Quite simply, in light of the local development plan and the like would it have killed them to keep the façade of the Woolworths Building as part of the new development? It would not have cost them much extra and would have added qualityHowever, to me the bigger issue to me is the 15 stories in height, are we seeing the "slums of the future" being built here and is the development unecological and unsustainable?True there is an enormous need for housing in Ealing and in London, however, you only have to look at the way that the tower blocks in the South Acton Estate decayed, became slums, and were demolished. Have we not learned from these tower block estates that low-rise is the answer as it does not degenerate as quickly? We should also bear in mind that the concrete tower blocks of the sixties and seventies were built with longer lifespans in terms of materials than the high tech buildings of today with their short twenty year requirement of materials quality bringing a potentially more rapid deterioration into slum-hood than these old-style tower blocks. I fully expect both the social housing block that will replace the Woolworths Building in West Ealing to decay at more or less the same rate as the prestigious Dickens Yard complex in the nature of high-rise blocks to bring about the "slums-of-the-future" in the decades to come.
Mark Julian Raymond ● 2618d