On passing through Sheffield
July 19th, 2011
This July (and September) came a chance to return to Sheffield, to see the changes and more importantly view the city as a whole rather than just as an appendage to its most iconic hilltop landmark. What follow are the photos and comments from that trip.
From bottom left the station roof then Sheaf Square fountain. At far left the Showroom and above it the Hubs. Above that the Butcher Works Arundel St (find chimney). In the centre The Howard and at top right the “cheese-grater” car park.
Pentagon Mall Chatham Kent
July 19th, 2011
Here are a few more photographs of the original Pentagon Mall at Chatham in Kent.
Sheffield: The Furnace Trail
July 18th, 2011
“Sheffield steel” is so ingrained in the language and the city that out of simple curiousity I have spent some time walking around the Kelham Island area following the history of steel-making. To this end the excellent “Furnace Trail” booklet provides an introduction.
Norrkoping: Arbetets museum and weirs
July 17th, 2011
Author’s note: I wrote this article and included the photographs to go with the post above entitled Sheffield: The Furnace Trail. In the summer of 1989 I was working on a general cargo ship called the Hudsongracht which made several port calls in Sweden of which one was Norrkoping. On a walk around town I came across this weir which took my breath away in both its size and force. I later visited the museum detailed below.
It has a parallel industrial history to the Northern towns of England and waterworks to match. I can still remember standing stunned in amazement at the force and grandeur of the water flowing over the weir at Norrkoping and have included a photograph of it below from Google Earth.
Park Hill – Owen Hatherley writing in Red Pepper
July 17th, 2011
Having just got back from Sheffield, this is extremely timely, if you haven’t read it the link is below, and if you have read it here’s a reminder.
Streets in the sky
Park Hill, in Sheffield, was the first attempt to solve this problem. Like any other post-war redevelopment scheme, it was the product of emergency – the need to rebuild a teeming, crumbling slum of back-to-backs crowded above Sheffield’s Midland station.
Rebuilding the City: 1951 and Now
July 3rd, 2011
In spite of the mens’ final at Wimbledon the function room on Level 5 of the Royal Festival Hall was all seats taken to hear several well known experts on architecture and housing speak to the assembled along with a lesser known figure of equal importance being Jean Symons, clerk on site during the building of the Royal Festival Hall.
Paul Finch was chair, and introduced the meeting allotting each of the speakers fifteen minutes each, starting with Jean Symons who spoke from notes very movingly about her time on site and the scenes that surrounded her.
On passing through Glasgow
June 17th, 2011
Travel has long been a pleasure of mine and it had been many years (nearly 19 years in this case) since work had called me North but the opportunity to catch up after almost two decades of change was irresistible. So much is new, the Foster Armadillo concert hall, BBC Scotland, the new Zaha Hadid Riverside Museum, the Science Museum and several bridges. But better still so much is still there from last time. The Charles Rennie Mackintosh buildings, the wealth of good architecture and the friendly people.
Glasgow is a city that grows on me each time I go. Here are a very few shots of places I passed by, some of which I had time to visit and others not, but there’s always next time for it’s a city that draws you back.
On arriving at Central Station . . . let’s park our bags and . . .
Common sense on Council Housing – BD
June 17th, 2011
What a breath of fresh air has blown through the dusty corridors of Single Aspect House today with the arrival of this week’s BD Online and a letter addressing all the problems of sink estates and other denigrated social housing. I have no idea whether the author is a housing professional or simply a former council tenant but Steven Bee runs Steven Bee Urban Counsel His letter speaks volumes about the approach required to return to the heady days of the 1970s when so many lived in council housing without the scale of the problems apparent today.
Virgin Pendolino
June 16th, 2011
UPDATE: 25/8/16 Following the Corbyn silly season story I’ve had another look at the seating plans five years on. The Virgin East Coast Mallards don’t suffer from what I experienced in 2011, the seating plan shows three first and six standard rather than the four first and five standard on the West Coast in 2011.
The Virgin East Coast HST seating plan shows three first and seven standard class carriages.
The Virgin West Coast updated seating plan may be downloaded here
Original article 16th June 2011
I had my first ride in a Virgin Pendolino recently, standard class (as we kept being told on the tannoy – there’s nothing like being repeatedly reminded you’re a pleb), forward facing and aisle, aircraft seating, quiet carriage. On the plus side the ride was comfortable, quiet and fast. On the minus side it was like sitting inside a small aircraft with 2+2 seating, with the luggage inside the cabin, and insufficient luggage racks at that, and in the wrong place.
Andrew Rawnsley on property
June 5th, 2011
The last couple of years have seen a plethora of articles about the lack of new house building and Andrew Rawnsley tackles the subject in some depth in today’s Observer.
The social housing sold off by Mrs Thatcher was never replaced. House building in the last year of Gordon Brown fell to a postwar low. We are currently building around 100,000 homes a year when new household formation is running at about 250,000.
https://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jun/05/andrew-rawnsley-house-prices-construction
This all ties in with my other articles on right to buy and the sink estates but there is no sign of any political party even beginning to tackle this important issue anytime soon and worse now is the pressure on the outer boroughs of London as the housing benefit cuts begin to be felt forcing people in both council and private rented housing from the centre.
Karen Buck spoke eloquently on Thursday evening at the Barking and Dagenham CLP with a talk about the likely effects of the HB cuts, and will do so again on the 11th June at the London Labour Housing Group policy day. There’s still time to book.