Comments on: March Of The Monoliths

By: Claire D

Claire D — Fri, 20 Nov 2020 11:21:21 +0000

One of my best friends at school in the 70s lived in the Arndale Centre in Wandsworth on something like the fifteenth floor, she’d spent her early childhood in a slum with a leaking roof and thick black mould on the walls and no bathroom. The new high rise flat had a bathroom with no window so you had to leave the door open otherwise you were liable to faint, and there was the mould again, the lift stank and the corridors were dark and scary. They were finally rehoused into a decent maisonette when she was 18, the whole family seemed to relax and blossom with relief.

By: Jill Wilson

Jill Wilson — Fri, 20 Nov 2020 08:57:00 +0000

I watched all of the planning meeting last night and was very pleased that Tower Hamlets actually did the right thing for a change and haven’t nodded through the proposals for the Bishopsgate site – HURRAH!!.

Although the most horrendous part of the proposed scheme (the massive office block) is actually in the Hackney part of the development and so wasn’t discussed, at least the Tower Hamlets councillors recognised and objected on four main grounds – that there isn’t nearly enough housing in the scheme (especially for families), that there isn’t enough affordable workspace for local businesses, that the hotel is completely unnecessary and that the design is still much too overpowering, especially at street level in Bethnal Green Road.

Lets hope that the GLA agrees and refuses permission, and that Bishopsgate becomes the turning point against all the unwanted high rise development which is destroying the East End.

By: Robin

Robin — Thu, 19 Nov 2020 21:19:39 +0000

The only way to prevent disasters such as this is through grassroots community organizing. If communities don’t resist vocally, the powers that be will simply ignore/marginalize them. Hopefully there are members of the Tower Hamlets Council & the GLA who are open to working with the community to avoid destruction of heritage while at the same time finding human-scale solutions–not simply market-driven solutions– to the problem of housing. But it’s not wise simply to assume they’ll do the right thing.

By: Su C.

Su C. — Thu, 19 Nov 2020 14:34:17 +0000

Oppressive at best. The towers looming so close over those low homes make me claustrophobic, even in photographs. I can’t imagine actually living it.

By: Moyra Peralta

Moyra Peralta — Thu, 19 Nov 2020 13:04:50 +0000

Beautiful seeing eye: food for thought all day.

By: Pennie Limming

Pennie Limming — Thu, 19 Nov 2020 11:23:28 +0000

When will they ever learn, when will they ever learn???

By: Mathilde Grange

Mathilde Grange — Thu, 19 Nov 2020 10:23:49 +0000

So sad… and such stupidity.

By: Penny Gardner

Penny Gardner — Thu, 19 Nov 2020 09:53:53 +0000

I remember it well. Bloody Le Corbusier has a lot to answer for. Radient Cities my Aunt Sally! Remember Bison Blocks? Have they pulled THEM all down yet? I watched Sparrows Can’t Sing the other day. Sentimental twaddle ,but thats al ltodays youngesters will go by. If there’s money to be made you can be sure there’s a lot of other stuff to be lost. I’m lucky to have moved to open country in my old age ,but there’s plans a foot to cover the next field with glamping pods and hot tubs ,sothe champagne poor can have a week in hot bath and swig themselves silly beside a hedge.

By: Caroline Murray

Caroline Murray — Thu, 19 Nov 2020 08:32:48 +0000

Amazingly and depressingly pertinent – are the people in power (whether elected or ‘experts’) in the councils corrupt, or just staggerly stupid?

By: Greg T

Greg T — Thu, 19 Nov 2020 08:07:54 +0000

I see that John mentioned the two words that prefigured this disaster:
“Ronan Point”
Presumably to be joined by: “Grenfell Tower”
People simply won’t learn, will they?