Well, you have provoked something Jim! At least someone shares your view that the new Holiday Inn is “a lovely new building”. Leaving questions of taste aside, if views of new buildings are to form the criteria of a desirable place to live, then by all means bulldoze the remainder of Brentford’s waterfront and turn it into a fresh, modern “anywhere” town. But why move here in the first place, when as Marion notes in another posting, such environments exist elsewhere?Certainly much could and should be done about the general air of dereliction, but as I’ve often pointed out, the dereliction is a direct result of deliberate policy by speculators, to provoke such reactions. Thriving businesses were bought out and their premises allowed to decay. The remaining businesses have had all incentive to improve their properties removed in a climate of uncertainty as to the future. That could be simply addressed by a change in Council policy, encouraging long established commercial enterprises offering local employment, to upgrade, and penalising those who have destroyed so many others.I will be first to admit that much could be done to smarten up the boatyards for example, but it needs security and confidence in the future to invest towards that. And there will always be those who will view such premises as “dreadful” regardless, because such operations are necessarily “untidy”, especially when tidally dependant. For every Marion who cannot abide such unsanitised spectacles of a working waterside environment, there are many more who value them as an integral, genuine part of a diverse and living community. To quote the author Philip Pullman in commenting upon British Waterways’ appeal to turn an Oxford boatyard into flats:“The character of this part of Oxford is very ancient, quite unmistakable, entirely unique, and now, alas, in some peril. It would be very easy to damage it by carelessly allowing inappropriate development. It’s obvious that some changes are inevitable, and indeed necessary, but above all we should try to retain the rich mix of things that have built themselves up over the centuries. To turn a living, active, mixed and working community into yet another bland and corporate dormitory would be a crime against civilized living.”
Nigel Moore ● 7219d