I was in Durham yesterday. This is Dunelm House, a student union building (1965), reached by a concrete footbridge opened two years before. It’s a lovely, delicate thing that drapes over the cliff down to the river Weir like a rug on the back of a chair. And it’s crumbling.
Karen Bradley, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, has rebutted Historic England’s request to list it, on the grounds that it has design flaws causing maintenance problems. I guess the same cause lies behind the need for the works currently in progress at the cathedral the other side of the river.
Is taking control of architectural heritage not one of our government’s duties?
Mike Pitts – Digging Deeper 