Tue Nov 28, 2017 12:31 pm
This one is in a conservation area, I believe. It is obviously impossible to see how this building could preserve anything, and it's equally difficult to see how it could possibly enhance an area pretty consisting of, pretty well exclusively, Victorian and Edwardian buildings.
Which does raise issues over the planning system. I struggle to think of one single proposed development in Cardiff (and there have been some real horrors)which has been refused permission – in which case what on earth is the system for? John Betjeman used to say that the only downside of the attack on the planning system which arose on the back of the conservation movement was that it reduced the status of planning officers, and the quality of them, with the result that they pretty well just said yes to everything. I think there is real truth in that critique.