The direction the council, and their apologists are leading us is wrong and disastrously wrong. Of course, it's all about money. Either money for greedy developers or the council, who are increasingly desperate to balance their books. And this is the reason why the proposals before us are so monstrously oversized.
They bear no visual resemblance to their elegant surroundings because the people responsible, amazingly, don't think it's important. People who don't understand our environment and care even less, call themselves 'modernists'. Not only do their buildings not relate to anything except the designer's private thoughts, their creators actually despise the surroundings.
This is why none of the big building schemes before us shows us the public spaces where their colossal shadows will fall. Even in Brighton, our skies are relatively overcast; we need our sun. This is not southern California. This is why their buildings are concrete and glass or even titanium (I kid you not). And nothing to do with the local vernacular or even showing some understanding of the qualities which made this place so desirable in the first place.
What happened to the famous monorail that was going to built? Have we suddenly found more roadspace for the cars and has pollution gone down? I don't think so. Our beautiful seafront is world-famous. Row after row of listed historic buildings in conservation areas. Why spoil this? Remember, we do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.
We need more housing. People need to be close to the streets, trees, shops and buses. Somewhere you can keep a cat. Real, robust, adaptable city streets can be built. Look at Paris or Barcelona and there are parts of Oxford and Brighton which do the job pretty well. The thought of hoisting affordable housing up massive scale tower blocks right on the seafront is a terrible idea. We tried tower blocks in the Sixties. Do we never learn?
But isn't it strange how shrill and offensive the money-makers have become? Perhaps they suspect that we, the people of Brighton and Hove, are not convinced by their nonsense. We need to be thoughtful and sustainable. We've been carefully nurturing and improving our city over the years. Let's keep doing it. But we have been doing it our way, at our speed, in our own style, safely, carefully and for a truly sustainable Green future.
This is our city. This is our home. Let the monster-builders go and spoil somewhere else!
| NIMROD PING trained as an architect and is a former Labour Councillor. He is now a Green Party activist and student (again). |
