The "P & O Site", Kings Cross, London
Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough
RAF Bicester, Oxfordshire
St George's Circus, Southwark, London
Croome Court, Worcestershire
London Bridge Station, Southwark, London
Paddington Station, Westminster, London
Battersea Power Station, London
Manningham Mills, Bradford
Casework News, February 2000
Casework News, September 1999
Casework News, April 1999
Casework News, February 1999
The "P&O Site", Kings Cross, London
P&O owns a substantial chunk of land beside Kings Cross Station and its decay has for many years contributed to the area's notoriety by becoming the focus of drug dealers and users and prostitution. However, change is now in the air as the company has finally revealed plans to redevelop the site. All well and good you might say, and it will be if it's the right scheme.The site comprises four neighbouring blocks, a conservation area made up of a variety of nineteenth century factories and workshops set around cobbled yards and surrounded by terraced shops and housing. Islington Borough Council has an excellent planning brief for the area and with sensitive development it could become a vibrant new mixed use quarter formed of attractively converted buildings and new infill buildings of high quality set around the cobbled yards.
However, the scheme P&O unveiled involved the demolition of many of the attractive Victorian buildings and their replacement with crass office blocks and a large dreary hotel. Despite the national debate about future housing needs and urban regeneration, not a single new home is proposed.
Not only would this scheme dramatically alter the character of the conservation area for the worse, it would also create an area deserted at night which might continue to attract the less salubrious activities which currently blight the area.
SAVE, the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, English Heritage and the Victorian Society were amongst those who condemned the scheme and as a result it is expected that P&O will submit revised plans early this month.
SAVE has written to Richard Rogers and Ken Livingstone asking them to join the calls for a world class solution for the site. The redevelopment of the P&O site will set the tone for the regeneration of the neighbouring Kings Cross railway lands, one of the largest areas in central London yet to be regenerated. When the Channel Tunnel Rail Link is extended to St Pancras this area will become a gateway to Europe. It is worth taking the time to develop the right solution.
Since the last newsletter Slough Estates has been granted outline planning permission to redevelop the Farnborough Airfield as a business park and most of the buildings on the site have been demolished. But, thanks to pressure from SAVE, and with the support of English Heritage, an area around the listed wind-tunnels was spared. This now forms a "development brief area" in which Slough has agreed not to demolish buildings until a brief has been prepared to consider the future of the key historic buildings and their setting. Q27, the original aircraft factory of 1910, has also been spared from demolition for the moment, although it stands outside the development brief area and without listing, its future remains very bleak.
So, for now, a reprieve has been earned. The development brief could become a useful framework in which the historic character of the remaining area can be protected. However, until new uses have been identified for the windtunnels and funding secured, the site will remain on the danger list.
Our concern about the future of Farnborough has brought to our attention the threats facing other aviation sites across the country.
One of these is RAF Bicester, the most completely preserved pre-war bomber base in the country. Remarkably it still has a grass airfield (no concrete runways here) as well as a full range of pre-war hangars and technical and domestic buildings in a mixture of neo-Georgian and modern styles, pleasantly laid out amongst the mature trees planted to camouflage them. The airfield is currently home to the services' Gliding School, but that is expected to pull out in the next few years.
The challenge is to conserve not just individual buildings, but the character of the whole base. This must mean the whole of the airfield itself as well as the buildings since is its the survival of both which makes the site unique and is, of course, the whole reason d'être of the place anyway. Bicester is a rapidly expanding town close to Oxford and the M40 and so the pressure for new housing on the site will be strong. As a first step the whole airfield must be designated a conservation area. In the longer term, the future should lie in the simple rule that the best use for a historic area or building is its original use. Continued flying, as a civilian light aircraft airfield, along with housing, workshops and offices would therefore be most sympathetic.
St George's Circus, Southwark, London
Mixed news. The 1820s terrace and pub on the Circus (a development laid out from the 1770s after plans by George Dance Jr) were threatened with demolition to make way for an overwhelming new teaching and sports block for South Bank University.
After intensive lobbying by SAVE and the Georgian Group, English Heritage was persuaded to reconsider its earlier decision not to recommend the group for listing and as a result the buildings are now listed Grade II. Subsequent pressure from English Heritage has also convinced Southwark Borough Council to consider designating a conservation area around the Circus.
South Bank University is yet to announce its new plans for the site. There is land behind the terrace that it may yet choose to develop though this would necessarily be quite different to the development it originally had in mind for the site.
Sadly, however, the omens about the university's attitude towards the site are not good. Recently it demolished the 1837 Sunday School behind the terrace, despite a request from English Heritage to leave the building until the conservation area had been designated. Although unlisted this charming building had ben identified as an important element of the proposed conservation area.
More encouragingly the two public meetings held to consider the proposals have been packed with local residents voicing an overwhelming desire to see the buildings retained and reused. University and Council representatives were given a grilling, but the University remains furious at the listings. Rather than now seeking to work with the local community, the Vice Chancellor remains unrepentant about the university's actions and has resorted to veiled threats about the future of the terrace. Unless South Bank is prepared to think a fresh and imaginatively about the site, and listen to the local community, the terrace may well remain derelict for years to come.
Happily we can now report that the new owner - inspired by SAVE campaigns for country houses - has undertaken repairs, starting with the roof, and is already occupying the mansion as his own family home. He intends to convert the stables to finance the work. More remarkably, the walled garden, once the subject of damaging enabling development proposals, has been sold for restoration - as a garden with a house in the potting sheds.
Battersea Power Station, London
In our last newsletter we contrasted the fate of Bankside power station with its cousin Battersea. While Bankside was transformed into the popular Tate Modern, Battersea remained derelict, the victim of a series of failed developer's schemes. Now Battersea's owners Parkview have been granted planning permission for a revised scheme for the site. The development, which covers the surrounding area as well as the power station itself, has been masterminded by Nicholas Grimshaw and Partners and Benoy. It will include a custom designed theatre for Cirque de Soliel, bars and cafes, shops, hotels, apartments and cinemas. The restoration of the power station is a condition of the consent and must be completed before the development can be occupied.Some details of the scheme have raised concerns, notably the glazed wall proposed by Grimshaw to replace the demolished western flank of the giant boiler house. However, the scheme is a substantial improvement on Parkview's earlier proposals, particularly because by and large it preserves the dramatic silhouette of the building, it's most striking characteristic. In the earlier scheme this was severely compromised by the scale of the new development clustered around the building. The developers are bullish about the future of Battersea, and we hope to see it being bought back into life, but, after so many false dawns we remain only cautiously optimistic.
When SAVE visited the site in May this year we found it in a very bad condition and it's future uncertain. However, as SAVE has learnt over the past 25 years, the possibility of a building being rescued should never be written off. The mill has now been bought by Urban Splash, a dynamic development company which has been responsible for a series of excellent conversion schemes in Manchester and Liverpool. The scale and location of Manningham represent enormous challenges, if anyone is likely to succeed it is probably Urban Splash.