4 C O N T E X T 1 3 9 : M A Y 2 0 1 5 ‘IS UNESCO world heritage status worth the paper it’s printed on? ‘Edinburgh’s role as a quality European destination underpins its economy, bringing in an annual £1.6 billion to its coffers and its architectural heritage plays a huge role in this. That is why I am submitting a report to members of the UN Board of Auditors at UNESCO headquarters in NewYork (assuming they’re prepared to listen) in a bid to persuade them to overturn the city’s world heritage status... ‘Why do the powers-that-be want to trash this treasure?... I don’t simply refer to the local council, which seems minded to sanction developer mediocrity on an alarming scale. There’s also the Scottish government, which has declared an intention to offload the most architecturally significant public building in Scotland – Robert Adam’s General Register House. Its functions, it is claimed, can be transferred to a wasteland at distant Sighthill. ‘Or how about the National Trust for Scotland, which decamped from its neoclassical headquarters in Charlotte Square to another outof-town pale of settlement?... ‘You’d think lessons might have been learned. Not a bit of it. There are plans to raze the last Georgian block between St Andrew Square and General Register House. Nearby, the hope is to reconstruct 1970s St James Centre, once vilified as a looming mass. ‘So what has UNESCO world heritage status done for us? Frankly, it’s been an unmitigated disaster, and we’d have been better off without it.’ David Black, chair of Edinburgh’s Southside Association, writing in the Guardian ‘THIS IS YET another attack against the Iraqi people, reminding us that nothing is safe from the cultural cleansing under way in the country: it targets human lives and minorities, and is marked by the systematic destruction of humanity’s ancient heritage. ‘The deliberate destruction of cultural heritage constitutes a war crime. There is absolutely no political or religious justification for the destruction of humanity’s cultural heritage.’ Irina Bokova, head of UNESCO, telling the BBC of her outrage at the bulldozing of the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud by Islamic State militants in Iraq. Letters Trinkets and cappuccino From John Fidler, Marina Del Rey, California I enjoyed the focus on changing retail impacts in the latest issue of Context (No 138, March 2015). But what struck me most upon reflection on my home town of Stockport was the slow and painful socio-economic injury caused to historic cores by associated strategic planning decisions. For example, back in the 1960s, the borough council cleaned away Georgian and Victorian ‘slums’ and moved the residents a bus ride away from the town centre. This resulted in empty, unsafe streets at night and fewer punters for basic groceries in the market square. Less than half a mile from the marketplace, a large shopping precinct was built on Church of England land with a lease condition that no alcohol be served in the area. This resulted in no night-time restaurants, and little street life except for vagrants and vandals. In the 1980s, retail boxes were added to the ends of the precinct, along with copious car parking remote from the historic core, resulting in further commercial erosion of the market place and ancillary streets. The retail threat here came from adjacent retail development, not tin sheds out beyond a ring road several miles away. Only now, in the second decade of the 21st century, have local councillors woken up to the issues. These are: • facilitating inner-core housing in both new and sensitively rehabilitated buildings (mostly funded by far-sighted housing associations) • engineering park-and-ride and microbus routes over the steep topography back to the restored marketplace • investing heavily in town scheme projects of repair and enhancement. But is it too little, too late? Look at the photo of the historic Underbank in the heart of the primary conservation area. Notice the large number of For Sale and To Let signs. On a recent return to my roots, I counted at least 30–50 per cent of all property in the inner core to be for sale or lease, or under-utilised on the upper floors and clearly at risk. Worse, the large Victorian market buildings stand comparatively empty, selling hardly any staple meat, cheese or vegetables and only trinkets now – each sadly competing with one another and with adjacent pubs and cafés to sell trendy cappuccino drinks to the odd tourist and occasional passer-by. Locals complain in the Manchester Evening News about increasing levels of crime and a new Market Superintendent who jacked up the stall rentals so much that everybody left for better pitches in nearby Hyde, Ashton and Macclesfield. Shop signage (Context 138, page 23), frankly, is the least of local concerns. John Fidler Stockport’s Underbank: painful injury
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