50 C O N T E X T 1 3 8 : M A R C H 2 0 1 5 publications.To be fair, each chapter includes a list of reference material. This is very helpful, although not all of the books mentioned are still in print and some are not yet printed. The most valuable and controversial section occupies probably one fifth of the text. It could perhaps have been published separately as a stand-alone document that might have reached a much wider audience than being placed in a relatively expensive volume. The question of the audience is crucial. All the books in this series are probably too technical for lay people, but not quite technical enough for experienced practitioners.This volume is perhaps aimed at students and others with a budding interest, or practitioners who specialise in one area and want to gain more-than-basic knowledge in other areas; or practitioners who want a ready reference ‘library’ on a number of topics. One gets the sense that if the entire series could be supplemented with study manuals, worksheets and so on, one could get a very solid education in conservation and more generally in building technology and pathology. If purchased as part of the 10-book set, this volume it is clearly of value. If bought for the approximately 100page section on energy and carbon performance, it is expensive. If a student wants a single-volume basic introduction to the building environment, it would provide an excellent start. Stephen Boniface, partner in theWhitworth Co-Partnership LLP Downtrodden planners Towns in Britain Jones the Planner: Adrian Jones and Chris Matthews; Five Leaves Publications, 324 pages, numerous colour and black and white illustrations, paperback, ISBN 978 1 907869 82 2, £16.99 Aficionados of the jonestheplanner. co.uk blog will be familiar with the lively and sometimes irreverent critiques of contemporary planning and development compiled by Adrian Jones and Chris Matthews. In this book they build on the themes of the blog to present a contemporary picture of British towns and cities, exploring how and why they are currently undergoing major change. The book draws inspiration from Ian Nairn’s critical writings of the 1960s and 70s, and follows in the tradition of JB Priestley’s English Journey of 1934. It is a selective journey, however, leaving out the industrial cities of the north, and focusing on London, the midlands and SouthWales, although small as well as big places are featured.Their particular interests are post-war planning and architecture, and the value of social housing, with an engaging enthusiasm for the eccentric and unexpected. The book opens with an impressively concise history of urban planning in England from its earliest expression in 17th-century London to the Farrell Review of 2014.The thrust of the analysis is to reveal the calamitous result of neoliberalist politics in the 1980s, which led to the ex-urban explosion of development that was dependent on the car park rather than the street, and the overdevelopment of London at the expense of the rest of the country.The legacy of this period is found in most of the places they visit.The authors are no less critical of the present government’s disregard for housing policy and sustainable energy, instead endlessly fiddling with the process and details of the planning regulations. Eric Pickles, they believe, will probably be seen to have done even more damage to British towns than did his anti-planning predecessor and soul mate, Nicholas Ridley. Before becoming a blogger, Adrian Jones (principal author of the book) was director of planning and transport for the City of Nottingham for 30 years. He bravely opens with a profile of that city. Inevitably his criticism is tempered; but justly so, since Nottingham has bucked the trend in investing in public transport rather than roads, embraced conservation in a big way, and encouraged high-quality contemporary architecture. Cardiff, the city where Jones grew up, comes off worst. Not the old city, for which he still has affection, but Cardiff Bay, which he describes as the worst example of waterfront regeneration in the UK, especially scandalous since it is the product of massive public investment. If this is too depressing, a visit along the coast to Swansea is recommended, where the close relationship between city, sea and docks has been fostered, rather than severed, its maritime quarter created at a fraction of the cost of Cardiff’s. Throughout the book a number of themes emerge.There is the destruction of communities through enforced gentrification; the marginalisation of local people with massive redevelopment projects largely devoid of social housing; the widening divide between rich and poor; and the continued precedence given to the car rather than the pedestrian.The authors find that most places are grappling with the same legacy of disastrous ring roads, anonymous office blocks and redundant shopping centres; and more recently with a rash of cheap student housing blocks. Although the analysis is serious and forcefully presented, the style of writing is at times more that of the blogger than the planning review.This will appeal to some but irritate others.There is a strange lack of continuity between the text and some of the images. Nonetheless, downtrodden planners will welcome the recognition that the disempowerment of the planning system is at the heart of the problem. The book is especially valuable for its optimism in showing how some towns and cities are succeeding, even in the age of austerity. Peter de Figueiredo, heritage consultant Stationspotting The English Railway Station Steven Parissien, English Heritage, 2014, 164 pages, black and white, some colour, hardback, ISBN 978 1 848022 36 2, £25 Following his previous book The Architecture of British Transport in the Twentieth Century (Yale UP, 2005) the author gives us another overview of a potentially huge topic. In both volumes we find introductions to the subject, photographs, suggestions for reading and tips for conservationists searching to define the ‘significance’ of local buildings, whether listed or not. Stations (as opposed to wider railway architecture) and England are its theme, but the book encompasses the nation’s architectural journey via Victorian splendour to modernist experimentation, decay, demolitions, selective protection by listing and regeneration in all its current forms. As the bearer of the same surname and son of anotherWilliamTite, I naturally
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