=1

And finally, thankyou, Things, for another link to this blog:

http://thingsmag.wordpress.com/2010/03/30/illuminating-the-corners/

Elizabeth Pascoe is finally evicted

Update 5th February: Architects' Journal :

http://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/daily-news/-cabe-still-critical-of-pathfinder-scheme-despite-latest-revisions/5213863.article?referrer=RSS

and update 9th Feb to add this website:

http://www.housingmarketrenewal.com/links-and-publications.php


Sorry but there is no other word for it, it is eviction, and I feel so very sad.

Here is the latest news, and I took the above picture from here also, and duly credit Mr Bartlett with it and hope he doesn't mind me re-using it:

http://blogs.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/dalestreetblues/2010/02/edge-lane-campaigner-elizabeth.html

Not a lot more to be said, other than to send Elizabeth sympathy, and ask that people reading this read these links:

My past blog, with Elizabeth's own description of what she has gone through:

http://nemesisrepublic.blogspot.com/2009/04/two-heroines-against-pathfinders.html

with links to further sources of information (including Adam Wilkinson's damning report for SAVE) and a Commons Select Committee report.

Here is the BEVEL website, with so much more information and videos, including Elizabeth's 'farewell to a home' party:

http://www.edge-lane.info/ 

 I appreciate this is getting to be a habit, but here's a blast from the past, Malcolm Fraser in Building Design, and I absolutely agree with him:

http://www.bdonline.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=427&storycode=3051676

Pulling down houses is not sustainability

27 May 2005

The Pathfinder programme — government investment of £2 billion over the next 15 years to revitalise nine northern English urban areas — ought to be magnificent news.

 By Malcolm Fraser

Having lived through the urban catharsis of the late 20th century — institutionalised contempt for the built environments we inherited, followed by a reactive timidity towards them — we must have learned by now how to take a good, balanced view of renewal.

We might start by looking at the resources we have inherited, namely a mix of industrial and residential. Patrick Geddes’s concept of “conservative surgery” is an excellent tool here — the idea that you repair, alter or conserve the best of the urban fabric while introducing open space and new buildings in place of the poorer.

You might imagine that such “surgery” would be unlikely to involve the demolition of Victorian terraced homes, which represent a huge resource, in both social and physical terms, embodying enormous energy — in both the cultural and kilojoule sense. That the Pathfinder programmes are threatening between 200,000 and 400,000 of them with demolition demonstrates that something has gone massively, even obscenely, wrong.

The scale is staggering, the obscenity both in the detail (people who love their houses being moved out) and at a city-wide scale. In Liverpool, for example, the proposed demolition of 20,000 homes has an unhappy symmetry with the 20,000-person waiting list for social housing.
That there is failure in these run-down areas is indisputable: but it’s a failure of employment and the spread of wealth, of social housing policies that blight whole areas, of perception and context. To blame this on the buildings in these areas is crazy — especially when those buildings are such successes elsewhere.

Their demolition is supported by the standard government view that big, physically dramatic acts, and big business and construction interests are preferable to the sort of small-scale repair and renewal programmes that involve small spends, and small builders, architects and landlords.

The iniquitous VAT regime where 17.5% tax penalises repair and renewal over demolition and new-build of course skews all analysis of the value of our built heritage. But even here the economic benefits of small-scale renewal are so clear that it doesn’t dent the basic case — as demonstrated on ITV’s Tonight Special, where a “derelict”, “failing”, “surplus” terraced house was transformed into a modern, open, insulated home for £18,000, matching the cost of its proposed demolition and way cheaper than a £100,000 replacement.

Such makeovers represent one approach. The comprehensive nature of the Pathfinder programmes should allow us to look at others that combine or subdivide individual properties to achieve market diversity.

But the post-war regeneration-by-wrecking-ball model remains, albeit disguised by buzzwords and doublespeak where “slum clearance” programmes are rebranded as “sustainable communities”.

But the biggest crime is against the idea of sustainability, its apparent high moral authority abused to justify the wrecking ball. It’s a mystery that sustainability seems only ever to be expressed in terms of new building, rather than as a complete analysis of the costs and benefits. And it’s a disgrace that this has cast heritage bodies — arguing here for a proper audit of the resources offered by our built environment — as somehow anti-sustainability.

The greater truth in all this, that clarifies and guides all others, is that “conservation” and “sustainability” are not separate boxes to tick, not at war with each other, but are, properly applied, one and the same thing: a view of the world we have inherited as a resource that needs treating with care and respect.


Malcolm Fraser is principal of Malcolm Fraser Architects http://www.malcolmfraser.co.uk/

and I hope all right thinking people agree also. That's not the government of course, whose Big Idea all this was...  (based on the most flimsy of evidence 'Housing Market Renewal' of this nature would work)

...and clearly not certain of the fuckwits who post comments* on the Liverpool Echo site, but you have to wonder at man's inhumanity to (wo)man and try to forgive their stupidity, although I'm finding it difficult. (*Update... I note the worst  comments have been removed... thankfully.)

http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2010/02/01/liverpool-edge-lane-campaigner-forcing-me-to-leave-my-home-is-a-violation-92534-25730351/





Nem

Postscript: Another relevant post: http://nemesisrepublic.blogspot.com/2010/01/seeing-red.html

and another eviction:  http://www.msa.mmu.ac.uk/continuity/index.php/2007/11/19/nina-edge-nothing-is-private/


and a further example of pointless destruction and a split community: 

http://www.savebritainsheritage.org/news/article.php?id=54

Seeing red...

Picture courtesy of the Scottish Civic Trust Buildings at Risk website (click to enlarge)

Update: See also http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?p=51679457#post51679457


This article caught my attention on last week's Urban Realm website:

http://www.urbanrealm.co.uk/news/2062/Clyde_Gateway_acquire_Bridgeton%27s_Olympia_Theatre.html

Excellent - re-use of a handsome historic theatre/cinema building, a People's Palace, which will again become an asset to the community!

Here's further information, and a picture of the building in its prime:

http://www.arthurlloyd.co.uk/Glasgow/OlympiaTheatreOfVarietiesGlasgow.htm

the listing  on the website of the Theatres Trust:

http://www.theatrestrust.org.uk/resources/theatres/show/2312-olympia-glasgow

and here the Buildings at Risk Register entry:

http://www.buildingsatrisk.org.uk/BAR/detail.aspx?sctID=2701

which details its long history, its current state of neglect, and the planning history. Prior to the latest news, planning consent had been granted to retain the facade, and build flats behind it. That permission has expired, all the plans appear to have come to fruition to rescue the building from those who have allowed its neglect, and it is reported that its future now lies in a different direction.

This  Flickr picture shows the building as it is at the moment, a sad sight:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/billielolasorcha/3728060264

although the attractive  exterior stonework remains  intact, and it requires little imagination to see this as once again a centrepece of its locality, brought back to life with an intelligent re-use, while at the same time giving  historical and cultural continuity to its community. Additionally, surely it is more sustainable to re-use such a building, with all the embodied energy in its stone and brick, than bulldoze and rebuild something which in all probablity won't be anything near as long lasting?  No doubt it is also possible, given how much reworking will have to be done of the damaged interior, to upgrade the building to modern standards of insulation and consider forms of renewable energy to heat it, eg ground source heating, solar panels?  If it can be achieved on buildings in the World Heritage Site of Edinburgh, see many past posts here, such as tenement buildings:

http://www.ewht.org.uk/Gilmours-Close-.aspx

and even such a prestigious project as the  Bank of Scotland, surely it can be done in Glasgow?

http://www.edinburgharchitecture.co.uk/hbos_mound_award.htm

...It was thought that the project was an imaginative re-working of a landmark building, combining sensitive restoration with bold intervention. The judges felt the use of modern lighting coupled with restrained interior design enhanced the spaciousness...   also praised for commitment to sustainability by using ground source heat pumps that assist heating and cooling in the building. This halves the previous energy consumption...

As reported last year:

Bid for cash could benefit Glasgow ex music hall.
28th July 2009

Communities in the East End of Glasgow are bidding to win a multi-million share of a new Government fund to improve local high streets. One of the four groups, the local regeneration agency, believe the cash could bring the ex-Olympia Theatre of Varieties back to life and transform a neglected crossroads by restoring it to its former architectural glory.

The money would allow Clyde Gateway to buy the building from its current owners and make it secure, saving it from further deterioration, then look closer at the possible options for use stating that to leave it as-is is no longer acceptable. It has been vacant for 16 years.

The £1.9m bid from the fund would fund the purchase by Clyde Gateway and then another £3.6m would be invested to start refurbishment work, with the likely use being a sports facility or office space for local businesses and services.

Ms Carlin added: "The ambition is to have public access to the building again. If it was turned into a residential development it would mean the loss of a community facility. Competition for the cash is high with the £60million fund attracting 133 bids from around Scotland totaling£125m. Source: Evening Times.

At the end of 2008: Clyde Gateway Urban Regeneration Company have since been successful in their bid for cash from the Town Centre Regeneration Fund to purchase and restore the building to public use, although exact details on that use are not yet known. Scottish Civic Trust

January 2009: Now Gateway has acquired the historic property with government support, designs are being worked up to transform the famous structure for restaurant and public use with offices above Urban Realm

A pity it will no longer house a theatre or cinema, but excellent that a creative re-use is being found and actively pursued, especally in light of this report today:

Sustainable Glasgow look back to the future with trams
29 Jan 2010

Trams and congestion charging are amongst two options being considered in a new report from Sustainable Glasgow, an initiative which aims to transform the city into one of Europe’s greenest.
Led by Strathclyde University the initiative aims to cut carbon emissions in the city by 30% by 2020 Urban Realm

However, I read on, and a small piece at the end of the Urban Realm report on the rescue and re-use of the Olympia caught my attention:

Sadly however a series of historic tenements within Dalmarnock itself will not be saved, Pritchard states that these homes fall within the Athletes Village site and are too expensive to bring up to standard.

Here is a site with photographs showing what will be lost to landfill:

http://www.glescapals.com/Bridgeton/Streets/DALM%20DalRd7.htm

and a spot of history:

http://www.glasgowhistory.co.uk/Books/Bridgeton/BridgetonChapters/Housing.htm

http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/story.aspx?storycode=6503565

As Wapedia reports:

http://wapedia.mobi/en/Dalmarnock

Victorian sandstone tenements in Ardenlea Street, Dalmarnock that were originally renovated as part of the GEAR (Glasgow East Area Renewal) scheme in the late 1970s, have seen their residents systematically rehoused in recent years, thus being allowed to fall into a dilapidated state once more. They are now planned to be totally demolished as part of the 2014 Commonwealth Games athletes village masterplan by RMJM... (yes that's the RMJM of Gazprom Okhta Tower infamy, see many a past post here, and the recent employer of the disgraced banker Sir Fred Goodwin).

And of course, no new development is complete without a tower:

East One, also known as Dalmarnock Tower, is a proposed high-rise residential building in Glasgow, Scotland. As originally proposed, the tower included a hotel, and had a projected height of 180.00 metres over 55 floors, which would have made it the second-tallest building in the United Kingdom outside London, after the proposed Piccadilly Tower in Manchester (188m). However, an updated proposal submitted for outline planning permission in December 2007 shows a reduced tower of 39 storeys. The proposed tower would be built on a site in Millerfield Road, Dalmarnock, close to the site of the 2014 Commonwealth Games. The tower will be accompanied by low-rise residential development

http://www.futureglasgow.co.uk/Index_Regeneration_Areas.html has further information and pictures.

Interesting to note that some tenements are seen as more valuable to keep than others.

What is critical to creating a genuine urban environment is restoration of the Edwardian tenements further down Millerfield Road. Pre war housing should be given utmost priority for grant aid as such homes constitute the very essence of Glasgow. The tenements surviving today have done so because they were rehabilitated in the eighties and nineties, although this is clearly futile if they are subsequently abandoned. The Games carry the carrot of a sustainable future for the area, the first such opportunity in a generation.

Such mixed messages!

 So, a part of the history of  Scotland  is being erased, handsome stone tenement blocks bulldozed for an Athlete's Village? Well, see also past posts here re  the US, and the razing of a number of  important buildings for an Athlete's Village for a failed Olympic bid:

http://nemesisrepublic.blogspot.com/2009/11/third-gropius-building-demolition-in.html

I haven't seen the figures for the claims about it not being  economic to repair; I wonder how short a term and narrow, and indeed convenient for achitect and developer, a view this is? Surely the cost to the environment of hoying all that beautiful stone, all that embodied energy, could also be considered?

And the subject, the longstanding, longrunning weeping sore, of the attempts to have the ludicrous VAT regime in this country amended, has to come into the picture?

Give or take some concessions for various situations which are small in number,  there is no VAT to pay on new buildings, yet repair of existing buildings attracts the full rate of VAT. It might not sound a great deal, but for work on the  scale of re-using large areas of tenements, the sums added to the bill will be huge. Again, we have a 'sustainability' agenda, boiler scrappage schemes, encouragement to insulate to ever hugher standards, seal ourselves in with double glazing, save energy by changing lightbulbs, but we fail to see the bigger picture.

Is this because governments are in thrall to developers of new builds? It sounds suspiciously like the powerful development industry has its ear. Or is it because it hasn't really ever considered what a harmonising or no VAT regime could bring in benefits to the existing building stock?  With a more sensible VAT regime, refurbish/retrofit  rather than raze could become far more common than it is at present.  Builders would still be required, as would architects, suppliers, developers; a change of emphasis would be better for the environment, and save so many more of our traditional and handsome buildings.   I suspect communities throughout the country would welcome such change of emphasis both for buildings in the 'public realm', and for repairs/extentions/upgradingscarried out to their own homes.

 An article worth re-reading:

http://www.heraldscotland.com/how-architecture-can-set-our-souls-free-1.829810

For Fraser, sustainability means working with existing environments as much as it means creating new ones. Make do and mend is his mantra, and a good Scottish virtue it is too.

So I leave the last word on this to Malcolm Fraser in the Herald following the announcement of the site plans:

http://www.scribd.com/full/26044625?access_key=key-1fv7mjdsswkv8ndktazw full screen link to doc

Malcolm Fraser Tenements

And so on to further destruction.  Another unnecessary demolition has begun, a different part of the UK, Medway, Kent.  The bulldozers moved in last week to begin  razing Strood's Aveling and Porter building.

A Press Release from July 2009 gives a little history:

http://www.savebritainsheritage.org/docs/articles/Final%20press%20release%20pdf.pdf

William Palin, Secretary of SAVE says, ‘To lose the A&P building, one of relatively few buildings of architectural merit in Strood would be a tragic waste. This is a finely detailed and stonkingly well-built  Edwardian commercial headquarters, in excellent condition and ripe for sympathetic conversion. Medway Council has the opportunity to preserve this much-loved local landmark and promote its integration within a wider development scheme. This building, with its rich history and quality of design, could be the jewel in any future scheme for the riverside. Its destruction would surely be viewed by future generations with anger and disbelief.’

http://www.savebritainsheritage.org/

There is no need to demolish the Aveling and Porter building, the building appeared sound, SAVE and Hugh Thomas had drawn up an alternative and attractive plan to incorporate it into a new development, but  razing is apparently far preferable to retaining some history and a very decent building. The craft skills with which it was built we will rarely see the like again. I bet that Strood has a sustainability policy though...

Pictures and further details of what is currently happening:

http://www.savebritainsheritage.org/news/campaign.php?id=125

http://www.savebritainsheritage.org/news/campaign.php?id=81


http://www.scribd.com/full/21057168?access_key=key-2cb4rnwo16mf1xyffpst full screen of Press Release below from last autumn:
SAVE Strood Press Release


An alternative plan for the building and the wider site:

http://www.savebritainsheritage.org/news/campaign.php?id=101

SAVE:

The unlisted Aveling and Porter building is one of only a handful of buildings of architectural and historic significance in Strood. It dates c.1906 and was designed by local architect George Bond as the headquarters of Aveling and Porter, manufacturers of agricultural engines. The firm built its first steam engine in 1861 and went on to become the world’s leading producer of steam rollers. The firm’s handsome office building has stood as a prominent landmark on Strood riverside for over 100 years. Now, the owners, Medway Council, want to see this fine, solid and well-maintained Edwardian building destroyed to facilitate the sale of the wider site to developers.


Although currently empty, the building is in good condition and remarkably intact (all the original windows survive for example). Clearly, it is eminently capable of conversion for a number of new uses. Its waterside location, with views across the Medway to Rochester is a major attraction.

Final word from Medway's  Coun Hubbard.

http://www.stroodlabour.org.uk/ap.html

Bulldozing over history, heritage and public opinion

Labour campaigners, led by Stephen Hubbard, questioned the leader of the Conservative council in March 2009. We cited the significant concerns that the Conservative Party was bulldozing over a historic asset, purely to sell the land to cover the massive black hole in the council books caused by overspending on the Chatham two-way fiasco. The leader of the council made no clear statement to support the building and it is now extremely likely that the building was be demolished. Another piece of Rochester & Strood history laid waste by a culturally moribund administration.

Local residents and the SAVE Britain's Heritage Group have suggested that whilst the majority of the building be demolished the older, historic Aveling & Porter building be retained as an historic facade and tribute to the cultural history of Rochester & Strood. The Labour Group suggested that developers may be open to the retention of the historic building as a value-add to any development or alternatively the Council could use the building for young people in Strood.

Sadly the Conservative run Medway Council does not wish share that ownership of Strood’s manufacturing heritage and is proposing to demolish all the buildings on the civic centre site in order to maximise the profit from selling the site to a developer. In May 2006 the council’s Tory Cabinet adopted a Building Height Policy that gave them the right to give planning permission, on the civic centre site, for blocks of flats between 6 to 8 storeys high - right up to the river’s edge.

£800,000 Cost to tax payer

In June 2009, it became clear that the Tories had massively underestimated the cost of the demolition of the Strood Civic Centre which was budgeted at £300,000. This figure has now doubled to £800,000.


£800,000 which could have improved all the road surfaces across Strood and still had spare to spend on a youth centre.

The Tory relocation to Gun Wharf was justified on cost grounds, but it has became increasingly clear that the £800,000 cost was a staggering financial oversight.

£800,000 which could save a primary school from closure or paid for extra teaching assistants in our classrooms.

Indeed. And what about the cost to the environment? And the historic environment? What a scandalous waste.

Nem