I REFER to stories and letters concerning the scheme for student housing in the Bolton News with utter dismay for the future of our civic heritage.

I wish to add my voice to the petition being raised by Mr Eric Hyland (BN Tuesday 3 March page 4) and the previous letter by Mr Stuart Whittle.

The location directly to the rear is certainly not appropriate in any way for student housing and the ‘form’ of architecture postulated by the proposal is amorphous, bland and totally uncomplimentary. There is not a single redeeming feature about it. The building lacks any sense of proportion, rhythm and sympathy and completely ignores and even defaces the strictness of the Neo-Georgian crescent designed by my professional forebears and so beloved by the town and revered by all that see it.

The Town Hall Square already has some notable buildings of various ages which, to varying degrees of success, emulate, or at least, defer to, the stature, proportion, material and rhythm of the Town Hall and Crescent. It would seem that our council lacks a considered plan for the future of the town centre: this proposal should never have got beyond a private tabling, and then should have been subjected to proper professional scrutiny before being made public.

Le Mans Crescent archway is a first class opportunity to continue an axial development of cultural and educational buildings of equally high quality, design and material choice, incorporating piazzas and social areas between: Perhaps even with the potential for physical links with the wings of the crescent, to make use of the fine Library, Museum and Archives we have in the Town Hall and to bring purpose to the relinquished north wing, now that the Magistrates and Police have gone.

The soon-to-be vacated bus station makes a logical extension of such functions and there could be a suitable case for a student courtyard village either side of an axial boulevard to the Town Hall, but further back from it and bordering onto Moor Lane. Any scheme must allow further commercial, cultural and educational progression along this axis; partial pedestrianisation of Blackhorse Street greatly assisting such a development plan. I was involved over a dozen years ago in a Scoping Exercise for the council, when the Crescent was about to be vacated and the Museum and Library were going to be reconfigured. The Scoping took into account the potential for the bus station being relocated. All of these things have now happened or are in the process of happening. Perhaps it would do well for the council to revisit the Scoping Exercise and develop their strategy from that point onwards.

I have no doubt that the university should be involved in a development of this nature but the council and the university must think again about this proposal. It needs to be totally re-thought in terms of long-term strategy for the Town Hall, the Town Centre, the University and the town as a whole. We must not allow indiscriminate development such as the Central Law Courts on Blackhorse Street, a PSA scheme ‘dropped from heaven’ onto the town, or the bland Job Centre building, to be an excuse for more of the same – we must endeavour to do far better, befitting the roots of our town and its cultural and civic heritage.

Mark Head,

Retired Senior Partner of Bradshaw Gass and Hope, Architects.