The Old Fire Station

The Old Fire Station
Original appearance

Thursday 14 July 2011

Janet and John Stories 1 - traffic

Here's a salutory tale contributed by our transport expert, the late and much missed John Ilett:

Janet and John talk about traffic.

John is using his new computer to visit East Hampshire District Council’s web site. He tells Janet all about the lovely coloured drawings showing the council’s proposals for doubling the size of Whitehill and Bordon to make it the largest town in East Hampshire by building 5,500 more houses there.

Janet frowns. Why do they want to do that where the bus services and the roads are really poor and there is no railway station?

John looks puzzled, he hadn’t thought of that. Have you thought about that? Janet has.

Where will all the additional traffic go she asks John? Janet thinks that people in Wrecclesham, Liphook, Headley and other places where traffic is bad already will be even more worried. Are you worried about the traffic impact on your community? Janet is.

John says that the council has lots really clever ideas to get people out of their cars, like allowing only half the parking spaces at the new houses, building some footpaths running lots of shiny new buses. People can walk and cycle and use the shiny buses to go shopping and to go to work instead. The council says that after the new houses and offices have been built, most traffic will disappear.

Janet’s face turns red. "How many council workers use the bus to get to their offices in Penns Place?" she asks. "Their huge car park is full. Why should buses suddenly become so attractive in Bordon? Bus services have been steadily withdrawn because very few people used them? Does the council think that tradesmen, contractors, painters, decorators, builders and plumbers will get their ladders on the buses John?"

Janet is so angry. John's knees start to shake. He wishes he had never told Janet about the new town. "Er", he croaks, "the council says that they are going to create over 5,000 jobs in Whitehill and Bordon and that will mean that people will be able to walk and cycle to their new jobs."

Janet shakes with rage. "When did the council last create a new job? If they can’t do it in places like Liphook, smack on the A3 and with a main line railway station, how will they do it at Bordon?"

John tells Janet that the council know what they are doing. Janet marches over to John, rips his dongle out of its socket and sends him to his room. "Know what they are doing?", she shouts after him. "The cat knows more about planning than the council." She picks up the cat and throws him after John.

Poor Tiddles, poor John.

Do you think Tiddles knows more about planning than the council does? Janet does. So do John and Tiddles now.

Sunday 3 July 2011

The Old Fire Station - Another Broken Promise

More than two years ago, when our leading District Councillors were secretly making their bid to the Labour government for eco-town status, they were also getting set to publicise a shopping list of promised benefits we would reap when the millions set out in the bid came rolling in.  Among the sums included in the bid, one was earmarked for restoration of the Old Fire Station, with conversion to an eco-station so that we ignorant townsfolk could learn what it means to “go green.” Fast forward a year. The Council buys the site for half a million quid, again promising to restore it and use the rest of the site for the sort of cutting edge eco-houses the rest of the country would envy.  They even published a eco-house drawing- bearing a remarkable resemblance to small cowshed.  Still, one could be consoled by the expectation that the fire station would soon be restored.

No such luck. Perhaps I have misunderstood the meaning of ‘restore.’ I thought it meant returning it to its known original appearance. The experts at the Council and their architects clearly had some other meaning in mind when they decided to substiture glass doors for the accordion pleated red ones of that horribly disfiguring modern projection, inserted to accommodate larger fire appliances.

The Old Fire Station remains one of the few really interesting buildings in Bordon, in a highly prominent position.  It deserves better than the thoughtless treatment it seems to have been subjected to so far.  Not having seen the glass doors application (who would?) in the fine print of the official planning notices, I was equally horrified to read in last week’s Herald that the Council actually prefers the red doored monstrosity, seemingly in ignorance of the building’s original appearance.  Well, here’s a photo of it, as built for the Army.  As a historic buildings architect, I think Bordon deserves to have its heritage acknowledged, not its subsequent disfigurement perpetuated.  Oh, and the BAAG website banner has featured a photo of the original building ever since it was set up.

www.baaga.co.uk