As a bit of summer fun - would anyone like to add to the list of really ugly buildings and eysores in Swanage ? To start the list I nominate The Mowlem, the Post Office, and the Library.
I dont suppose anything will happen, but it might be an indication of what the locals feel about the appearance of their town.
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Posted by Anonymous to swanage view at 7/25/2006 01:51:43 PM
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If you're talking of eyesores, what about the area between the Square and the Quay? Where 3 or 4 businesses must account for 70% of the litter in Swanage. You'd think they could get together and do their bit to tidy the area up in return for the income they receive....
How about the building next to LTSB which has been vacant for years. I note the correspondence detailing the owner's argument against LTSB has been removed. About time something useful came of the place.
Mark
Proliferation of tables outside bars and restaurants some of which totally block narrow pavements making wheelchair etc movement impossible. This presumably is in readiness for the no smoking laws coming in next year.
When I suggested a while ago that the owners of takeaway food businesses which are the root cause of the litter problem are acting in an anti-social manner and should be the recipients of ASBOs there were howls of derision. To me its pretty obvious they should be held resonsible for clearing up the mess caused by the way they do business, however some folk think these people have washed their hands clean of all responsibility the moment the packaging which gets discarded a few minutes later leaves their premises. In just the same way arms makers and dealers have absolutely no responsibility for what their weapons are used for I suppose.
The root cause of the problem is that when you sell something packaged to someone and then that person causes litter, if the chip shop picks it up, it costs almost as much to have SITA take it away is the packaging in the first place. Just like your arms dealer I suppose-if you find a discarded copy of the Guardian on the streets of Paris can you phone Manchester and have them come and pick it up?
I’ll give you Durlston Castle, which if in private hands could be a fantastic all year round wedding venue.
Broad road car park, a topographical disaster.
The Town Hall as the most expensive piece of under used public building.
The white house tourist information office, in a pedestrianised area, when virtually everyone arrives in a motor vehicle.
I’m surprised the original poster picks on those three buildings. As a small Town we should be happy to have a theatre such as the Mowlem. The way the building is operated is of first concern before its architectural merit. I find the library particularly refreshing, the only caveat to that being the lift shaft. The post office is quite functional, who stands back and looks at it for pleasure?
I give you the old Pava building on the industrial estate which looks hideous from Harmans Cross. Why no soft screening? The old Council Houses opposite the middle school. The council ice cream kiosks on the beach.
so far, so interesting, and I would now add to my original trio of eysores, the grim looking block of flats in Rempstone Road ie Mowlem Court, what a dull slab it is.
I started this, not to criticise the functionality of any structure, but to consider it's appearance and suitability in it's location, the relationship with neighbouring buildings (or open spaces), and how these eyesores just dont fit in. Whether anything can be done about them is another problem altogether.
Oh, and another thing, does anyone have a view on the summer planting schemes in the town ? every year they look cheap and trashy and unimaginative - for an alternative have a look at some of the civic planting in Cherbourg. Innovative, sustainable and interesting. Come on Swanage - get your finger out - whoever you are !
"litter, if the chip shop picks it up, it costs almost as much to have SITA take it away is the packaging in the first place"
Quite, it would cost them money. Thats tough. I would rather have a town with a lot less litter and slightly dearer chips or less profitable takeaways. The simple and inescapable fact is that takeaway food leads to a litter problem. We can all see that with our own eyes. Its no use blaming the customers, they simply want the cheapest meal they can get. The litter is not simply coincidental, as an English newspaper on a Parisian street would be, and its absurd to make that comparism. If thousands of grease sodden Guardians were left around in Paris it might be different.
Drinking in public can be banned as that is seen as leading to problems. Perhaps its time to consider a ban on consuming takeaway food in public to deal with this problem.
Is it not an offence to drop litter?
The offence of littering
People who carelessly discard litter in any open place are committing a criminal offence. (Except where it is allowed by law or done with the consent of the owner or occupier of the land). This includes private as well as public land, and land covered by water.
Prosecutions for littering are brought under section 87 - Offence of Leaving Litter - of the Environmental Protection Act 1990. The offence is:
"A person is guilty of an offence if he throws down, drops or otherwise deposits any litter in any place to which this section applies and leaves it.”
The average fine is around £100 plus any costs the court awards. However, a person convicted of this offence could be liable to a maximum fine of £2,500 (a level 4 offence on the standard scale).
see:http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/localenv/litter/law/lawlit.htm
I have to dissagree anon 11.12am. I think takeaways could be encouraged to take responsibility for the areas around there shops by allowing them to put out seating in return. Result everyone happy. However simply holding them responsible would be the same as instead of prosecuting dog owners who let their animal foul the street, pet shops should be made to clean up!
I can't see too much wrong with the library as a building, although as has been pointed out, the lift shaft does not help. The postoffice is ghastly. How anyone in their right mind could design a building in brown brick with high black glass windows to go next to a confection of horizontal red and white courses is beyond me. It looks like a small row of rotting teeth. The answer would to to build some lock up shops on the forecourt to hide the frontage and bring it forward into conformity with the adjacent buildings.
The Mowlem is difficult. The basic rectangle is probably the only solution to cramming the maximum building into the space. Its the additions to the rectangle that are the problem. The restaurant on stilts sticking out of the back is the worst aspect, followed by the canopy and assorted bits and pieces, for example plastic rainwater pipes. The last straw was the addition of two particularly vile clock faces.
There is a clear line at the level of the tops of the windows on the north side but the designers of the new doors saw fit to ignore this and used doors which are somewhat less high thus introducing another line. Why?
It needs cleaning up, with a sympathetic makeover it could be considerably improved.
We all know dropping litter is against the law. Are the owners of takeaway food establishments offering to pay for a policeman to be on duty all their opening hours outside their premises to demand names and addresses and enforce the law? No. You do surprise me.
Ok and car makers should pay for traffic wardens? Confectioners for dentists? Tesco our sewage bill?
Just to say down on Sawange Quay, Gee Whites are trying to tackle the litter problem. Tea and coffee are now offered in china mugs. Seafood is increasingly sold on reusable containers. However, the impetus must come from the customer. If the populous can be hoodwinked into buying fair-trade tea and coffee, someone should be able to persuade them polystyrene is bad and to demand re-usable (or at least recyclable) packaging. It is the sheer volume of people at this time of year wanting to eat take-away, only a small percentage who are naturally litter bugs, but the infrastructure barely copes. I’m sure takeaways could do far more but what incentive have they? More carrot less stick please.
"Ok and car makers should pay for traffic wardens? Confectioners for dentists? Tesco our sewage bill?"
Theres an interesting idea. Tobacco companies to pay compensation to lung cancer victims, asbestos firms to pay victims of asbestositis. Hang on. Both of these are well established. Confectionary manufacturers, well wait and see there is a case on this.
We expect individuals to consider the consequences of their actions why are companies regarded as moral imbeciles which cannot be held to account? If there is reasonably forseable consequence of what a business does it should be held to account for it and not hide behind specious arguments.
Mowlem Court(?) in Rempstone Road, and any other flat roofed, red brick, blocks of flats, inspired by 'Stalinist' E Europe architecture of the 1960's.
Who was on the Planning Committee then?
a couple of points its not the chip shop owners who drop the litter, its the morons who eat them its everyones responsibility to look after the rubbish, it is an offence to drop litter and its not the police its the local council and their wardens who do that, I agree that more sensible bins are needed and emptied regularly, these bussiness pay a lot of bussiness rates , then they pay SITA/BIFFA on top ohhh i expect some of you did not know that well its a fact and the litter collection can cost 1000's a year, also the owners probably pay ordinary council taxes on their own properties so they are entitled to have an effecient local council. also these places employ lots of people, yes people that spend money else where so dont slag them of to much get your local councilors to instal practical bins and get them emptied regularly....
There are already 8 or 9 litter bins in the seating area by the square. Lining our streets with more and more bins is not the answer. There are also greasy marks all over the ground.
However much the owners of these firms are paying it is not achieving the desired result. Either they are being ripped off or they need to be charged more to pay for a better cleaning service.
I really don't buy into the Pontius Pilate defence that the mess has nothing to do with the shops. No takeaway food, no mess.
I guess we could say the same for the pubs then as well - no more vommit / blood / crap /agro/broken glass/etc etc
Its the sheer number of boring, undistinguished, dull, run of the mill, pedestrian houses around Swanage that constitute a worse eyesore than the few 1960s and 70s public buildings that have been complained about
"I guess we could say the same for the pubs then as well - no more vommit / blood / crap /agro/broken glass/etc etc"
Why not? I don't think we should have to tolerate that either. Do you? Rowdiness and antisocial behaviour outside pubs is a recognised problem with a variety of measures to remediate it in force.
That does not answer the question. Why should a small number of businesses be allowed to be the root cause of so much mess in the town? I'm not bothered whether the causation is direct or indirect, they are still the cause. However much logic chopping you indulge in it does not alter this fact.
ohhh sod it then lets shut all the bussiness pubs etc and we can make it OAP heaven just build 2 new doctors surgeries and we will all be happy, the point is that its upto 1) people to take responsibility to not drop litter 2) the local council to empty the bins on a regular basis if those two simple things were carried out the mess would be minimal. Its a point of taking responsibility for ones actions, if I went to tescos and unwrapped all my groceries and just chucked it on the pavement would you expect tescos to pay to clean it up no you would not its upto me to act responsible and put it in the correct bins etc, I bet as an invidual you have never been in the square if as they do some of the owners ask people not to drop litter all you get back is F*** off again indicitive of todays society no personal responsibility. Its not all the businness fault so dont lay all the blame on them. I suppose you moved here and now want to change it all, what would you like to see all art galleries book shops churches, twee little antique shops, swanage all nicely tucked up in bed at 10 pm with their ovaltine please get real...
Its a waste of time blaming the customers. You contradict yourself by saying its a matter of persuading them to use litter bins and then saying they become rather irritated when asked to do so. Get real. A small number of businesses are operated in a way that makes the place foul for the rest of us. Just walk round the town on a warm evening and see. Why do you wriggle and squirm to defend them?
Giving Tesco their excess wrapping material back is an excellent idea. Do it in the shop not off their premises though and make it clear that you are protesting. Have you ever asked yourself why they use so much? Its another very clear example of a company passing on costs to the community. Would you like to join a campaign against this sort of corporate irresponsibility? That would be a very worthwhile thing to do.
No takeaway food, no mess,no tourists,no guest accommodation, no car park revenues, no steam train, no shops, no nothing.
Alternatively takeaway food operators get their act together, use returnable/reusable plates etc, get rid of the mess they create and all is sweetness and light. They don't need to drag Swanage down to their level of disregard for the common good.
i dont wriggle to defend them what im saying is that people need to take responsibility for their actions ie if they get a kebab box they put it in a bin, its not bloody rocket science is it also akin to that the bins must be emptied regularly in the summer ie 2 or 3 times a day, they seem to be able to do this abroad so why not here, you are taking a typical attitude that you think we dont need tourist well mate your wrong hundreds and i mean hundreds of people would be without jobs no incomes and money to spend but i can see from your writting yoy dont give a damn you just want swanage to be a twee little town but it needs tourists. to survive and i do wander round town on a warm summers evening i did in fact on tues night and saw people of all ages drop litter and yes there were bins near by but who gives a toss after all the pavement is a lot easier, i would bet a lot i know more about what goes on than you been here longer and dont look at things through rose tinted glasses. where do you live new swange durlston herston ?????
Does anyone know, do businesses pay different rates according to the nature of their business? So for example, does New Look (which generates little litter) pay the same as its fast food neighbours? I suspect they pay the same — which is why perhaps the fast food places should contribute to cleaning up the mess.
cant say I know the answer to that, but I again say all tho i see that the new look might not produce the littering affect its still down to the individual who buys ANY product to dispose of the packaging responsiblly, if i buy a pizza at D**o@s and take it home i dispose of the box correctly so why can people in the square it boils down to lack of respect for their souroundings and pure ignorance.and talk about polution stop those bloody church bells ringing (thats noise polution)!
Saying everybody is responsible for disposing of their own litter is about as rose tinted as you can get. In the real world its not going to happen. I think its perfectly reasonable to ask the businesses that benefit from the process that produces the litter to pay up to solve the problem. What would it cost, a few hundred pounds a week spread between a number of highly profitable businesses? Chicken feed to be rid of seagull fodder.
Its worth remembering just how relative these judgements are. In the 1930s the artist Paul Nash wrote critically abouthow the locals instinctively averted their gaze from Swanage's Weslyian/gothic/purbeckian architectural horrors. We how have an organisation dedicated to retaining whats left of them.
Can you tell us more about Paul Nash please
Let me start with a plug for "Paul Nash in Swanage -Seaside Surrealism". by Swanage writer Pennie Denton.
This is what the Tate says about him:
"Paul Nash (1889-1946) is one of the most important artists of the first half of the twentieth century and the most evocative landscape painter of his generation. He is best known for his work as an official war artist, producing some of the most memorable images of both the First and Second World Wars.
Nash was also a pioneer of modernism in Britain, promoting the avant-garde European styles of abstraction and Surrealism in the 1920s and 1930s. In 1933 he co-founded the influential modern art movement Unit One with fellow artists Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth, and the critic Herbert Read. It was a short-lived but important move towards the revitalisation of English art in the inter-war period.
Nash, however, found his personal inspiration in the English landscape and he saw himself in the tradition of English mystical painters William Blake and Samuel Palmer. He was particularly drawn to landscapes with a sense of ancient history: grassy burial mounds, Iron Age hill forts and the standing stones at Avebury and Stonehenge. For him these sites had a talismanic quality which he called genius loci, or 'the spirit of a place', and he painted them repeatedly."
The takeaway food retailers simply need to realise that clearing up the mess created as a result of their business model would seriously improve the environment of the town making it so much more attractive to their customers. The principal of returning the cost of packaging to the supplier is a growing trend and will surely become increasingly subject to legislation. Don't make them make you do it.
Duncan
They already give a lot back by sponsoring the Regatta fireworks, the football club kit, etc
There are all these calls for takeaways to be more responsible and cooperative, but you can understand their slightly ambivalent reaction to those who object to their planning applications, object to them receiving drinks licenses, and call upon every bureaucrat available to put obstacles in the way of them trading.
When I made the original posting about takeaway food establishment owners taking responsibility for the litter that is the byproduct of this type of activity I expected the excoration that followed. For the record I have never objected to a planning application for takeaway food, or a liquor license.
Unlike one vociferous poster I do, however, think that an individual's responsibility extends to the forseeable indirect consequences of their actions.
Theres no doubt something needs to be done - "fastfood square" is downright squalid. If a restaurant served its customers in an area with a grease coated pavement liberally scattered with discarded food and with feral wild life enjoying free access they would be prosecuted. It has nine litter bins which in themselves constitute an eyesore. What a chance for a slogan, "Come to Swanage and dine amid the bins" or to paraphrase the old postmark "Swanage, grease-spot on the Dorset Rivera."
It used to be much worse, at least the loo block is gone. The Council must take some responsibility for the current problems. Why put tatty old flags, pebble mosaics and seagull perch benches in an area clearly used by people for eating? It needs much harder landscaping and seating so the area can get hosed down each morning. The beach wardens walk around all day doing very little, why couldn't one be stationed to keep the Square clean, empty the black sacks into a commercial wheelie etc?
I'm sure the takeaway operators would be happy to contribute to the cost. Get the Mayor and Town Clerk down there and discuss it!
The Town Council's answer a year or two ago wa bigger and brighter bins and more of them which created an eyesore of its own. We are talking about people eating food within a fe metres of where they bought it so serving it on returnable and reusable plates should be possible. Another issue is that all this rubbish goes to landfill and creates more problems and pollution. It does not cease to exist even if the buyers use the bins to "dispose" of it. Perhaps the quay and fast-food square should be given well designed picnic tables and made serviced eating areas.
There is another consideration that may need a thread of its own. Is Swanage moving upmarket? All these takeaways serving day trippers and campers/caravaners rose in importance and number as the traditional holiday market declined back in the 60s and 70s and Swanage, like other resorts, responded by cheapening its product There are signs that this has reversed, for example with Nick finding it worthwhile to offer oysters. As well as short breaks we seem to attract lots of people for their second or third holiday in the spring or autumn. Has anyone else notcied this?
As the Chief Theatre Technician, I often have to give directions to visiting theatre companies and businesses doing wok for us. Once I'e got them as far as Station Road or Shore Road I tell them we are the big ugly building at the end - you can't miss it. As for the clocks, the council wanted some in the town but everyone, and I mean everyone else did a NIMBY and refused to have any such thing on their building. We got what the council deemed appropriate/affordable at the time. Did they act according to your wishes? You voted for them, you tell them. This forum, though interesting and convenient, is ineffective. Votes matter, councils have influence and make important decisions, they are in power because of your voting decisions. You have members of parliament who are obliged to account for your concerns. They are answerable to you the voter.
I always put my rubbish in a bin because that is how I was brought up, part and parcel of tidying up my toys when I'd finfished playing with them. Respect for the environment is a simple extension of not shitting on your own doorstep.
If you look at the political complexion of the Town Council it has never shifted. Swanage is a rotten borough where the same party is always returned. The District is very much the same apart fom a brief flirtation with the LDs when John Major's government was plumbing the depths of unpopularity.
Bless their hearts, most of the councillors have the best of intentions but their judgement on matters of taste is often appalling. Those clock faces are a case in point.
What is particularly bad is that we have in Swanage a craftsman who makes the most wonderfully clever, witty and original clocks and who could have constructed on the outside of the mowlem something both beautiful and amusing. I doubt that any of the councilors have ever heard of him though. However, as his designs are not bland and conventional they are unlikely to appeal to a committee of slightly frumpy town councillors. One wonders why there was not an open design competition, although on reflection openness is not how we do things in Swanage is it?
No-one has mentioned the con club. The original building was not too bad but they added a rectangular extension, then rows of lights and now a couple of ghastly plastic awnings. Why couldn't they keep it simple?
if the con club was simple it wouild have to renamed the lib dems club.
thats almost a witticism
iF YOU NOTICE ALL THE UGLY BUILDINGS SEEM TO HAVE BEEN BUILT IN THE 60S I DONT THINK I CAN THINK OF ANY BUILDING BUILT AT THIS TIME THAT IS NICE
I'd defend the library as a building, although the concept was rather ahead of the availablity of materials like reactive glass needed to make it practical as a place to keep and read books on sunny days. The Middle School is not bad either although that was late 1950s. Some of the private houses of that period constructed in local stone with a clear arts and crafts movement derivation in their design are not at all bad although most of the 60s houses are horridly bland.
My first visit to Swanage this last weekend. I thought it to be a lovely place, but what a blot the Mowlem is! How on earth did anyone think that this was a good idea, right on the seafront. It really does spoil the entire vista.
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