Fresh threat to symbol of city’s heritage
ONE OF Hull’s best-known landmarks and last standing memento of its once mighty fishing industry could be razed to the ground.
Owners Manor Properties have submitted plans to Hull Council to demolish the historic Lord Line Building on St Andrews Dock, seen every day by thousands of motorists on the nearby A63, and adjoining Pump House.
The owner claims despite the “total loss of heritage significance”, demolition would cause “less than substantial harm” and provide “clear benefits to health and safety”.
There have been at least three attempts in the last 20 years to knock down the building, which overlooks the dock where the fleet used to berth.
The building, which once housed radio and communications, trawler owner offices, netting and engineering, is on the local list of architecturally and historically significant buildings where it is described as an “important landmark building and monument to the Hull fishing industry”. However, it has been plagued by vandalism and arson.
The building stands next to the nationally listed Pump House, which was built about 1870, and originally provided power for the dock estate. Campaigner Adam Fowler has been fighting for nearly 30 years to save the building. In 2010, he and the city council, together with the then-Hull West and Hessle MP Alan Johnson, persuaded the regional development agency Yorkshire Forward to buy the dock. However, the body was scrapped by the incoming coalition Government and the sale did not go ahead.
Mr Fowler said: “Should the council give consent to demolish these two buildings the visible presence and reminder of Hull’s historic St Andrews Dock will be effectively erased.”