Prospective developers have exhibited early proposals to demolish the elegant, 1930's building and replace it with 400 student housing units with retail on the ground floor. Irrespective of the architectural merits of the replacement, or the desirability of student housing in this concentration in this particular area, prior concerns arise.
The developer claims that conversion of the existing building is unviable but fails to provide any supporting evidence for this statement. One might ask unviable for what? Is conversion simply "unviable" in relation to the amount of profit they hope to make or just for student housing? It was claimed that the Royal Alexandra Hospital could not be viably converted to housing yet after a long-running campaign by local amenity societies and residents, and a costly public enquiry, Wimpey was finally persuaded that a sensitive conversion of the historic main building to apartments was feasible and an important feature of the Dyke Road streetscape was saved for posterity.
The developer also claims that the replacement building will be to high standards of sustainability but, of course, neglects the inherent unsustainability and waste of demolishing a large, high-quality building, carting away scores of lorry loads of rubble to dump in land-fill 50 miles away, and then rebuilding with new masonry, newly-felled timber, newly-mined metals. Nor is it required of developers to concern themselves with the extra disruption to shoppers, residents and traffic that rebuilding would cause compared with conversion.
It seems unfortunate that the city planning department has not been able or willing to give the prospective developer any overarching guidance on these matters.
I complete agree with you. I think it's absolutely shocking that they are thinking of tearing down this beautiful building. The plans said that the new building (if the redevelopment goes ahead) would be of 'a contemporary design'. I looked at the plans yesterday and that simply seems to mean that the new high-rise building will look just like every other new block of flat currently being built in Brighton just now.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe that building student accommodation on this large scale is going to do anything to regenerate the London Road area. The only effect this will have will be more fast food restaurants and places selling cheap booze opening up.
As usual this seems to be nothing more than a poorly thought out, get rich quick scheme and shows very poor judgement on the part of the council if they allow this. What the area needs is more varied shopping opportunities for local residents. Not a high-rise student house which is miles away from Sussex University.
It is early days of course David, No planning application yet, but one might have hoped that the council would have steered developers away from this kind of scheme. Perhaps they are grateful for any suggestions . .
ReplyDeleteI agree with what's been said and would add that a modern 7-storey block of flats of 400 units is completely inappropriate and out of scale for a location in London Road. As a resident of the nearby Triangle area who uses London Road regularly for shopping, banking, etc., I must warn residents living near the Co-op that having such a high concentration of students in their area is no picnic. The building could be converted into an elegant block of fewer flats for non-student residents, with of course the retail outlets at street level.
ReplyDeleteGood point about sustainability – it's infinitely more eco-friendly to refurb than to demolish and rebuild, and modern technologies can do a lot to bring an existing building up to speed. Surely the new Green council will understand this?
ReplyDeleteThe Greens are now seeking a meeting with the architects- Pete West will meet them to pose further questions. This is a good and proactive start. Thank you Greens.....Keep going. Make the architect/developers/university accountable and answerable where responses to the 'viability' issue have not been forthcoming thus far.
ReplyDeleteThank you Curtis for the update. Cautiously promising . . .
ReplyDeleteCurtis Tappenden touches on this delicate subject in his latest column for The Sussex Newspaper. Read on...
ReplyDeleteCurtis and son-off the hook and hitting the boards!
www.15minutesonline.com
Curtis's article: http://www.15minutesonline.com/columnists/2941-curtis-and-son-off-the-hook-and-hitting-the-boards.html
ReplyDeleteThe one thing that has always struck me is that the council are considering spending millions on the adjacent Open Market and putting it all indoors (I thought the "open" bit was meant to hint at what to expect?). Now, it occurs to me that rather than stupidly destroying both landmarks by turning them into the faceless, homogenised blocks which seem to make up the mainstay of Brighton's new developments, why not move the Open Market into the Coop Building and create a new development on the grounds of the Open Market? This would tick all boxes in that it would keep the bohemian character of the market (a la Snooper's Paradise), keep the character and feel of the Coop building along with the internal layout and also keep down costs: It would be a lot more pricey to modify the Cooperative building than the resultant groundwork involved in bulding on the site of the Open Market.
ReplyDeleteBrighton has long been famous for its easygoing and curiosity generating atmosphere in the shopping areas and it cannot be allowed to be erroded under the mistaken guise of "stunning new developments". I only hope that Selma Montford steps in, as she seems to have a considerable amount of clout where it comes to what should or shouldn't be built in Brighton.
Noooooooooooooooooooooo!!, please save this building from such redevelopment. We need more shops on the London Road - and a new department store is what is most needed. Surely there is a BHS/Debenhams that could buy the building and use it?. I need to speak to Selma, in fact we ALL do!
ReplyDeleteThe problem is that Brighton is not a top rank location for the famous stores, John Lewis is one that was mentioned; and London Road, notwithstanding Council efforts remains run down. If a Cooperative couldn't survive there, what hope is there to attract anyone else? With hindsight one can see that the best outcome would have been some kind of community effort to persuade the Coop to stay, perhaps in a contracted form on the ground floor, with the rest of the building converted to other purposes.
ReplyDeleteI might have missed something... does anyone know who owns the site? Has it been picked up yet by St.James Investments (i.e. Tesco) like so much of London Rd. on the West Side towards Preston Circus? (tThough it looks like their plans for a big smarket there are on hold for the mo.)
ReplyDeleteIt is owned by the Cooperative Society. At the time that St James's were buying up property on the west side of London Road it was said they weren't interested in the Coop site because of the lacking of potential parking space.
ReplyDeleteBrighton needs another Department Store anchor but unfortunately House of Fraser or John Lewis would not consider this site as it is too far from the City Centre of Brighton and they will want to be located nearer to the main city centre.
ReplyDeleteIt was a real shame when Hanningtons closed. Saying that Brighton seems to be declining as a city centre. In 12 years it's really gone downhill so much so that I have to say Canterbury has much better stores in terms of Department stores vis a vis Brighton.
Does anyone know if the building was given a local listing ?
ReplyDeleteYes, it was added to the local list on 29th March this year.
DeleteListing means it's unlikely to be knocked down, but saying that it restricts what it could be turned over tooo, and saying that there is nothing to stop them destroying the interior of the building even if it is listed. Is it grade 2 listed?
DeleteIt is not on English Heritage list at all. It is on the Council's local list of buildings of special interest.
ReplyDelete