‘Ugliest building’ in Birmingham – and other planning flops Councillors vent spleen over potential carbuncles
IS this the ugliest building in Birmingham? A city centre hotel has been labelled Birmingham’s least attractive building after plans to expand it came before the council.
Proposals to almost double the number of bedrooms at The Royal Angus on St Chad’s Queensway and add a Pure Gym were passed by Birmingham City Council’s planning committee.
However, the building itself became the latest of a long line to be panned by the planning committee, with Councillor Gareth Moore (Con Erdington) saying it was the city’s most unsightly.
He said: “Following the demolition of Central Library, this has to be the ugliest building in Birmingham.”
Now new plans are set to be approved to take the hotel from 133 to 226 bedrooms by adding two storeys. The building will also undergo a facelift, which Councillor Moore felt was long overdue.
Other designs have also come in for criticism in the past : Plans for a modern glass 23-storey skyscraper rising above Birmingham’s historic Central Fire Station were rejected by city councillors in 2012 – who compared it to a tombstone.
John Clancy (Lab, Quinton), who is now council leader but was then on the planning committee, added: “It’s more a Yorkie Bar than a Toblerone.” Councillors last year criticised designs for the new University of Birmingham Library as like something from a Lego set. Planning committee member Councillor Peter Douglas Osborn (Con, Weoley) added: “It is completely out of character, if you had to give it a name it would be Art Lego.” Plans to add two storeys to a historic city centre office block led to complaints that it looks like a UFO hadlanded on top when they were submitted in 2011.
Developer Abstract Land wanted to add two stories to the 18th century Grade II-listed Wragge and Co offices in Colmore Row and proposed a modern rooftop.
Councillor Barry Henley (Lab, Brandwood) said at the time: “This modern glass lump destroys the elegence of the facade and mocks other buildings in the conservation area. In February 2009, Andy Foster from the city’s Conservative and Heritage Panel slammed the £200 million Beorma Quarter plans as out of character, distressing and lacking in architectural merit.
“It’s abominable. It’s like a punch in the face by an architectural fist,” he said. Revised plans to redevelop the historic Glynn Edwards Church Hall, in Acocks Green, were met with vehement opposition from conservation groups last year.
The Acocks Green Focus Group spokeswoman Julia Larden said: “The proposed new building is ugly.” Council architects were sent back to the drawing board in 2009 after designs for a new multi-storey car park were slammed as the “ugliest building in Birmingham” by the city’s own planning committee.
The £12 million green-tinted seven-storey car park (eventually toned down) built next to Millennium Point, was described by planning committee members as “hideous’”, “Brutalist”, “scary” and something that had been “shelled in Beirut”.