Sir – In the controversy over skyline intrusions, there has been little debate on the strength and mechanism of controls.
Since this Government came in, the Department of Culture Media and Sport has stripped away funds and legislative underpinning from English Heritage and Local Planning Authorities (LPAs) while encouraging maximum freedom to develop in the interests of economic recovery.
A planner is always the lead official considering applications and, as there is no statutory requirement for an LPA to employ conservation officers, recent funding reductions have led to a 35 per cent drop in their full-time posts across the country. So the revelation that a well-respected heritage team’s concern for views of the city skyline was ignored is a worrying pointer to the future. In the 1960s, city architect, Douglas Murray, established a datum for absolute height limits on new buildings and thus saved the globally significant skyline. But city architects were long ago dismissed and if heritage protection expertise goes the same way, we will be left with development control entirely in the hands of officials with no background in design and apparently little interest in keeping their councillors informed on the impact of their decisions.
Thus lip service was paid to height reduction in Roger Dudman Way and, in Walton Street, architects appear free to ignore context and height limits and confidently assert that their particular style is worth seeing from every direction.
Meanwhile, the mess that is the ‘public realm’ in Frideswide Square (35 poles alone of traffic lights) and the bleak and windswept Cornmarket ‘redesign’, confirm the paucity of understanding in the city council of just what it is they are in charge of. At the very least, they need a wake-up call or a campaign for World Heritage Site status. Why it is not already is a mystery.
Robert Franklin, (Specialist conservation architect and historic buildings consultant), Clifton, nr Banbury