Britain is being demolished
Wake up: Britain is being demolished under our very noses
Almost by stealth, our built landscape is being transformed
Of course Britain has always been rebuilt, whether by the Romans, by the Georgians or by the Victorian railway pioneers flinging tracks across the countryside and into the heart of mediaeval cities. Industries grow up and die, settlements flourish and wilt, fashionable areas become slums, and then the slums themselves become fashionable. But today there is no doubt that we are, again, in a radical and far-reaching state of physical change and, if the government can sustain the pace, it is going to get faster and more furious. The strange thing is that for anyone in their late seventies this will all sound and look disconcertingly familiar.
In February 1943, with the bombs still dropping, the National Gallery opened an exhibition called Rebuilding Britain. It had been inspired by the Royal Institute of British Architects, who realised that the effects of bombing alone would mean that there would have to be a major physical reconstruction of the country when the war ended. It was a brave and very modern event putting to the public the scale of the opportunity and the risks if it all went wrong. The show ended with the cry, ‘The people of Britain will get the reconstruction they deserve.’
Now, with the distance of 60 years, we can judge whether the heroic optimism behind the dreams of postwar planners and architects did, in fact, give us the Britain we deserved. I believe that the returning war heroes did not, on the whole, get a Britain that was enhanced by outstanding new architecture and planning. In fact a very large part of the current massive building boom is replacing the failed concrete utopia described in Rebuilding Britain.
The seeds of British postwar reconstruction were in fact sown after the first world war, when people began to want to see a new type of city â” indeed, a new way of living â” that was distinct from the old world that had caused the war in the first place. The idea developed in the 1920s that we could create a new type of modern city for the future which, through the skills of planners and architects, could change the way people lived and thought.
Ultimately it took a second war to convince the politicians that the British city needed reinventing. Their vision was encapsulated in a new design for the bombed-out centre of Plymouth â” a new city dedicated to the department store and the motor car. The principles behind Plymouth affected almost every historic city in Britain. Almost wherever you go today the effects of postwar reconstruction can be felt. The division of towns into functional zones, civic, retail, leisure and residential; the creation of fast through-routes for traffic; the separation of pedestrians from traffic; the construction of shopping centres overlying the street plan; the replacement of suburban terraced housing by tower blocks and the demolition of Victorian civic buildings for new ones.
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Nyal Williams
November 15th, 2007 3:59pmWhy would I subscribe when your teaser beginning of an article is covered up by an ad for an automobile such that I can't even read your teaser?
Nicholas Millman
November 15th, 2007 10:25pmSimon Thurley's interesting article focusses on urban "re-generation" but fails to mention the "urbanisation" of the rural countryside under this government's watch. Densely packed computer-plotted mini-estates squeeze themselves into even the smallest villages, pavements, kerbstones and railings appear, there are signs everywhere - mirroring the new town hall "Do this, do that" nannyism. New roads weave between blocks of houses with no front gardens, no space. Nowhere it appears have planners or designers got to grips with building in harmony with the rural environment; the beauty of our small towns and villages is being laid waste by blatent greed. And don't let anyone spin that yarn of the need for low-cost housing and more houses; this is not about that. This is about making the most money from development and re-development and disregarding the impact on the visual environment. The very worst kind of short-termism that proliferates in 21st Century corporate Britain.
Herbert Thornton
November 16th, 2007 4:06amI already mentioned that I echo what Nyal Williams wrote. The car advert. is irritating.
Now I ask - why do I get a blank page when I try to read Paul Johnson's piece?
One-eye
November 19th, 2007 9:30amWe ain't seen nothing yet, millions more affordable homes, population 70 million by 2035-50. I dunno, where is all the short term - long term energy to come from to power all of this expansion? I reckon it's all a no brainer. Water availability is probably the biggest potential disaster waiting to happen. Just one long hot summer is all that it will take.
Minnie Ovens
November 21st, 2007 10:27amHow very true. There are very few post war buildings which live up to their Victorian counterparts. For instance, Chelsea and Kensington is a borough with a split personality Left with some of the most beautiful architecture in Britain it spent decades replacing this with concrete boxes. Yet they also have, at times, left the Victorian facades and rebuilt the interiors. This allows for the best of both worlds.
Laura Fox
November 21st, 2007 3:02pmYou selfish elitist! We have millions of young people unable to afford decent housing! Young couples delaying getting married for not being able to buy, and some times not even rent, a house! A home! Young couples delaying having children, and having to pay exorbitant rents on miniscule flats! In the XXI century! And you, the middle and upper classes, keep talking about “urban sprawl”, “green belts”, or "concreting over the countryside"! Flimsy, pitiful excuse! Less than 2% of British soil is built up! Yes, less than 2%! And in the Southeast less than 4%! If you doubt it, do a proper academic research, but with SOLID data - Don’t just quote each other… Or, just fly over Britain and see for yourselves! You may even fly out of Heathrow or Gatwick, and you will be amazed. The feeling of crowdedness is just consequence of ridiculously low levels of investments, in all areas, but particularly transport, and a criminal planning system. Similar rubbish happened in the 1920s, with the Kensington elites leading a sneering campaign at the then new middle-classes building their family homes in the suburbs. What about the basic human right for SHELTER! Basic! A HOME for my family! I am not demanding any luxury here! You just want to keep your houses prices up! And don’t even have the courage and decency of admitting or even realising it! Talk about “cognitive dissonance”! Repugnant. In many decent countries, when development brings better living standards to the people, the elite is happy with it. I've personally seen it in USA, Italy, Sweden and Netherlands. But Britain? No... Shame on you all! Disgusting!
Natalie Law
November 22nd, 2007 10:49amLaura Fox - you are the selfish one here. What gives on earth gives you the "right" to a home for "you and your family"? No doubt you also want a garden and bedroom for each of the endless number of children you may want to have, and if you are not in work no doubt you will also expect the state to pay for it. Moreover, the debate is not about stopping development, but the type and method of development. Why do you think the vast failed council estates of the 1960s are now being pulled down? They were also built due to the mistaken propaganda from people like you who demanded new homes be built at all costs. What's wrong with renovating an old home? There are 1 million empty homes in Britain - why don't you get off your backside and renovate one yourself?
gerry
November 22nd, 2007 4:00pmExcellent article with no obscuring advert. Hey guys, you need Firefox's "adblock plus".
Nicholas Millman
November 24th, 2007 12:49amLaura, you sound like someone strident and right-on who missed out on buying a home because you spent too long camped outside Greenham Common. Natalie is spot on. This is not about stopping development but about the way it is being done. Perhaps you need to spend more time reading and understanding what people have actually written than shouting, placard waving and name-calling?
Peter York
November 24th, 2007 5:40pmSimon Hurley makes a good point and appears to be concentrating on the nature of rather than the extent of development. Why have we not been able to create a modern aesthetic which is appreciated?
The tawdry character of our general urban environment appears to be a lack of imagination and lack of care rather than lack of funding.
Roger Inkpen
November 25th, 2007 11:32amHousing I agree with Laura Fox. This is all down to nimbyism. Sometimes those who complain about excess development argue that they want better quality homes and towns. Of course we all want this, but if anyone ever hints that some field will be built on, the protests start. If you want better homes, how about coming up with serious proposals, unlike the luddites at CPRE who think we can make do with the odd 2-3 homes built at any one location. We need new towns. No, not dictated by the state, but preferably between the developers and the people who will live there. These need to be planned where are there are decent transport links already, so that you won’t get the situation we have in a new town built between Portsmouth and Southampton, which is already looking like a ghost town just 10 years after being built with its only access from a congested motorway link road. Besides, I don’t understand why all the fuss about the Gorgon’s housing plans. Just like so much else he and his predecessor announced: the integrated transport policy, NHS improvements, better education, environmental changes, it won’t happen as they aren’t capable.
Laura Fox
April 25th, 2008 4:35pmNatalie and Nicholas,
My husband and I both university graduated. He graduated in 1998 and helped me to graduate in 2003. Since then, in career-starting jobs, we started trying to save for a deposit, and tried to qualify for a mortgage. But as you probably foresaw, from the years of our graduations, the housing market boom has kept ahead of us.
No, we have NEVER used any state benefit, and don't want any either. If we could by a little plot, at normal land price, we could build our own house = home! But planning blocks us from it.