Historic street lines hold key to future

Mansell Jagger is right to applaud the efforts made by Canterbury City Council to ‘mend’ Canterbury after the universally accepted disasters of post-war redevelopment (Architect’s Unfair Attack On Planners, Letters and Opinion, Kentish Gazette, March 17).

But he perhaps also needs to accept that there should be some public debate about some aspects of the recent past where the council’s 1980s vision was compromised, if only to help us understand what might come next.

Perhaps the worst aspect of the immediate post-war rebuilding works in Canterbury had been the imposition of new wide, straight and characterless roadways.

These ignored the old street patterns that had existed for centuries and thereby had none of the intimacy of the old Canterbury.

The justification for this had been, in part, to offer new views of the cathedral, especially across a modern Longmarket.

Such an approach was in contrast to other bombed cities in Europe that favoured a like-for-like reconstruction of what had been lost following the old street lines.

Acknowledging the failure of the 1960s Longmarket, in 1987 the city council issued a planning brief that called for the faithful and accurate re-creation of the Longmarket site as it had been before the wartime bombing.

It called for two things: the remaking of buildings in the style of those that had existed before the bombing and the faithful remaking of the pre-war street pattern, which included the covered Longmarket Arcade.

However, as Mr Jagger acknowledges, this vision was only partially achieved and the requirement to reinstate the old street layout was not fully carried through.

This established a compromise approach that shaped subsequent development.

Walking down Butchery Lane now, where both aspects of the council’s vision were fully achieved, there is a sense of something that is complete and authentic, even though one half of the present lane was re-created after 1987.

This is as much due to the reinstated medieval street lines as to the design of the individual buildings themselves.

However, once it was conceded the shape of the 1960s Longmarket Square would be retained in the new redevelopment, the logic and rigour of this approach was compromised.

As a consequence, with the streets eastwards, it was no longer possible to reinstate the historic street lines with authenticity and architects found that they were simply ‘redressing’ awkward post-war building blocks in loosely prewar architectural styles.

Looking at Burgate east of the Longmarket, Iron Bar Lane and the redeveloped areas around the former St George’s church clock tower, all demonstrate a resulting building pattern that is neither ‘historic’ nor ‘modern’.

It may be less offensive than what preceded it, but without the uneven, irregular layout of the medieval city street pattern to define it the continuity of these areas with the rest of the city remains broken.

By way of contrast, the City of London has rigorously defended its medieval layout but has allowed some spectacular and modern buildings.

As these follow the ancient street pattern they do retain the medieval integrity of the city as an holistic entity.

Looking back to the historic areas of Canterbury, it is amazing what a mix of building styles and forms exist, all of which are accommodated in a street pattern that has slowly evolved over 800 years.

It may be that Mr Jagger is right to say that in practice it was too difficult to restore Canterbury’s ancient street patterns and that the council’s brave vision of 1987 was overly optimistic.

But it is the loss of the authentic street pattern that has left the redeveloped eastern end of the city feeling detached, bland and perhaps a bit disappointing.

It feels like an opportunity missed and one must wonder what might have been achieved had the city been able to stick to its initial vision.

We might have regained more of the old atmospheric Canterbury but reinterpreted in new ways.

Certainly, in whatever new development is proposed, it is very much hoped that the city council will place significant emphasis on the reinstatement of the prewar street pattern where it has been lost. Ptolemy Dean Architect, Borough High Street, London

The building regulations were changed to allow this poorly-tested system to generate 15 years of unsafe blocks.

The plot of the drama should have been completely different.

There have been many disastrous fires since then in similar blocks, some during their build period.

The owners of those books and their neighbours had their lives devastated; the community raised money to help those who had lost everything but had no insurance.

In the meantime, Bellway, the Newcastle-based developer of The Tannery, has had a 55% increase in profits in the last two years and has an asset value of £2.98 billion.

I asked it to contribute just a few pounds to that fund completely without prejudice, but all I received was an unpleasant reply.

Sounds like the pantomime villain Baron Bellway.

Clearly it is not its fault, but the lesson should be ‘Do not build or rebuild like that’.

Sadly, we have big national builders such as Bellway that take cash from the local economy but don’t seem to give much back.

So please can we have a happy ending to Act Three… not another re-run of the same drama.

Proper fireproof separating walls are needed.

The Tannery should go down in history as The Disaster That Changed the Rules.

Maybe on a damp dusty jacket of one of those books that title is written.

So please, dear readers, give those books the power of literature to change ideas. Nicholas Blake Leycroft Close, Canterbury