Wentworth Woodhouse - a public or a private future?

Wentworth Woodhouse is one of the finest Georgian houses in the country, with reputedly the longest facade of any of them. Built around a seventeenth century mansion, it took almost the entire eighteenth century to complete the vast remodelling initiated by the First Earl of Rockingham. The interiors are, as Pevsner wrote, "quite exceptional".

The family decamped in 1949 following the death of the Eighth Earl of Fitzwilliam, flogging most of the magnificent contents - including Stubb's Whistlejacket - in the process. The house became a teacher training college until, in1986, it was sold to one Wensley Haydon-Bailley, then a multi millionaire. Last year he was forced to enter into a voluntary bankruptcy agreement with his many creditors, who have now put the house on the market through Strutt and Parker for £1.5m (the magnificent park, with many fine follies, was invested in a independent trust on the death of the last Earl Fitzwilliam and has been restored)

. The Georgian Group has argued persuasively that such is the outstanding importance of the building that the central Palladian block containing the state apartments should be invested in a independent body and opened to the public. Other less important parts of the house, and ancillary buildings, could be sensitively converted to other uses - most obviously housing - to generate income. In any case, a substantial endowment would be necessary. In the 1980s the National Heritage Memorial Fund was established to provide such endowments and did this until it was shamefully run down by the Major government. Labour has pledged it to return to a meaningful size, though that actually only amounts to a return to 1997 levels - £5m, which will be hardly enough to endow Wentworth.

Nevertheless, SAVE believes that the Georgian Group approach is the right one, and substantial public monies should be made available. The local authority is currently preparing a planning brief. Its role will be critical: the danger is that the building is sold to buyer attracted by the glamour, the size and the price, but without the understanding of the long term responsibility ownership entails, the means to maintain the house, or a sustainable business plan robust enough to last for many decades. The lesson of Wentworth and many other fine houses is that such owners come and go, leaving the building facing a new crisis every ten years or so. Wentworth is too important to allow this to happen. Some believe that there are already enough houses invested in trusts and open as museums. Wentworth could follow Stoneleigh Abbey in pioneering a new approach, a combination of museum and apartments, of public and private capital, that demonstrates that outstanding houses can still be acquired for the nation. If nothing else, surely such a "public-private partnership" will appeal to New Labour.

Battersea Power Station - another false dawn?

When Battersea's closure was announced in the early 1980s, SAVE campaigned hard to have Giles Gilbert Scott's smoking landmark listed. We drew up plans in a publication, The Colossus of Battersea, demonstrating how it could be transformed into an indoor sports arena and ice ring. This was enough to prompt a competition which came up with no less than 7 proposals. The building was listed, and has become one of London's best loved landmarks, but nothing came of our suggestion. After the failure of John Broome's leisure centre scheme, the building was still derelict at the beginning of the 1990s. However, the present owner, Parkview, (a company controlled by the Hong Kong based Hwang family) has drawn up plans for a £500m scheme for the site to create, in its own words, an entirely new leisure quarter for London - two hotels, a 32 screen cinema, two theatres, post production film studios, exhibition halls and hundreds of shops and restaurants.

Two years ago Parkview was remarkably bullish - lots of tenants were interested, leisure time was booming and Warner Cinemas signed up as the lead off occupier. Planning permission was granted after Wandsworth rightly insisted that most visitors use public transport - the developers are committed to providing a dedicated rail service from Victoria. SAVE objected to the application, not because of its impact on the building itself, which although bad Las Vegas tack, appeared not to threaten the external character, or the important internal spaces, but because the 12 storey hotels flanking the power station would require the demolition of a listed Victorian pumping station and would destroy the dramatic silhouette of the building rising from the river.

Two years and two excellent architects further down the line, the scheme appears to be floundering, most recently over the sale of a key parcel of land owned by The National Grid. Meanwhile, the structure, which has so far stood up to the years of idleness remarkably well, is finally beginning to show signs of deterioration, and English Heritage has asked Parkview to mount a proper holding operation.

SAVE's growing feeling is that this is another scheme that may ultimately fail. A scheme of this magnitude is reliant on so many factors, and so many investors. Perhaps we were wrong to advocate reuse at all. The example of a number of projects on the Rhur offers an alternative approach. The Volklingen Iron Works have been preserved as it stands. Trees are allowed to grow around it (unless they endanger the structure), paint to peel and rust to spread, and maintenance and repair is kept to a bare minimum. Such an approach of minimal intervention, quite different from that of the National Trust, seems suitable for sites that were always dirty and unkempt. Why not consolidate Battersea as an industrial monument, build much needed housing on the edge of the site and open the hulking shell and riverside as such a park? Its a low cost alternative that should at least be given some serious consideration.

Caterham Barracks

This late nineteenth century barracks complex was built to house the Foot Guards, and is a classic example of the reform of barrack design triggered by experience during the Crimean War. Whilst few would claim that individually the barrack buildings amount to much - and indeed only the chapel is listed - as an ensemble they have a wonderful quality, which owes a lot to the extensive and mature green spaces. The depot closed in 1995 and in 1996 SAVE campaigned successfully to have the site designated a conservation area.

The Barracks are soon to be developed by Linden Homes. They have submitted applications which are to be considered by Caterham Council in the next few weeks. SAVE has welcomed some aspects of these, such as the intention to create a square between the two rows of barrack blocks, which are to be converted into houses and apartments. However, a number of reusable buildings are scheduled for demolition and in the current scheme the northern half of the site resembles any other new housing development - all sense of the original use and layout of the site will have vanished. Not only is this out of keeping with the character of the conservation area, but the opportunity is being missed to create a more attractive and unique development. SAVE proposed that the development of the barracks should be conceived as a series of linked residential squares. This would retain much of the existing green space, more of the existing buildings, and would be in keeping will the regimental layout of much of the site.

Interestingly, the developers originally intended to keep only two of the existing buildings. They were persuaded to retain at least ten more only after a public consultation exercise had revealed, surprise, surprise, that local people liked the old buildings and wanted to see them retained.

Royal William Yard, Plymouth

A case of great concern to SAVE for most of the decade. After many years in the inept hands of the now defunct Plymouth Development Corporation, the Yard has passed into the hands of English Partnerships. Our growing concern, shared by many, is that EP might repeat many of the mistakes made by its predecessor.

The Yard is one of the finest industrial and military complexes in the country, built by Sir John Rennie in 1825-33 as a model factory and storage complex to supply the fleet with all its victualling needs. It consists of seven Scheduled Ancient Monuments (soon to be Grade I listed buildings) of monumental classicism. After being released by the MoD in 1994, it passed into the hands of the Development Corporation, which finally reached agreement with developers MEPC to create a 120,000 sq. ft factory retail village in the Yard just before it was wound up. The MEPC scheme envisaged 2.3 million visitors a year, despite the very difficult access along a narrow residential peninsula, with a multi story car park in the Yard itself. Moreover, MEPC only had uses for approximately 50% of the floor area, and the scale of the retail operation would have put off other potential users.

Fortunately, MEPC has now pulled out, but in carrying out yet another master-planning exercise, EP appears to be resurrecting another of the Development Corporation's unrealistic ambitions - attracting a "major themed attraction" to the site (local rumour has it that they are talking to Disney). SAVE believes that the future of the Yard would be best secured as a kind of urban village, predominately residential, but with retail, office, workshops, restaurants and bars, a hotel and other uses too, creating a lively new quarter by day and night. This is a view supported by many local property professionals and we will continue to press for such an approach to be adopted.