PLANNING
officers strongly urged Sheffield University to retain a historic city
building only six months before its demolition was approved.
Emails
and letters between Sheffield Council planning officers, the university
and its agents have been revealed to campaigners hoping to save the
Grade II-listed Edwardian wing of the Jessop Hospital.
In
a letter to the university’s consultants about the £80 million
engineering block planned for the hospital site and neighbouring land,
principal planning officer Dinah Hope called the university’s plans
‘disappointing’.
She
branded the proposed engineering building an ‘ungainly big box that has
no relationship with its setting’, adding the hospital’s Edwardian wing
should be ‘retained, and influence the footprint and massing’ of the
new block.
Ms
Hope also warned loss of the Edwardian wing could leave the remaining
Victorian wing of the hospital ‘weak and out of place against the
backdrop of a new building’.
Nick
Roscoe and Valerie Bayliss, of the Save Jessop Hospital campaign, said:
“The picture that emerges is, leading up to the letter to the
university, the planning department were dealing with this application
firmly and showing no signs of accepting the demolition of the Edwardian
building was necessary.
“The
university would not have been happy with this letter – and obviously
achieved a more compliant response from officers in the end.”
The
council approved the plans in December, but Communities Secretary Eric
Pickles has the final say because of the wing’s listed status.
Campaigners
have collected 2,500 signatures on a petition at
www.jessophospital.org.uk, which will be sent to Mr Pickles urging him
to save the wing.
From: http://www.thestar.co.uk/news/letter-reveals-desire-to-protect-historic-sheffield-building-1-5402207
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