52 C O N T E X T 1 7 3 : S E P T E M B E R 2 0 2 2 the building were retained and refurbished. In line with IHBC policy on not campaigning on individual cases, I will refrain from commenting on the merits of this one, but draw out two issues which are worth general consideration. The first and very obvious issue is that of how embodied energy might be considered as a material consideration within current planning controls. Until recently, embodied energy would have been barely considered, but it has certainly risen up the planning agenda. There is no need for me to repeat the arguments for retaining and adapting existing buildings rather than demolishing them in respect of climate change. Readers will be well-aware of these and hopefully supportive, particularly in respect of the potential contribution that retaining buildings makes to conserving the historic environment. My impression is that here the client, rather than carefully assessing the merits of the existing building as a starting point and then seeing how it might be retained while achieving its commercial objectives, may have started with a retail/commercial model, and when that did not fit with retaining the building, decided that a case would be made to demolish it. I can see this as a trend in which developers might acknowledge that embodied energy is an issue, but at the end of the day ignore its merits or those of the circular economy and carry on regardless. I foresee a whole army of energy specialists whose role will be to make a case for demolition rather than retention of existing buildings. Plus ça change... The arguments for demolition put forward in this case must have been persuasive, because Westminster City Council was minded to approve the application and the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, was not minded to intervene. Of course, the current retail problems of Oxford Street and the need to work positively with a major anchor retailer would have also been key items in the mix. This case has been extensively written about in the local and national press. The second issue that has struck me is how, in the public eye, this might be seen as solely concerned with climate change. An article I read in a national daily covered the environmental issues in detail and mentioned the loss of other large retail stores in other town centres. However, there was no mention of the clear architectural and historic interest of the existing M&S store or an assessment of the quality of its proposed replacement. No doubt these issues will be considered in detail at the public inquiry, but as a profession we should be promoting awareness of the multi-dimensional qualities of this and similar cases. The inquiry will be held later this year; it will be interesting to see how the arguments around embodied energy, high-street regeneration, heritage and urban design play out. Returning to the main theme of this issue of Context, at the IHBC’s annual school in Aberdeen I carried out my own informal survey of diversity. From the in-person delegate list, approximately 58 per cent were female, and the proportion of female speakers was less, at just over one third. So the gender balance may be going in the right direction. However, the number of non-white faces I could see was very low indeed. This will indeed be one of our diversity challenges. I will say more about the annual school and the IHBC’s 25th anniversary in the next issue of Context. David McDonald chair@ihbc.org.uk The Marble Arch Mound, erected in 2021, was a notably unsuccessful, temporary visitor attraction at the end of Oxford Street. The scaffold structure was covered with a plastic fabric fleece, punctured by potted trees. (Photo: Clem Rutter, Wikimedia)
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