The Inquiry
Lord Waldegrave was, of course, in a difficulty. He was trying to defend the indefensible; the pro- vision of only two days for the public to examine the revised plans for the site, before the Public Inquiry opens on December 16. For, on Novem- ber 20, Mr. Brooke had bowed to the gathering storm and announced that he had `called in' the Planning application, and that an inquiry was to beheld, before an Inspector of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. As several mem- bers of the House of Lords pointed out, the de- fenders of the plan will have had .plenty of time to prepare their case; the objectors will have a bare two days to examine the revised plans (the revisions, it will be recalled, are those to the `podium') and prepare what must inevitably be a highly technical case. Still, for the moment the scheme is `frozen' (though demolition is still con- tinuing), and the fact that the public inquiry is being held at all is a notable advance.
But this is only a battle; and it does not mean that the war will be won. Indeed, those same well- informed circles are of the opinion that the thing has gone so far that the Minister will have to allow it to proceed, though no doubt after a few more alterations have been made. There is no great hope that the Minister will refuse permission for this building entirely, let alone that he will take the best course of all, which is to announce that all planning permissions for the area will be for- bidden by him unless they conform to a general plan such as the LCC's own ill-fated one. Not, indeed, that the LCC could not do this them- selves; there are buildings on the outside of the Barbican scheme going up with raised walkways connected to nothing at all, so that when the heart of the Barbican is filled in they will fit properly on to it; and it has been made clear that permission would have been refused if the developers had not agreed to do this. The same sort of rule could be promulgated for Piccadilly Circus (one of the objections raised to a comprehensive development has been that the buildings will only become available piecemeal, so that they cannot be planned simultaneously), and the pieces of the jigsaw be fitted together over, if necessary, a considerable period of years. But, of course, it must be realised that the present Govern- ment is unlikely to do anything about speculative building as such (much of the present troubles stem from the relaxation of credit restrictions).
Yet there is, in fact, no hurry for the re- development of Piccadilly Circus. There is no reason why the Council's own tentative date of 1965 (when the Pavilion site lease expires) should not be set as a target for starting on the compre- hensive scheme; the intervening period could be used to acquire the other sites (if Mr. Cotton is refused permission for the Monico site the LCC will almost certainly be able to acquire it, which would enable the Council to start building there, at any rate, earlier than 1965; this would also get over the difficulty created by the loss of rates expected from the Cotton building), ideally with the help of the Government; this is, after all, as national a question as any local one could possibly be. Boldness is needed from somebody, be it the Minister or the London County Council. It may be objected that a city which can permit the erection of the Financial Times building, say, is incapable of boldness and blind into the bargain.
It may be so. But defeatism would be as danger- ous as optimism. It may well be that from the ruins of Mr. Jack Cotton's plans something will arise that will be not merely better (nothing, after all, could be worse), but really worthy of the heart of London's West End. (It should perhaps be mentioned, although it is not strictly relevant, that Messrs. Lyons have been granted outline permission by the London County Council to pull down the Trocadero and the buildings around it and put on the site an hotel 160 ft. high. So what- ever the decision in the present case, we may well find ourselves going through this whole business again quite shortly.) Some of the most imagi- native post-war British architecture has come from the LCC; some of the new housing estates, for instance, are sweeping and beautiful concepts, excitingly and admirably carried out. And cer- tainly there are tower-blocks in London that show beyond doubt that building upwards can immeas- urably enrich the city's character. The chance is here for the taking; and it will not come again.
If it is taken, London could have a heart worthy of its people, its history and its part in the nation's life. And it must be taken. Or shall cotton once more be king?
The unlovely backside of the proposed building on the Monica site at Piccadilly Circus-- one of the photographs produced at Mr. Jack Colton's press conference.
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