SON OF GRIDKNOCKER

Re Dippy's Q2, a close friend e-mailed Cllr Harry Bramer asking him this very question a week ago. To date - total silence! Perhaps TwoWheels can shed some light here: if a building in the council's ownership become surplus to requirements (eg: Bath Street Offices), wouldn't you think that that nice rolly-polly Mr Pickles would expect the council's Property Services Division to invite expressions of interest in the said property, thus ensuring that the asset (our asset) is disposed of for the best price possible? I would be extremely surprised if the developer who converted the old General Hospital (I believe it was Laings) has had a phone call from Cllr Bramer.

Although the Editor of the Hereford Times feels that the Working Boys Home debate on this site has elevated the Bath Street buildings to 'totemic' status, the subject's 3000+ visits would seemm to indicate that a great many people are concerned about the plight of these handsome buildings. There have been remarkably few dissenters. On Wednesday, Hereford & Worcester Fire Authority is due to meet behind closed doors to decide where it would like to site its new fire station. To aid members' deliberations, may I suggest that part of the large car park behind the city's soon-to-close Odeon would be an ideal location? Here are 7 reasons why it should be considered in preference to the Bath Street site on offer. It connects with a wider carriageway (less traffic jams at times of emergency call-outs) and has no fewer than three entrances, one of which will be only 50m from the eastern end of the proposed Link Road (ensuring rapid cross-city movement). It is in earshot of far fewer residential properties, and in both urban planning and conservation terms Commercial Road wins hands down over Bath Street. And in the fullness of time (when the housing market is buoyant once more), H&WFA can put its redundant St Owen Street fire station on the market for potential conversion into flats - a far more 'sustainable' solution than razing it to the ground to create an unwanted municipal car park.

@ Cllr Hubbard: Mea culpa! I mis-read the item about the expected planning approval. @Megilleland: I mistook your post for a Minute of a meeting which had already taken place, whereas it is the 'paper' which the H&WFA is due to discuss next Wednesday. My observations about the council's Heritage Impact Assessment and English Heritage's lack of enthusiasm to support Listing remain, however.

With which, he hobbled down to Hereford Station to buy himself a single ticket back to Cleveland. And was never seen in Hereford again! Thanks King Bobby for ridding us of a Public Nuisance. PS: Whatever happened to that 6000-dwelling Urban Village he told us he was going to build behind Alcatraz? I see they're starting work on a block of 10 flats in Conningsby Street: would that be Phase I perhaps? At that rate of progress (errr 10 units in 5 years) that means John Jarvis's great vision will be finished by errr... 5014.

Megilleland's unearthing last night of the H&WFA minute is truly epic and deserves a Voice Gold Star for Investigation. Four choice nuggets to look out for in the dense text above are: 1) Press and public were excluded from the discussions; 2) English Heritage had indicated that the former Working Boys Home would not be listed in the future; 3) Herefordshire Council underook a Heritage Impact Assessment and concluded that the boys home buildings were of low historic / architectural value; 4) H&WFA had been told that it could expect planning approval in April 2014. The only thing missing from Megi's wonderfully-revealing Minute is: "The meeting was advised that the next Leader of Herefordshire Council is to be Vladimir Putin."

Please can I record my 199% agreement to TwoWheels' excellent assesment of a) the current structural condition and b) suitability for conversion to flats of the existing fire station. It is complete and utter nonsense to suggest that it is beyond repair or 'past its sell-by date'. I suspect that Cambo would agree. I also agree with TwoWheels that the present fire station it is a rather fine example of 1950s modernism - but am prepared to concede that admitting to liking modern architecture these days is about as cranky as suggesting that Cliff Ricard is a good singer. Seriously folks, there are surely two interlocking topics here: finding another centrally-located site to build Hereford's 21st century fire station; and b) finding an alternative use for that fine group of Victorian buildings, formerly the Working Boys Home, at the top of Bath Street.

Here it is. Slightly more architecturally impressive than the boys home perhaps, but it shows what lateral thinking can acieve: www.malmaison.com

I think John Faulkener (whose letter is quoted above) is a leading light in Hereford Civic Society who, in my view, have not exactly come out of this whole murky mess smelling of roses. Neither do I think 'a well-designed housing scheme' would be a good idea - if it's anything like that abomination which HCS published in its latest magazine! Think outside the box, peeps! Retain all the Haddon and Godsell buildings and find a new use for them. I doubt very much whether Councillor Bramer (Cabinet member charged with getting shot of the Boys Home) has even thought to offer them to developers who specialise in residential conversions (I believe Laings did the old General Hospital). Or how about a hotel? Anyone who has been on a touring holiday of Spain will be familiar with that country's superb Paradores network, where unwanted historic buildings are converted into mid-range hotels. There are more than 100 of them dotted across Spain. Hereford currently has fewer than 300 tourism bed spaces (excluding b&b's) and the bluster by ex-Leader Jarvis about a new hotel being built on the Grid came to nowt. (just like his promise to me that I'd be able to gon to the Odeon Multiplex last Christmas!). So why couldn't the former Working Boys Home be converted into a tourist hotel? Central location, plenty of parking spaces an only 5 minutes walk from Castle Green and the Cathedral? With a sympathetically-designed rear extension, I'd guess it could be a 50-60 bed space operation. Oxford has recently opened a new tourism hotel in - of all things - its old city prison. It is called Hotel Malmaison. I will post a link later.

I think it is immensely encouraging that Dippy's excellent thread has attracted such massive support in its first 24 hours. It is also deeply suspicious that the 'villains' in this murky tale - Cllrs Bramer, Johnson and Podger (or their numerous unpaid acolytes) have chosen to remain silent!

In Praise of John Venn Some years ago, the respected MP Frank Field came to Hereford to give a public lecture on the life and philanthropic works of the Rev John Venn. It so inspired me that I read Jean O'Donnell's excellent biography, which you'll find in Hereford Library's reference section. As well as founding the Society for Aiding the Industrious (it was they who sold the Bath Street land for the Boys Home to be built), Venn was behind the construction of the steam-powered mill on Bath Street (still standing), the Washing Baths on Kyrle Street (still standing) and Bath Villas (still standing). He also poineered the construction of what were, in effect, affordable workers' cottages, with gardens that enabled their residents to be self-sufficient in vegetables. To even contemplate erasing the Boys Home from this hugely impressive architectural catalogue is not only plain daft, but would be an insult to the memory of one of this city's most outstanding citizens.

Well put Dippy! This is a veritable can of worms and no mistake. Bravo for bringing your trusty can opener along to the Hereford Voice camp fire. The former Boys Home building, as you rightly point out, is every bit as worth transforming into an alternative use as the old General and Eye Hospitals were. Furthermore, since the boys home has been owned and used by Herefordshire Council for almost 80 years, how on earth did they allow it to get into such a neglected state? Stuck in an inevitable traffic jam in Bath Street, even a cursory inspection tells you its in urgent need of TLC. Local residents are reporting that staff records and furniture were moved out of the buildings earlier this week. So is the secret Johnson / Podger stitch-up a 'done deal'? And what part has the venerable (and hardly over-worked) chief planning officer Andrew Ashcroft played in all these negotiations? Did anyone (eg: Leader Johnson) consult him and ask him if, in urban planning terms, the east end of Bath Street would be a suitable location for a state-of-the-art emergency services base? And who on earth is going to use a council-owned surface-level car park when shoppers can invariably find a space in the more centrally-located Gaol Street car park? I smell stinking fish!

I agree with Dippy. I don't think Colin needs to run the same sort of despotic regime that exists over on Holmer Road (one imagines jack-booted uniformed women administrators patrolling the comments column all through the night removing subversive posts), but surely it should be possible, electronically, to stop people wandering onto The Voice and just hitting the downward-pointing red arrow?

Exactly a year ago at a Press Conference organised by Sanctuary Housing, former ceo Jonathan Brethrton announced that despite the winding up of Hereford Futures he would be 'staying on' to oversee the launch of the marketing of the midlands housing association's much-vaunted Urban Village. What special marketing skills the fat man possessed was known only to Council Leader Jarvis Cockup. To date, the only evidence of this mythical village, is a metal hoarding in Conningsby Street announcing that a small block of flats is to be erected there for occupation in 2015. Some urban village! So does that mean that this Eric Pickles lookalike intends to hang around for ANOTHER year? Go back to Cleveland Mr Bretherton - you've more than outstayed your welcome!

Once more, Two Wheels is 'on the money'. Bill 'Scoop' Tanner is doing his best to expose this thoroughly murky business, but municipal obfuscation muddies the water. For those of you with a strong stomach (that is, you can sit and watch democracy being humiliated) go along to next Moday's Scruting Committee session. The doughty Alan Seldon (our very own Margaret Hodge), ably assisted by Liz Harvey, will attempt to put Eric Pickles-lookalike Jonathan Bretherton through the Brockington shredding machine. But will it work? Hell will freeze over first, my friends.. Now that this authority is effectively run by Cabinet, every committee (including Srutiny) can be stuffed with know-nothing Tory dimwits. And if the Tory dimwits of the Scrutiny Committee are otherwise engaged next Monday (gold club agm, day at the races etc), then Leader Tony Johnson simply drafts in other dimwits to 'represent' them. Roll on May 2015!

...and if you want to 'visit' the ESS without going all the way down to Rotherwas, go to Google Earth and in the top left search box, type in: 'Hereford HR2 6JT, UK' and it will take you there on a magic carpet. The ESS is north-north-east of the centre of the image that comes up, surrounded by trees.

Bio: A long, long time ago (probably before you were born) these 'saw tooth' roof profiles were called North Lights (no, not Northern Lights, they're much prettier). And their soul task in industrial buildings - not 21st century shopping centres - was to let north light into work spaces without creating excessive internal temperatures. Sorry to go on, but that's the context. Now here's the interesting bit: out at Rotherwas there's a former munitions factory (sometimes referred to as the Empty Shell Shed) which has an amazing array of 13 North Lights still intact. But the hapless Skylon Park Enterprise Zone don't know what to do with it and for the last two years have been promising to apply for a Heritage Lottery Fund grant. Form-filling takes a long time up Rotherwas way! A local group called 'Women in War' want it converted into a museum and information centre dedicated to women who worked on the war effort or lost their lives in world conflicts. Skylon want to turn it into an SAS Museum!

As we will shortly be approaching the 'moment of truth' for what we are all now being encouraged to call 'Old Market', I thought I'd go and take a really good look at it yesterday (perhaps Colin could treat us to one of his excellent pics later in the week?). Well, peeps, the optimum vantage point is a few paces north of the entrance to the Moorfields Surgery at the top of Edgar Street; and the optimum viewing time is 4.30pm - especially if its sunny. Ranged in front of you is a vast curving windowless wall, already seriously stained with what building surveors call 'efflorescence' (salts being leached out of the bricks through the warmth of the sun) - first spotted by the ever-vigilant King Bobby last Decermber. It will get worse before it gets better. Towering above this inhuman Alcatraz-like 'cliff', Stanhope's talented designers have chosen to place a row of five irregularly-profiled metal-clad rooftops. Why five? Why metal? Why lop-sided? Who knows. Just architectural whimsey, I suppose. After I'd got my breath back from witnessing this architectural monstrosity (a passer-by offered me a tot of brandy from a hip flask), I came up with the following solution. Before all the big cranes are taken off the site, McAlpines should fix five projecting gibbets from the five roof 'peaks'. On each would be suspended a life-size fibreglass effigy of the five 'culprits' responsible for this Nightmare on Edgar Street. My nominations would be: Jonathan Bretherton, Roger Phillips, John Jarvis, Stanhope's Managing Director and the senior partner of designers Allies & Morrison.

One hesitates to use the word 'prescient' - not least because it means that poor old Ragwert has to go and find his dictionary in the midden he calls his living room - but Bobby47's 'War' post on this site on 19 February was so amazingly 'on the money' that one wonders whether his real name isn't AJP Taylor Dec'd. The similarities between what is now happening before your very eyes in eastern Europe (errr...could you stop watching replays of 'Strictly' for a minute please, and switch over to BBC News? Thank you.) now, and what took place in the months leading up to the outbreak of WWII are simply uncanny. Putin is Hitler; Van Rompuy is Chamberlin.

Re Two Wheels' 'thumbnails' (above): like just about everything that that motley crew down at Rotherwas come up with - naff in the extreme!

There's a rather fine Szabo bust of London's Embankment and of course there's the Szabo Museum at Wormelow (open April-October), but I'd still like Stanhope / British Land to cough up for something in cast bronze on a Herefordshire sandstone plinth somewhere on the ESG.

Wishful thinking on my part, I suppose. Shoppers don't want to be reminded of a 23-year-old SOE wartime heroine executed by the SS in Ravensbruek, when there are so many more ably-qualified contenders for 'municipal recognition' across the Edgar Street Grid's pedestrianised shopping paradise. What Stanhope should give us is a Jarvis Plaza in front of the Multiplex, a Blackshaw Boulevard, a Wilcox Walk, a Phillips Passage and a very grand Olwyn Avenue.

@ Ubique: Two years ago, when the Edgar Street Grid was but a twinkle in the eye of Hereford Futures' MD Jonathan Bretherton, I wrote to him and said that towards the end of the scheme (like now), they would surely be scratching around to find names for all the scheme's walks and squares and alleyways. And wouldn't it be nice if one was named Szabo Square. Never even received an acknowledgement!

Megilleland: Here are five more local heroes for you to add to the name of John Bulmer: Brian Hatton, Violette Szabo, Thomas Traherne, John Venn and Alfred Watkins. For my money, Violette Szabo is the most shamefully under-recognised of them all (put her name into Wikipedia's search engine to find out what she did). Finally, can I suggest an illustration to head up your dedicated website page? Tom Denny's amazing Trehearne stained glass windows in Hereford Cathedral (easily Googled).

The book is called 'The North' and John Bulmer's e-mail address is: john@johnbulmer.co.uk. Many of the images featured in 'The North' can be viewed on his website.

Gareth: A person you absolutely must get in touch with is the documentary film maker John Bulmer. Last year at the Hay Literary Festival John gave a thrilling account (in words and still photographs) of how he documented the changing social faces of several north of England towns. The pictures were commissioned by Harry Evans, then Editor of the Sunday Times (before Murdoch got his greasy mits on it) and I believe Mr Bulmer has since published many of them in book form. I am sure he would be happy to pass on lots of tips. My advice would be: 1) try and track down the Bulmer book either at your local library or a friendly Waterstones; and 2) ask Nick Whatshisname at the Rural Media Company in Widemarsh Street, Hereford, where John Bulmer lives.