Missing point on Brutalist buildings

DEAR Editor, I have to agree with the Birmingham’s conservationists and architects “post- war landmarks” letter. I think that Cllr Henley ( Post, December 1) is missing the point about the destruction of the old Central Library and other ‘Brutalist’ buildings in Birmingham.

Perfectly good buildings with years of life left in them are being destroyed in the name of economic growth.

Successive BCC administrations have blindly followed this path. As a member of the Green Party I would prefer that we avoid needlessly using the embedded energy required for new buildings and thereby reduce emissions, and provide work and jobs maintaining, repairing and restoring existing buildings.

In my lifetime two well functioning central libraries in Birmingham have now been bulldozed.

John Madin’s library, we are told, needed £38 million to restore it after years of neglect. The truth is that his library was built on the cheap and not to his original specifications, and was then overwhelmed by shops. Hence it had some defects and this, together with a lack of maintenance, was used as an excuse to get rid of it (as well as the soundly built Conservatoire) in order to create a new Paradise Circus complex full of yet more shops and expensive hotels.

This country’s energy and and the world’s finite resources are being used up in this continual replacement of buildings.

To add insult to injury the new Library of Birmingham has been built featuring vast areas of unusable space, poor facilities, and less staff and opening hours.

Despite a loan of £186m requiring expensive repayment over many years and a payment to Capita (consultants), it has still turned out not to be viable and has had to be subsidised by transferring the Brasshouse Language Centre’s classes to a very unsuitable new environment with fewer support and learning facilities.

Language students are now beginning to vote with their feet and, unless ways are found to improve this environment, the income from these classes will significantly reduce and the Council will introduce further cost-cutting measures.

Two more thoughts. Had the council not spent so much money on building the new library, would it have needed to ruthlessly