School as valid as monastic remains PHOTO

READERS’ OF THE WEEK

I too must support Keith Bothwell’s call for the preservation of the Langton Girls’ school buildings as a fine example of a post-war Art Deco school building [‘Calls to save ‘elegant’ school from bulldozer’, Gazette, February 28]. Obviously after 50 years few buildings can be classed as state-of-the-art but that is not necessarily an excuse for demolition. Their historical and artistic quality should be considered, and whether the structure and interior can be restored without recourse to demolition. It is reported that there are more than 600 defects with parts having fallen into “significant disrepair”. One could interpret this as suggesting the building is either unsafe, in which case, why is it still in use; or rather, that the local education authority has failed to carry out repairs or updating when necessary?

To create a new building with the present one still fully in use is going to be a complex operation whatever is decided. It was proposed that it would be rebuilt in phases with the school transferring in sections as completed. Surely instead and at less cost, a substantial upgrading can be undertaken to eradicate these 600 supposed defects by moving sections or departments into temporary classrooms in the grounds, while the work is undertaken. This might in any case be a good incentive to get the work completed quickly.

If we simply took the view that this or that school, or buildings, are not stateof-the-art, we would have destroyed half the historic schools in England, as indeed has happened to many whose loss we now mourn. If Walter Gropius’s Impingham Village College in Cambridgeshire from 1938-39, and similar Bauhaus-inspired schools of the period can be adapted, surely so can the Langton Girls’. To say a building is simply not state-of-the-art is a rather nebulous phrase. Supposing we totally rebuild the Langton building. what will it be in say 30 or 50 years time, certainly not then ‘state-of-the-art’?.

Finally, in the fast-changing world where buildings, and indeed whole neighbourhoods, change with increasing rapidity, a school might be the one institution whose memory remains as a beacon of happy years as former pupils grow old. There are probably thousands of Old Langtonians spread across the world who look back with affection to that 1950s building and its green surroundings in Old Dover Road. More than that, it is a period contribution to Canterbury’s rich architectural heritage and is as valid as the monastic remains in the Precincts or the Georgian terraces at the corner of London Road.

and the Green Belt. Safeguarded Land ensures the protection of Green Belt … by reserving land which may be required to meet longer-term development needs without the need to alter Green Belt boundaries….”

There is thus no implication whatever that safeguarded land has been pre-allocated for development in the short term. More specifically, the NPPF says that “local planning authorities should make clear that the safeguarded land is not allocated for development at the present time. Planning permission for the permanent development of safeguarded land should only be granted following a Local Plan review …” (my emphasis).

So, when Rob Davies for the council says that “… the new location has already been agreed in the Local Plan and … tested thoroughly …” he is, unusually for him, talking nonsense. The Local Plan simply protects the area from development pending an application from the council which, under the NPPF, requires a Local Plan review. Neither the development in principle of the park and ride extension, nor the planning application in detail, can be prejudged by the designation of the area as safeguarded land.

If the council carries on with this regardless of the rules and public opinion it is likely to find its decisions successfully challenged by those who cherish our riverbanks and green spaces.