Thanet council announce plans to restore and renovate the Embassy hotel in Cliftonville

Yesterday afternoon I attended the site visit for the media to The Embassy Hotel in Surrey Road, Cliftonville. 

http://www.thisiskent.co.uk/Thanet-council-announce-plans-restore-renovate/story-17872596-detail/story.html

The Council bought this Edwardian building along with Hotel Leslie on the same street. The Embassy had become a 24 room hotel with unsympathetic extensions to the front and rear. Planning permission F/TH/11/0995 was granted to convert the 24 room hotel to 2 4 bed houses.

There were no comments from Conservation in the Officer Report because Surrey Road, along with most of Cliftonville is not within a Conservation Area. Cliftonville's Conservation Area Appraisals, although the reports have been paid for by English Heritage and have been written, have not been published. Consequently the planned Conservation Areas for Cliftonville are not in place. This creates the sad fact that the £21m Live Margate expenditure for housing renewal in Cliftonville with the Council as the developer, is going ahead with no Conservation framework in place. 

The Embassy Hotel development is a good example. The site architects stated yesterday that the original specification was for replacement windows on this Edwardian building to be  timber framed, but that the need to get value for money had overidden this, so they were going with plastic. The most important factor was value for money. It is likely that had the area already been designated as a Conservation Area that plastic windows on an Edwardian building would not be permissable. 

Here is the historic frontage of The Embassy Hotel building taken from the Council's own website:

Here is the frontage today in 2012:

There is no image of the houses the funding will produce and how the frontages will look with the plastic windows.
Similarly for the second of the two projects listed on the Live Margate site, The Hotel Leslie:

Current 2012:

But this building will be demolished. There are no pictures of what the replacement will look like on the Live Margate site.

There is a real risk that, given the spending power of this fund with Thanet Council at the helm, that a sea of plastic and unsympathetic frontages will proliferate throughout the area, irrevocably changing the streetscape of Cliftonville. The remaining architectural heritage of the area is one of the most valuable assets it has.  One of our best assets to build on for the future.

This is all in stark contrast to only a few streets away at the nearby Dalby Square £1.9m renovation project funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund. I covered this project way back in 2010.

Thanet District Council's own press release on Dalby Square states:

"Grants will be given to improve the appearance of the front elevations of buildings in the area, in a manner that reinforces their historic character, to replace lost architectural detailing, such as balconies, windows and cornices and to improve the ‘public realm’ – such as paving and lighting. Further, funding is aimed at bringing empty properties back into use, especially where this will help to create additional employment in Dalby Square; beyond the extra staff who will be involved in coordinating the scheme itself."

Interestingly, the 'Live Margate' hoarding on the site of The Embassy Hotel and indeed the Live Margate website, has a picture of a couple sat in Dalby Square in front of the facades with original windows and balconies that the Dalby Square scheme is restoring and retaining. If the Live Margate scheme is so proud of the planned demolitions and the plastic windows it will slap into heritage buildings, why not depict these schemes instead? Perhaps because they don't photograph as well as the highly preserved Dalby Square? Because they stick out like a sore thumb, that's why.

If anyone has any luck getting sight of any of the Conservation Area Appraisal reports for Cliftonville that have been produced, I'd be keen to see them!

Thanet Council are inviting local people to be involved in the Live Margate scheme: 

"We want local people to play an important part in this programme by being involved in keeping the areas you live in respectable and as tidy as possible, making sure the pride that you have in your home is kept high, helping to keep the look and feel of your area to a high standard." 

I would do just that. Get involved and ask to see the Conservation Area Appraisal reports that have already been paid for. And take a look at what this £21m scheme will actually produce. 

Depressing minor amends on Dalby Square proposal

The following press release from TDC is just depressing. With all the work that is going on for a new future for Margate and Cliftonville. The best the developers can come up with is some mediocre designs for the strip of green space at the top of Dalby Square.

Begins

Minor amendments have been made to a planning application for the former Warren Court Hotel and the adjacent land in Dalby Square.

The application is for 12 three-bed houses and 8 two-bed flats, including the retention of the façades of 21-23 Arthur Road. The original application was submitted in late July by Town and Country Housing Group.

The amendments will see the roof shape changing on the proposed houses that front Dalby Road, while the balconies have also been removed from the houses fronting both Dalby and Arthur Road.

The revised drawings can be viewed on the council's website using UK Planning under reference number F/TH/10/0581. The plans can also be viewed by visiting Thanet's Gateway Plus in Cecil Street, Margate from 9am to 6pm, Monday to Friday, with extended opening until 8pm on Thursdays. Thanet's Gateway Plus is also open from 9am to 5pm on Saturdays.

As a result of the submission of the amended plans, the deadline for comments on the application has now been extended to Saturday 4 September 2010.

The application is likely to be considered by the council's planning committee in September 2010.

ENDS

Please someone with a vision propose something decent.

Zero Carbon Dalby Square Proposal

Hot off the press comes a radical proposal for Dalby Square from Heritage Development Officer, Nick Dermott.

Here's a scheme worth discussing. Take it away, Nick:

I believe that the much discussed huge problems that beset Cliftonville West can only be solved by a radical solution. As a suggestion, I set down a proposal below. Your comments and assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Full Council is to decide on 15th July whether to designate Dalby Square, and Arthur and Dalby Roads, Cliftonville as a conservation area. Conservation areas are defined as *areas of special architectural or historic interest, the character or appearance of which it is desirable to preserve or enhance*.

With two notable exceptions, the sites of the former Cliftonville Hotel and the site of the former Warrior Crescent, the external appearance of the properties in Dalby Square, and Arthur and Dalby Roads, remain very much as
they were when the area was built in the 1870s (a time when the British Empire was at its height). The buildings facing the square itself were built as hotels or private schools, not as houses. The standard design is of four to five storeys high, including a semi-basement, and is in the region of 500sqm floor area. The considerable size of these structures is a major contributory cause of the present situation. At the same time, the historic
building stock represents a huge resource of embodied energy. There are no listed buildings within the proposed conservation area and they are unlikely to be listed in the future. This is in no way to say they are not of
historic interest.

PROPOSAL
That the Dalby Square conservation area be developed as a *zero carbon community*. The aim would be to preserve the historic appearance of the buildings and neighbourhood, and the historic fabric of the buildings, while
drastically reducing energy consumption (ie. creating 'low energy impact*). This would be achieved by retro-fitting the
buildings with very high levels of insulation (including appropriate double or triple glazing), air management systems, rainwater collection arrangements and possibly the use of district heating systems, heat pumps and solar and wind energy * the square faces the site of the London Array wind farm. The project would also encompass public lighting, transport strategies, power for electric cars and the development of public open space.

Although the external appearance of the historic buildings would be maintained, the interiors would be drastically remodelled to form large (in excess of 100msq), modern units. Some might also be hotels or guest houses.
Some of these units might be developed through a *shared ownership* scheme. It would be a big *lifestyle concept* that would fire peoples* imagination.

The proposal would be progressed by a DESIGN CODE and a GRANT SCHEME.


DESIGN CODE
The Technology Strategy Board is promoting a competition for funding entitled *Design for Future Climate: Adapting Buildings*. This offers 100% grants of £100,000 to develop strategies to adapt UK buildings to the changing climate. The adaptation of an existing Dalby Square conservation area historic building to create a *low energy impact guest house* conforms to the rules of the application. Daedalus Environmental Limited of Maidstone wish to work with the Council, free of charge, on a submission for this competition. Submissions need to be with the Technology Strategy Board by 22nd July 2010.

GRANT SCHEME
I have been working with the Prince*s Regeneration Trust * who assisted Thanet District Council with funding for Dreamland * on the development of a Heritage Lottery Fund *Townscape Heritage
Initiative* grant scheme for Dalby Square. £2m would be sought from the Lottery, which would have to be matched 50/50. Grants would be given for the restoration of the exteriors of the historic buildings as well as public
realm projects, open spaces and boundary treatments. Grant recipients would be required to sign up to the design code prepared with the competition funding. There is £25,000 in the TDC Capital Budget to develop a new
historic building grant scheme and this seems a suitable candidate.

The scheme could also put significant funds (£1m?) towards a building on the Warrior Crescent site at the south end of Dalby Square which is owned by TDC. Warrior Crescent, a terrace of seven five storey houses built in the
1870s and demolished in the 1990s, was the major architectural event in the square and any new building on the site needs to be of the correct scale and of the highest architectural quality.

NEXT STEPS
For the proposals to proceed, it is necessary for Full Council to designate Dalby Square as a conservation area.
In order to enter the competition it is necessary to identify a building with the proposed conservation area to be the subject of the study. The building does not need to be owned by TDC nor, if I understand the rules of
the competition correctly, does the conversion of the building need to be actually carried out. However, the owner of the building needs to sign up to the scheme and *participate and consider the recommendations of the adaption
design work*. The former Warren Court Hotel in Arthur Road would be ideal. I believe that the building is owned by the Town and Country Housing Group. I have no contacts at Town and Country so I need someone*s help. Because of
the competition deadline there is some urgency over this. Approval from Thanet District Council is needed to use the £25,000 Capital Fund money on developing the THI scheme.

Attachments: -
- Map, proposed conservation area.
- Technology Strategy Board competition blurb
- Letter from the Prince*s Regeneration Trust
- Photographs of the former Warrior Crescent

Yours sincerely,
Nick Dermott.


Nick Dermott BA (Hons) Dip Arch RIBA IHBC Heritage Development Advisor
Major Developments Team Thanet District Council PO Box 9 3rd Floor Cecil
Street Margate Kent CT9 1XZ

Tel: 01843 577142
Email: Nick.Dermott@thanet.gov.uk

	Cliftonville Proposed Conservation Area Dalby Square.doc
	DFFC_Competition_Brief_FINAL.pdf
	Princess Regeneration Trust letter - 2 july 2010.pdf

Dalby Square Fire

Some derelict buildings caught fire yesterday at the top of Dalby Square.