Needless destruction

This is yet one more demonstration of civic vandalism that Bradford Metropolitan Council can add to its long and ignominious list. They lack wit, imagination and common sense. They are destroyers, close in spirit to the small child who takes delight in knocking down a tower of bricks, but then doesn’t know how to build it back up again.

In the 16th century, Henry VIII authorised the destruction of numerous monastic institutions, which is why Yorkshire is so rich in wonderful romantic ruined remains. His reasons were political and institutional, but also financial.

In the Victorian period, too many ‘Gothic’ enthusiasts were over-zealous in their destruction of the medieval parts of buildings that had survived for hundreds of years. They replaced the bits they didn’t approval of in a style they did approve; but these were designed by Victorian architects, often of mediocre ability. It is one of the sadder legacies of what came to be known as the Gothic Revival. At least the destroyers in this case were motivated by religious idealism, however much misplaced.

A further example of this despicable historical process is to ask what happened to our towns and cities after the Second World War? It is reasonably estimated that post-war planners destroyed more good buildings than the Luftwaffe had managed to hit. Bradford is still widely regarded as a primary culprit in this despicable national process. The destroyers in this situation based their purpose on a dubious notion of human progress, an insecure grasp of what modernist architecture could achieve, and a desperate urgency to provide mass housing as cheaply as possible. At least they had a faint idea of the general good.

What motivates these current destroyers? They seem reluctant to say. It isn’t time that eats away at the architectural legacy; it is the activities of short-term, myopic elected officials, with their own special interests; they feel they ought to do something, even when they are not quite sure what that something is.

During the past 18 months, I have written a number of times on this issue to the Keighley News. I have tried to draw attention to aspects the councillors seem happy to ignore; the compatibility of these buildings with those that surround them; how this in itself, classified as criteria for Grade II listing, which Historic England refused to grant, in spite of supporting a general feeling the buildings should be saved; similarly, about the national importance of these buildings (under the guidance of Sir Swire Smith) in the context of reform towards universal accessible education in the latter decades of the 19th century; also the durability and consequent adaptability of such buildings. They are not dissimilar to the mill buildings you recently described as yet another tearing out of ‘the heart’ of Keighley – their disappearance, often mysterious.

How can Bradford Metropolitan Council go ahead with this scheme? They are destroying perfectly sound buildings and they will replace them with a big, shiny, shimmering glass box as flimsy as the thinking behind it. They will spend £19 million on a building that everybody laughed at when the artist’s impression was presented in your pages some months ago. Even those people who were in favour of a new building thought it poor. This is taking place at a time when that same council is wringing its hands in distress about the severe financial cuts in the offing. This has been described as a ripping out of the heart of Keighley’s community, meaning Keighley’s ability or inability to look after its people. Well, how ironic Bradford will simultaneously rip out the heart of Keighley by destroying those old buildings across from the Town Hall Square.

CHRISTOPHER ACKROYD Bethel Street, East Morton