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Although Dunloe Ewart's plan is not the "preferred scheme" of the Belfast Regeneration Office (MDC's at Victoria Square is), the developers have acquired so much property in the area over the last few years that they are able to propose extensive development even without the luxury of vesting powers. A complex sequence of planning applications has now been lodged involving the demolition of much of North Street and Rosemary Street, with multi-storey developments overshadowing the important Assembly Rooms (latterly the Northern Bank) at the junction of Waring Street and Donegall Street. The Society has lodged strong objections to it. The height of the development, the loss of the "fine grain" of small building units, and the demolition of buildings contributing to the character of the conservation area all render the proposals undesirable. The Society has worked in support of the Belfast Civic Trust, which is also strongly opposed to this development but concentrating on the economic arguments against it.
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The Society is delighted that five of the Belfast Areas of Townscape Character have been upgraded to conservation area status. Malone, Somerton, Cyprus Avenue, King's Road and Knockdene have all been coming under intense pressure for apartment development. Protection of their character was proving impossible without the statutory tools to defend the demolition of perfectly sound Victorian and Edwardian houses. Now demolition will require conservation area consent and we trust that the late 19th and early 20th century buildings which typify these areas and their mature gardens will be retained.
The Society has objected to a current application for demolition
of a pair of fine mid-Victorian two storey houses at 18-20 Wellington
Park in the new Malone conservation area. The application is to
put eleven apartments on the site, and under the old ATC such
an application would have been hard to refuse, despite the quality
and condition of the existing buildings. This will be a useful
test of the new designation. If you share our view that these
buildings should not be demolished, remember that your opinion
matters. The more objections the planners
receive to an application the more likely they are to refuse it,
and the easier they will find it to defend such a decision. You
should write or e-mail the Belfast Planning Office, giving one
or more reasons for your objection, and quoting the application
number Z/2000/1914.
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Plans by the Harbour Authority to extend the existing
quay frontage and area of hard standing by reclaiming the Warrenpoint
Old Town Dock area have been received with great dismay by local
residents and the Society. The debate about the future of the
historic 18th century dock will take place in the form of a public
inquiry starting in early September at the Town Hall and is set
to run for a couple of weeks.
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The MDC mixed use scheme was selected
by the Department for Social Development as the preferred development
for Belfast city centre (it was competing with Ewart's North
Street proposals and another at Queen Street) and MDC has
said that they intend "to retain or restore most of the original
architecture around the square". Sadly, they probably mean
Churchill House, but we trust that WJ Gilliland's fine warehouse
at nos.36-40 and the long established Kitchen Bar will also be
incorporated in the proposals to regenerate this much neglected
area. The Kitchen Bar catered for performers at the Empire Theatre
next door, but it is still thriving and would provide a strong
tangible link with the history of the area.
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A highly ambitious restoration has recently been completed by UAHS member Noel Killen, who acquired the derelict and partially collapsed six-storey rubble-stone corn mill at Ballydugan outside Downpatrick some ten years ago, and has painstakingly restored it in his spare time. Some of us claim to have restored a building meaning we have employed a builder to restore it, but Noel is a builder himself and has personally repaired windows and staircases and reslated the enormous building.
The Mill was built in 1792 by John Auchinleck of Strangford, and has an unusual stone-walled forecourt and gate-house, making it look like a Plantation tower-house.
It is now open as a restaurant and tourist accommodation, and was described in a recent restaurant review in the Belfast Telegraph as "stunning and unique", with "spectacular views of the surrounding countryside" from the eighth floor balcony. An added attraction to some of us is that the restaurant is non-smoking, and there is no piped music in the restaurant.
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Upper Crescent and its counterpart in Lower Crescent are part of the Queen's University Conservation Area in Belfast. Together with the park behind Crescent Church they form probably the best example of Regency-style town planning in the city, and they were complete until a few years ago.
Unfortunately listed building consent was given for the demolition of the listed terrace at 4-6 Upper Crescent Belfast (William Hastings, 1869), despite the building being generally sound and still in use. It had been owned by the University, and the Society initiated a motion at the University Convocation in 1997 calling on Queen's to review the decision to demolish it. There was unanimous support for a resolution requiring Queen's to institute a conservation policy for its buildings but it was too late to save nos.4-6, which had been transferred to a separate company called Lennoxvale Estates. The terrace was subsequently replaced with a modern office building.
This summer the corner building between Upper Crescent and University Road has been gutted, although the façade is to be retained, and the neighbouring building on University Road has been demolished. As can be seen from Marcus Patton's 1996 sketch of nos.1-3 (above), facade retention will retain only a small part of the character of this building, of which the roofscape and extraordinary narrow gable were essential components.
The Society is of the opinion that these demolitions have been unnecessary and detract from a unique group of buildings, which should have been protected by both listing and conservation area status.
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Environment and Heritage Service has announced a suspension of all historic buildings grants, backdated to October 1999. The reason given is that there has been a "four-fold increase in applications" over the last four years, and that commitments exceed available resources.
While the UAHS can understand the concerns that led to this decision, it believes that funding should be brought back as soon as possible, and has lobbied government for an increase in the budget for historic buildings to enable this. It also believes that a wholesale suspension might have been avoided by selective or even temporarily reduced application of grant. Cynics have also pondered the administrative cost of notifying each individual listed building owner of the suspension, regardless of whether they were contemplating works, and wondered how many more grants might have been paid out if that had not been done.
HB grants are a drop in the ocean of government expenditure, but they lever a great deal of private investment and make a very real contribution to the efforts made by owners to maintain buildings that give pleasure to thousands of others, attract tourism and investment, provide employment for skilled craftsmen, and happen to provide useful housing or workspace on top of all that.
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Donald Girvan, a founding member of the UAHS, author of many of its early lists, and a stalwart campaigner for the buildings of the North Coast, died in June. He was active in planning campaigns for many years, and was one of the Society's most reliable planning monitors. Indeed, the campaign to save Portrush Town Hall (see below) derived much of its impetus from Donald's concerns and scholarship. He will be sadly missed by his many friends, but the humorous and touching tribute paid to him at his funeral by Prof Alistair Rowan brought back a sense of a very remarkable personality.
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The UAHS has been campaigning for some years to prevent the demolition of this fine Victorian building on the seafront at Portrush, and was relieved when planning permission for its demolition by Coleraine Borough Council was refused at the end of 1999. Not unexpectedly, Coleraine BC appealed the decision, and the appeal was heard in April 2000. More details available.
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In July 1999 an attractive building at the corner of Botanic Avenue and Mount Charles was pulled down over the course of a weekend, despite warnings from the planners that such demolition would be illegal.
The owners had applied for a new building on the site and tried to pre-empt the decision by demolishing the existing one. So far the DoE appears to be adhering to its stated intention to prosecute the owner for wilful demolition, but it was unable to prosecute while an appeal to the Planning Appeals Commission was pending. The UAHS had objected to the original proposals, arguing that the building was perfectly capable of re-use, and we were delighted to learn (June 2000) that the PAC has upheld the planners' decision and confirmed that not only was the demolition illegal, but that the proposed replacement building was also not acceptable. While this does not restore the protected building, it does indicate that developers who pre-empt planning decisions will not necessarily be allowed to build on their sites as they might wish.
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