Comments on: The Ruins Of The Fruit & Wool Exchange https://spitalfieldslife.com/2015/09/11/the-ruins-of-the-fruit-wool-exchange/ In the midst of life I woke to find myself living in an old house beside Brick Lane in the East End of London Wed, 09 Dec 2015 20:38:48 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 By: Sally Brown https://spitalfieldslife.com/2015/09/11/the-ruins-of-the-fruit-wool-exchange/#comment-1058557 Wed, 09 Dec 2015 20:38:48 +0000 http://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=138135#comment-1058557 I complained to the Mayor’s office & here follows an extract from the reply I received from the Senior Strategic Planner: “The Mayor’s London Plan recognises the importance of London’s heritage which include listed buildings, registered historic parks and gardens and other natural and historic landscapes, conservation areas, World Heritage Sites, registered battlefields, scheduled monuments, archaeological remains and memorials. London Plan policies help ensure that London’s heritage is maintained and enhanced.” It would be laughable if it wasn’t so tragic.

I was 100% behind Boris at the start but my admiration has turned to horror and dismay. I totally agree with the comments above: the man’s a Philistine and a greedy and destructive vandal.

I am currently composing an email to Boris’s office with ccs to The Guardian, the Evening Standard, the local Councillor, the local MP and the Daily Mail (for what it’s worth). And a very good idea to get Prince Charles on to it – I will try that too (https://www.princeofwales.gov.uk/contact-us)

]]> By: Tom https://spitalfieldslife.com/2015/09/11/the-ruins-of-the-fruit-wool-exchange/#comment-1037191 Tue, 13 Oct 2015 23:46:20 +0000 http://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=138135#comment-1037191 I flatly refuse to believe that this is justifiable. If the council votes it down, the public are against and it’s a structurally sound piece of conservation architecture that can comfortably be reapropriated as a mixture of medium business, textile, tech, entrepreneurial space (Berlin is poaching this now from London) with a satisfactory amount of social housing ensuring it remains a vibrant, mixed area that serves us all – then this is greed.

What the point of following procedure if Boris seduced by international mega bucks squashes it all anyway?

I genuinely believe the only key to saving the amazing Norton Folgate warehouses and having them protected and reapropriated and the bishopsgate good yard development being drastically scaled down and more responsible is to get Prince Charles on it. Seriously, pressure to release his private letters to MPs showed he had a huge part in saving smith fields market and was furious about the demolition of bishopsgate station in 2005. I believe if we campaigned to bring this to his attention with a mind time protecting these streets and original buildings, it might work? Capitalism needn’t be incompatible with conservation and building on the vibrant life and work ecology already existing in this historic part of east london.

Kate. Please let me know who/where to write to.

]]> By: Andrea Murphy https://spitalfieldslife.com/2015/09/11/the-ruins-of-the-fruit-wool-exchange/#comment-1027248 Thu, 24 Sep 2015 03:15:10 +0000 http://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=138135#comment-1027248 So it has actually happened. How terrible. I dislike that mayor intensely. Fight on, good people.
–from a Canadian.

]]> By: Cathy https://spitalfieldslife.com/2015/09/11/the-ruins-of-the-fruit-wool-exchange/#comment-1025629 Mon, 21 Sep 2015 16:39:55 +0000 http://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=138135#comment-1025629 Just about to send my email.

I can’t believe we’re here again. I thought Norton Folgate was saved. Now I am even more afraid than I was at the planning committee judgement – I don’t trust Boris one inch.

🙁

]]> By: Maddie https://spitalfieldslife.com/2015/09/11/the-ruins-of-the-fruit-wool-exchange/#comment-1019971 Sun, 13 Sep 2015 22:26:02 +0000 http://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=138135#comment-1019971 I thought the scheme was a facade retention? I don’t say that as a justification of the scheme, I have no sympathy with the argument that that facade retention is a form of conservation, it’s merely a developer’s way of saying that beauty is only skin deep, it’s as bad as total demolition in my mind. I am just confused as I thought the artist impressions included the original facade?

]]> By: Linda Ryan https://spitalfieldslife.com/2015/09/11/the-ruins-of-the-fruit-wool-exchange/#comment-1019732 Sun, 13 Sep 2015 15:36:27 +0000 http://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=138135#comment-1019732 I am an American Tourist, Californian since Kindergarten. Out here, our few “old” buildings give visitors and dwellers alike nothing of the sense of history and connection with our past like the wonderful old brick buildings of London do. I don’t mean the tourist attractions, either. I mean the sense of place, what London is at its heart.

I was dismayed to find the “entertainment” and restaurant chain names of San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf in Picadilly Circus during my last visit (really? Bubba Gumps? Why?).

I have great sympathy and empathize with your sense of outrage and loss.

I have no pull with Mr. Boris, but this to say: Don’t Americanize this lovely City. We already have an America and we’ve seen how that’s gone. You can’t recreate the kind of character that comes with age and history without it being a bit Disneylandish. Or at least crass.

Keep fighting the good fight. Please write those letters.

]]> By: Jane https://spitalfieldslife.com/2015/09/11/the-ruins-of-the-fruit-wool-exchange/#comment-1018317 Fri, 11 Sep 2015 21:54:08 +0000 http://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=138135#comment-1018317 Tragic and criminal. Another lovely building gone forever. So sad.

]]> By: Kate https://spitalfieldslife.com/2015/09/11/the-ruins-of-the-fruit-wool-exchange/#comment-1017984 Fri, 11 Sep 2015 12:43:34 +0000 http://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=138135#comment-1017984 I have had a response from the Mayors office to my email so please email or write in with your objections. The more they get, hopefully will mean that they listen and Boris the Butcher in conjunction with British Land doesn’t get their way. Let’s make it as uncomfortable as possible for them!

]]> By: Peter Holford https://spitalfieldslife.com/2015/09/11/the-ruins-of-the-fruit-wool-exchange/#comment-1017895 Fri, 11 Sep 2015 10:08:26 +0000 http://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=138135#comment-1017895 We kid ourselves that we live in a democracy. When one man has unlimited power and uses it as he alone sees fit there is nothing to differentiate us from any reviled autocracy. The same con is being perpetrated in the northern cities. I live in Greater Manchester and we had a referendum asking us whether we wanted a mayor. The answer was a resounding ‘NO’. So this government have seen fit to impose one instead riding rough-shod over a democratic wish. If the Scots decide to have another referendum the same government will bleat about the fact there has already been one in which the public rejected the offer of independence.

Hypocrites!

]]> By: Linda Granfield https://spitalfieldslife.com/2015/09/11/the-ruins-of-the-fruit-wool-exchange/#comment-1017884 Fri, 11 Sep 2015 09:48:57 +0000 http://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=138135#comment-1017884 Did they save nothing of the wonderful interior? Those staircases? The auction hall doors?
I truly hope so.

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