Running on from the last post, here are the colonnades by the river with vast arched areas underneath which would make such good shops and restaurants. Can you imagine a warm Summer evening with people sitting and chatting at candlelit tables under there? Well Bath City Council obviously can't.
This photo comes from the official 'Visit Bath' tourist website. It is to encourage young couples to propose to each other at one of Bath's many picturesque locations. All the screaming hen-parties tend to go for the bars. Our compact but adorable city apartment is actually in this shot. That's how lucky we are.
Believe it or not, this colonnaded area and associated buildings was once Europe's largest covered market, with over 700 stalls. It even had its own slaughterhouse for meat. Live cattle would be driven to the open market just down the road, then the carcasses would be sent by river on a boat and offloaded here. Just the place to propose to your loved one.
When the city elders discussed putting the development of the colonnades into design stage, the best idea they came up with was a massive, ugly, steel and glass lift/elevator taking up most of the pavement on the street above.
The reason for this? So that people could avoid walking through the medieval gate shown in the previous post. Perhaps you are beginning to understand why I despise architects and planners so much.
I don't know which I despair of most, architects or planners. There is not a lot separating them. I lived with a Town Planner for 8 years in Newcastle and watched him and his department destroy much of the heart of Newcastle. Architects lack vision, or perhaps it is those who make decisions on ideas submitted who lack the vision, and planners are jobsworths and vision doesn't even come into it.
ReplyDeleteYou can throw another bunch into the mix too - developers. These days, all big builders are developers by nature. Any building which has not been listed is in great danger of being bulldozered to make way for a hideous architects vision, which is going to be in the cheapest type of construction legally available. Bath's most destructive builder - Cyril Beazer - made his millions from re-building areas bombed in WW2, and then moved on to blitzing whole Georgian streets in the 1960s and replacing them with concrete block buildings to consolidate his fortune. He began life as an ordinary stone mason, and we all know what they are like.
DeleteAnd for Newcastle Poulson and T Dan Smith scandal refers.
DeleteIt is a beautiful view. Where I live, the developers are the worst. Snap up every square inch of property. They have no sense of preservation, only money.
ReplyDeleteSame all over. As fast a return as possible.
DeleteCertain things are so bloody obvious to those who hold no power; and are lost on those who do!
ReplyDeleteI think it is more a case of those in power under pressure to capitalise on assets for the fastest returns. No foresight due to the demands of investors.
DeleteThose who issue the permits and put up much of the infrastructure have to deal with the developers who explain how much more it will set back the taxpayers to maintain the beauty everyone is accustomed to. So, the "compromise" is ugly degradation. Progress, you know.
ReplyDeleteRemember the ten years I spent recording the degradation of a beautiful red barn. Now it is expensive homes on forty foot lots. Everyone must live somewhere, I suppose.
Everyone in power is obsessed with the goal of perpetual growth.
DeleteWhere ever you turn around here = as soon as you actually leave the national park - things become a bit of an eyesore. Miles of large 4 and 5 bedroom houses abound on the outskirts of some towns and yet loval young people are having to move away because of lack of affordable housing.
ReplyDeleteAnd the reason that they gave the builders permission to fling up so many houses was to provide affordable accommodation. It is a disgrace.
DeleteSorry, obviously meant 'local'
ReplyDeleteIt’s all about money and not about aesthetics nowadays ...... it annoys me so much. As I’ve said to you many times, you live in such a beautiful city and I’m a teensy bit envious .... no, I’m enormously envious. XXXX
ReplyDeleteOk, you win. We swap, but we swap everything.
DeleteDoes that mean that I live with H.I and you live with my husband ?!!! XXXX
DeleteNo, I am afraid not. We just have your house and whatever other assets in your name. You have our beautiful views and location. Deal?
DeleteI’ll think about it 🤔 XXXX
DeleteSame here in Canada. We have a walls and walls of condos clad in blue glass all along the waterfront. Developers and the compromises they demand help only themselves.
ReplyDeleteYour city is beautiful.
The medieval city was almost completely destroyed to build the Georgian one, so I suppose they are just following a tradition.
DeleteIt is such an elegant part of Bath with Pulteney Bridge and that view down to Holburne Museum, the wide street of immaculate Georgian houses. I remember the old Guildhall market, still part of the past and turning its nose up at the 'posh' shops of Milsom Street.
ReplyDeleteThe Guildhall Market is great. There is the only hardware shop in Bath in it.
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