Recognise this cheeky little window? I thought we could pay it some attention as it’s on a building looking likely to be demolished.

It’s a detail on one of the buildings on the fire station site. We may be more familiar with this site from its other end, at the Clifford Street/Peckitt Street corner. This 19th century house is at the other end, near the river, and is referred to as ‘the lodge’ in some of the planning application documents.

The fire station planning application (ref 15/02155/FULM) is due to be discussed and decided at a planning committee meeting this Thursday, 12 May.

The committee report outlining the main issues is in the list of documents on this link. It recommends approval of the plans ‘subject to completion of a section 106 agreement and referral to the Secretary of State (unless Historic England withdraws its objection)’. Historic England may have withdrawn its objection since that was written. Frankly there are so many documents and versions of the proposals for this site that I couldn’t trawl through all of them.

Since I last wrote about the Clifford St/Peckitt St fire station site some months ago the plans have been changed. They now retain the frontage of the former chapel building on Peckitt Street and a former school building alongside.

This has been covered in the Press and details can also be found on the planning application pages. There are a lot of documents to wade through.

I don’t recall ever seeing before so many ‘support’ comments for an application of this type, and I don’t recall seeing so many from people commenting from far afield. I’m assuming that there has been a concerted campaign to encourage support of the plans to redevelop the site, and it looks like it has been effective.

Those of us who have had concerns about the existing buildings on the site have tended to focus on the views of the prominent corner, Clifford Street and Peckitt Street, and particularly the chapel building frontage on Peckitt Street. The lodge building on the other corner is also prominent and aesthetically pleasing, but the fact that it’s at the riverside end of the site has effectively sealed its fate, it would seem.

This photo may give a better idea of the context.

When I took the photo above I was standing at the bottom of Peckitt Street, on the top of the steps down to the riverside walkway. The lodge building is in the foreground and the former chapel building can be seen further up the street.

And here’s a view of the lodge building from the riverside walkway.

Despite its nice architectural details it could be said that it’s nothing special.  It could also be said that it’s got more character and interest than what is proposed in its place. That’s a matter of opinion. And whatever opinion we’re of it seems that it won’t matter, as it looks likely to be demolished.

The main problem for the lodge building is the flood risk. Highlighted by this photo, taken from the steps nearby, just before Christmas last year.

The lodge (with its boarded-up windows) is on the right. The boat is on an area which is normally dry land. The Ouse, when not in flood, is behind the wooden platform with railings around it.

The devastating flooding of Foss-side properties happened not long after this photo was taken, just after Christmas. Here, Ouse-side, the effects weren’t as devastating because floods are expected as a regular occurrence. However, the risk seems to mean that this building won’t be retained in the planned redevelopment of the site.

In the documents relating to the planning application conservation architect Janine Riley states that ‘a clear and convincing justification has been provided for its demolition’, and continues:

Due to the flood conditions it would be impossible to reuse the building without tanking the ground floor and also providing an escape route above the flood level for residential use. Tanking would need to be inside the building to hide its unsightly effects and to prevent damage to archaeology. Whilst this has been achieved at Bonding Warehouse it would be economically unviable at the “lodge” where only one floor and the attic could be occupied, and the ground floor interior would be seriously damaged. Even so civil engineering assessments have concluded that a tanked building would still represent a weak spot in the flood protection of the site as a whole. The justification for demolition appears to be robust.

Though other comments, including one from the owner of a neighbouring property, point out that other buildings on this riverside frontage manage to cope with repeated flooding. Or as the Victorian Society’s response (also on this link) puts it:

… the Society maintains its objection to the demolition of the ‘lodge’. We have pointed out previously what is now acknowledged by all, that the lodge is an attractive and characterful building and one that makes a positive contribution to the special interest of the Conservation Area. Its loss would therefore be detrimental to the significance of the Conservation Area and it would also harm the setting of adjacent listed buildings and structures. Despite the additional information that has been submitted in support of its proposed demolition we remain unconvinced that the lodge could not relatively simply be retained. We recognise the problems posed by flooding. However, this is an issue that every property on the river contends with, including numerous eighteenth and nineteenth-century properties in the immediate vicinity of the lodge.

There are other issues discussed in the planning application documents, including the below-ground impact, on the site’s archaeology. I can’t cover all of that here. Comments welcome below.

More information

The 12 May planning meeting will, I imagine, be webcast — visit www.york.gov.uk/webcasts from 4.30pm on Thursday to watch it live, or view it later on the council’s YouTube channel.

There’s more information about the meeting on this link (see item 4f).

For ‘before and after’ views of all the buildings on the site from all angles see the ‘CGI images’ (dated 16 March 2016) in this list of documents, or try loading the PDF on this link (may or may not work, the planning access system sometimes delivers PDFs and sometimes doesn’t).

The post Floods and a fire station: planning application appeared first on York Stories.

A page some weeks back looked at the planning application for the former fire station/chapel buildings on the corner of Clifford Street and Peckitt Street. The scheme had a number of comments submitted in support, early on, from quite far afield in some cases. Since then many objections have been submitted. They’re online on this link (or search here for reference number 15/02155/FULM and look for the Documents and Comments).

Jonathan Kenyon, Development Management Officer at City of York Council (PDF on this link), cites the various ‘valid material considerations’ raised by the objections as grounds to refuse the application. He suggests in a letter to the applicants that the scheme is withdrawn and re-considered. So it seems unlikely to go ahead and be approved.

But of course that’s not the end of the story as there will be other proposed schemes for the site. And the application has meant that attention has focused on the buildings, and the considered responses to the proposed scheme help us better understand and appreciate what’s there already.

The chapel facade on Peckitt Street is the most obvious ‘historic’ part. But, as mentioned in my earlier piece last year when the disused fire station went on the market, the reuse as a fire station is interesting in itself. The building on that prominent corner has such a visible/identifiable story or stories, in the rather surprising reuse of a chapel as a fire station in the 1930s.

I wondered what was on record, perhaps in the council minutes of the time, regarding this inventive example of reuse and retention. On the one hand it seems very functional and practical, doesn’t it — we need a fire station in the city centre, there’s an old chapel, let’s put it in there. But why, in the late 1930s, did they not clear the site then and build a new fire station? Why did they keep and adapt the old chapel? And because they did that, 70-plus years ago, should we not give it more respect now? Are we actually less enlightened and appreciative than that generation of York citizens?

A report by Bill Fawcett, recently submitted to accompany the planning application objections, gives more background on this reuse, and covers in detail the history of the various buildings on the site. It should be available to read on this link to the planning application documents, but because the planning pages are rather strange and unreliable at times, and documents are often mysteriously unavailable, I’ve borrowed it and made it available here as well, which I hope no one will object to:

York Fire Station and Trinity Methodist Chapel site history, by Bill Fawcett (PDF)

An extract from that document:

… the chapel came out of its reconstruction surprisingly well. From Clifford Street you saw a well laid-out modern building; turn the corner and you had a Victorian frontage of some gusto. What lay behind this treatment? Obviously York had limited resources and the main requirement was to get an efficient modern building at minimal cost; that the new fire station subsequently functioned for three-quarters of a century suggests that this aim was fully met. Given that the chapel was in essence a big hall, its partial reconstruction was a very cost-effective way of achieving this. The issue then was – would there be any merit in cosmetic changes to the Peckitt Street frontage in order to match it to Clifford Street’s new image? At a time when Victorian buildings were regarded with distaste by most connoisseurs, this would have been very tempting but would have involved needless work and expense. Yet why treat the remains with such care? – because that is how architects of that period had been trained to behave. While ‘conservation’ as a general concept lay well in the future, you were not expected to needlessly butcher the details of a building, whether you liked them or not.

York Fire Station and Trinity Methodist Chapel site history, by Bill Fawcett (PDF)

Thinking about this building prompted me to look for other examples of 1930s fire stations, to see what other towns and cities had built, and what they were doing with these buildings now.

Here’s one example:

Acton Fire Station (1931), by stevecadman on Flickr

An example from 1936, Dunfermline:

Dunfermline Fire Station (1936), by Tom Parnell on Flickr

Closer to home, a 1937 fire station at Gipton, Leeds, is set to be reused as a community centre.

In Norwich, the 1930s Grade II listed fire station has a new role as a sixth form academy.

And in Birmingham, a large and imposing old fire station, also protected by its Grade II listing, has been turned into student accommodation, while retaining many of its original features, including the fireman’s pole. More here.

What should happen to York’s old fire station/chapel? This current planning application looks likely to be withdrawn. But another seems likely to follow. The buildings on the site already seem to tell a story of the previous century’s respect for interesting buildings. Will we show the same respect, or do we need to clear all buildings not protected by listing, in order to make more sites available for the much-needed housing?

The post Fire station and chapel buildings: update appeared first on York Stories.

From one former chapel to another. A planning application for the redevelopment of the former fire station/chapel on Clifford Street was submitted recently and is open for comment.

The building has a Clifford Street address, but it’s a corner site, at the corner of Peckitt Street, stretching along one side of that short street right back to the riverside walkway. And that’s significant, as whatever is built on the site will be quite dominant in the streetscape from several important angles.

If you’re interested in seeing what is proposed, the best document to look at is the Design and Access Statement, available either via the main page for this application or directly accessible on this link (PDF). It has a good number of helpful ‘before and after’ images (pages 45-49) – what the view is now and what it would be with the proposed new development, from the many different vantage points. I’ve borrowed just a couple:

A recent Press article showed one viewpoint, from across the road looking towards the Clifford Street/Peckitt Street corner. It’s worth looking carefully at the others, as I think most of us might not have considered how much the redevelopment of this site would affect so many different views.

Having had a look I have to say that personally I really don’t like it. But that’s because I like what’s there already. Particularly the Peckitt Street frontage, the remnants of the chapel, the details on that side. I included them on an earlier page. I’d rather they were kept.

I’d rather the new development wasn’t so tall, but new developments always are, as we have to make best use of the available space.

There’s so much pressure to build new housing that any old building that doesn’t have listed status appears to be doomed to demolition, however interesting and/or visually pleasing it is. That seems to be the case here. We perhaps can’t afford to care too much about how things look. And if the thing we’re destroying is Victorian, perhaps that doesn’t matter in York, where we’re surrounded by so much architectural heritage from ages past. I think it’s really crass to demolish the Peckitt Street face of this former chapel and destroy those remaining architectural details, but that’s just my personal view.

If you’d like to comment on the planning application it’s on this link, reference number 15/02155/FULM.

The Design and Access Statement and other relevant documents are under the ‘Documents’ tab/section. To make a comment via the online system, look under the Comments tab/section which tells you how to register your comments.

If preferred you can also comment via email, to planning.enquiries@york.gov.uk. For comments to be registered you need to include your name, contact address (*but see note below*), and the reference number of the application (15/02155/FULM), or the address of the property (Fire Station 18 Clifford Street York YO1 9RD).

If you’ve studied the plans in more detail than I have, or if you’ve strong feelings based on the images included above, please feel free to add a comment here too.

* Note: It has always been my understanding that a postal address was necessary for comments to be registered as valid, and there are obvious reasons for that. The guidelines on the CYC site say the same. However, confusingly, comments without postal addresses are often presented among the objections online. So I’ve just emailed to check. The reply I’ve got says that they accept either an email address or a house address. If anyone else has more information on this apparent change of policy — as it seems rather open to abuse — please add a comment.

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The post Planning application: fire station/chapel, Clifford St appeared first on York Stories.

I took the photo above in May this year when, as can be seen from the sign, the building was for sale after the fire station moved elsewhere. It’s currently under offer. It’s not a listed building, and presumably after decades of use as a fire station there’s not much ‘chapel’ left in there. It could be demolished entirely I guess. Though they might keep the frontage on Peckitt Street.

That side of the building has some nice details:

And its date, 1856, under the initials A.B:

A photo from the city archives shows the side of the building in the early years of the 20th century, when it was clearly serving as a support for advertising hoardings.

© City of York Council

It will be interesting to see what replaces the former Trinity Chapel/fire station, on this prime city centre site. While we’re waiting to find out, let’s wander past a couple more old chapels and see how they’re faring.

The post York’s other chapels … /1 appeared first on York Stories.