The government’s building programme has caused the destruction of the country’s heritage ‘at an alarming rate’, according to a new report. Pathfinder, Building Schools for the Future and the academies programme are singled out for blame by Save Britain’s Heritage in its new Buildings at Risk register published this week.
Individual gems have been lost as well as swathes of decent housing stock that could have been refurbished, the report argued. It comes as a BSF scheme by Jestico & Whiles in Hackney led to the demolition of a 1964 educational centre while it was being considered for listing by English Heritage. Campaigners condemned the council’s destruction of the building on Morning Lane which was designed by Stillman Eastwick-Field.
Jon Wright from the Twentieth Century Society said the case was a “total scandal” and called for interim protection of buildings being assessed. “It’s difficult to work out if it’s a bureaucratic disaster or something more sinister,” he said. “It’s not illegal but it’s cynical, underhand and against good governance.”
Will Palin, director of Save, said it was ‘very odd’ that the destruction should be initiated by one government agency – Partnerships for Schools – while another was considering listing it. He questioned how many similar cases go unreported. The Save report highlighted a Victorian school in another part of east London – Jamiatul Ummah in Tower Hamlets – whose demolition has been approved despite a pending listing decision. It also records the loss of the Edwardian St Aidan’s County High School in Carlisle and the 18th-century Mill House in Staffordshire, both replaced by academies, and Leigh Girls’ Grammar near Wigan, a victim of BSF.
Earlier this year BD revealed that 70% of completed BSF schools were new builds, despite Partnerships for Schools’ target of 50%. Palin said: ‘When BSF was launched there were reassurances that it wouldn’t result in mass demolition but the reality has turned out to be very different. Pathfinder is the monster. Over £2 billion of government subsidy is injected into a programme which has resulted in the demolition of 15,000 terraced houses… At a time of housing shortage the government has demolished four times as many houses as they have rebuilt.”
The government is expected to make an announcement on the future of BSF in the next few weeks.
BD Online: LINK
