Neil wrote: > Great...when BW sell them off "on the quiet", like the Tipton Guaging > Station, by Factory Locks on the BCN, with out telling the new owners of its > historic significance.
I couldn't let that one pass. TGS hasn't been sold off. It's on a 150 year lease with additional protective covenants to those already attached because of its Listed status. I'm not sure of not "...telling the new (LEASE) owners of its (sic) historical significance". Apart from it being blatantly obvious to anyone who saw the building that it clearly had historical significance, I'd have thought it was down to the new leaseholder to follow up the historical significance aspect of the building. That's what happens when anyone purchases a building isn't it? I agree more should have been made about the lease, but considering it was advertised in Waterways World and another magazine when it was being offered, I don't think BW was being underhand. In fact, considering the building's incresingly dilapidated state (see my comments in my other post about BW having only finite resources to care for everything), surely something that gives it a viable use is to be applauded? Protective covenants aren't rare either, so I'll reject the following too: "It would appear that BW want to "dump" extraneous historic buildings, so they don't have to manage them, with little regard to what happens to them after they are sold. As you say there are heritage protection laws/rules but these are rather easily got round, especially when BW does not know?! / does not want to know about their historical significance." And as for this comment... "BWB have a long, nasty history of destroying historic buildings and artifacts. In the old days they used to be able to get away with just letting them decay, so they had to be demolished ....." I agree Neil. I can think of those lovely brick built bridges sprayed in concrete. There's one or two on the Hatton flight near BW's offices, just to remind us. Admittedly, on that occasion it didn't get demolished, but it did get ruined with the spray concrete, a vain attempt to minimise what needed to be spent on maintaining it in the future. "....now they have this new method of shifting the blame." Eh? These days the bridges don't get sprayed, they get repaired. My comments on property elsewhere and its value to being able to this with BW's operational estate, i.e. properly maintain the network and all of those buildings and structures that make it work are poignant here too. Apart from that, I don't understand the blame comment for another reason. Would you rather have TGS standing derelict, torn to shreds by the local low life, or put to (protected) use, earning BW money to maintain those bridges? "Who is left in the beleaguered BW to manage Heritage? BW should be actively be monitoring the historic environment around their waterways, not just that left in their control." Plenty of people. We produce a State of our Waterways Heritage report each year. This is from our Head of Heritage, Nigel Crowe, widely appreciated as an expert on waterways heritage, and ex English heritage. We do actively monitor the use of the adjoining land to BW's property, and make comments just like anyone or any other group can do. The democratic planning process is just that; BW doesn't (sadly, in my view) have any special say in it. Eugene
