Old Fire Station and Chapel, York
Quite a lot of objection made to this application to demolish a whole street in a conservation area in York:
I’d be very surprised if this gets passed, as the people of York tend to rally in these situations, however there are quite a number of letters of support for this proposal, which I find odd. I would like to know how much of a vested interest some of the supporter have for the development. I can not fathom why a resident of York would take time and effort to write to the council to support the demolition of a beautiful cluster of buildings within arms length of Clifford’s Tower. Perhaps they are iconoclasts, or perhaps they genuinely do support more houses/cars in the narrow streets of York City centre, but from my own experience on the dark side (planning consultancy), it is generally favours called in by the developer.
Pubs being flattened in South Yorkshire
A couple of applications to demolish pubs in South Yorkshire:
The Travellers Rest Inn, Pogmoor, Barnsley:
The Thorncliffe Arms, Chapeltown, Sheffield:
The Thorncliffe Arms is over 200 years old and its loss will be lamented by the local community, as indicated by the coverage this application has received in the local press:
http://www.thestar.co.uk/news/councillors-lament-loss-of-200-year-old-sheffield-pub-1-7349329
The Travellers Rest Inn is also a good robust building that has served as a community asset for well over 100 years.
Unfortunately there is not much we can do about the market for pubs – if residents of Pogmoor or Chapeltown don’t want to go to pubs any more, they will close. However, that is always subject to change, and rather like Beeching pulling up the railways, demolishing community infrastructure is short sighted. A retail use or otherwise would offer a mothballing scenario, and perhaps one day, when suburban culture feels the need to socialise again, a pub would be viable.
And there are no excuses. The planning legislation to allow local authorities, or neighbourhood planning groups to block these demolitions exists.
Unforgivable demolition of theatre in Hoyland
Speechless……
Wish I had come across this before the permission was curtly passed.
Hoyland is a small town in South Yorkshire, with a decimated centre that was formally a microcosm of Victorian creativity and urban thinking. This building is without a doubt the most impressive example of the era that remains in the centre (please explore street view to see what is left of the centre of the town). First used as a playhouse, then as a cinema, the building has remained redundant for a while, and after having been snapped up by Commercial Development Projects Ltd is now to be flatted to be replaced by:
I just can not understand firstly how the consultant architect can write a design and access that condemns the building to demolition (oh yeah thats right, money), and secondly, how the planning officer can not at least get this to a committee.
To lose this last vestige of Victorian splendour in Hoyland would be a cultural crime, and I’ll be setting about doing everything I can to stop it being even scraped by a bulldozer.
(Hopefully) more to follow…
The Demolition Register 