Save us from the philistines

AS an architect you might think I would like the idea of a simpler planning process to make it easier to get planning permission. Well I don't!

The problem with making permissions easier for me and my clients is that it makes it easier for everyone else, and the result could be a nightmare.

We don't have to look far to see the results of weak planning… but no planning at all…? Equally, it is not helpful to have knee-jerk reactions against new plans just because they change the status quo.

However, some plans are just plain philistine and represent a blatant affront to our history and community. Some of the worst are those that replace historic and vibrant activity such as markets and workshops with dead dull blocks of flats, or offices with little ground-level activity.

Earlier this year I gave evidence at a major planning inquiry in London where the "all powerful" City of London has, together with a major commercial developer, been applying to demolish part of the historic Smithfield meat market to replace it with a giant office building over a shopping mall.

This struck me as being completely philistine and out of character with this conservation area and, in the long term, damaging to the life of the City.

Last year I was asked by a national pressure group, SAVE, to help oppose it. We did and, to cut a long story short, we heard last week that we had won.

This week I am in Oxford where I have been asked to be a professional witness about a proposal to build two blocks of flats on an old boatyard on the canal in an area called Jericho.

I remembered Jericho in the Sixties when it was the place to live as a student. Jericho is a modest working area but with great character.

The idea of taking away Oxford's only urban canal-side boatyard and filling it with dull blocks of flats is anathema to me. What amazes me is that it was ever thought to be a possibility – but it was and still is.

I am very conscious that I do not want to stand in the way of progress, but how can it be progress to deny the Oxford Canal users the facilities that have been enjoyed for generations for the sake of a block of "buy to let" flats?

That is not regeneration but degeneration!

I know that I shall be jumped on for some of the things that I propose, but I believe strongly in standing up for the things that I believe to be worthwhile, and opposing those things I believe to be damaging – but I do not do so unless I am sure I have the facts.

The facts in the case of Jericho Boatyard, the lifeblood of the canal, seem clear to me.

The same applies to Bristol and such sites as Redcliffe Wharf on the Floating Harbour, the site of last summer's urban beach, where the danger is we make development too posh and lose the vibrancy that makes it so special.

Every planning application should have a life-enhancement test. How is this scheme going to make Bristol, Oxford, London or anywhere else a better place to live and work?

Of course, every new proposal takes something away, but on balance there should be positive community benefit, not just in terms of planning conditions but in a fundamental way. This is the way of ensuring real regeneration.