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I’m speaking today as one of many residents dismayed by this application.
Far from uniting the town, the proposal has drawn a record one hundred and sixty heartfelt objections, a petition signed by a thousand people, and strong criticisms from the Victorian Society and the Georgian Group about a design that is disruptive, incongruous, and inappropriate for the conservation area.
There is a great irony in a project that aims to regenerate the culture of a town, but which damages its very soul – the fundamental appeal of the place. Berwick’s culture is as much a matter of its heritage as it is about arts and entertainment. For many, the town is not just a vessel for leisure and business but their home, in which residents rightly take great pride. Depletion of Berwick’s historic environment is therefore a direct attack on that home and the well-being of its inhabitants.
A design that would be fine on the edge of town is not welcome in this sensitive location. The building’s materials, stepped massing, and huge, blank windows will not bed into Berwick as claimed. Clearly, it doesn’t preserve the conservation area. And as an unmemorable design, neither would the building enhance it. The claim that the new building will hide Sports Direct is only true from carefully selected vantage points – from other perspectives, the two buildings will simply combine and multiply the harm.
This, then, is not a thoughtful balance but a disruptive imposition that violates the NPPF’s guidance on heritage preservation and the Northumberland Local Plan’s emphasis on respecting our historic environment. It’s claimed that the economic and social benefits outweigh the heritage harms, but these benefits are highly speculative. And flawed visualisations understate the design’s impact.
That the committee has not visited such an important site is regrettable. If you stand on the Old Bridge, or in Tweedmouth, you will see the existing Maltings roof blend in perfectly with the height and style of the older buildings. A segmented box five metres higher topped with giant signs will wreck this harmony.
If the plan is permitted, visitors will ask, “Who let this happen? How could a town deface its most cherished views?” Views that are the very ones featured in national newspapers, and in the publicity for our own institutions, as representing the beauty and charm of Berwick. Views that exist only thanks to a setting that is stuffed with listed buildings and ancient monuments. And views that have provided artistic inspiration for hundreds of years.
This is not place-making, this is place-breaking. And it sets a dangerous precedent for the tone of future developments in the conservation area.
Permitting this application will send a message that conservation area rules are toothless. This is terrible for trust in the systems that govern our built environment. Hard-won protections may as well not exist, or rather, they evidently apply only to the little guy, not to big, publicly-funded projects. And that preferential treatment is at best a divisive double standard.
Dissenters been demonised as anti-progress, and wallowing in nostalgia. And yet we’re asking for very little: for existing heritage protections to be honoured; and for changes in the design to reduce the impact of such a large building in such a significant setting. Or to borrow a word from the Victorian Society’s objection, for the plan to be responsible.
In conclusion: the idea that a significant part of our historic town’s character and visual integrity can be traded away in a balancing exercise, is absurd. And worse than that, it’s unnecessary, because mitigations are perfectly possible. The recent Premier Inn building in Sandgate is an example of modern architecture that is sensitive to its context.
Councillors, in some ways, this is Berwick’s Sycamore Gap moment. I ask you to refuse or defer this application to explore a less harmful, more inclusive design. Berwick’s unique heritage and, crucially, its community cohesion, depend on your decision. Thank you.