The campaign to save Plymouth’s Hoe Centre and former NAAFI building is heating up, even though the building has started to be demolished. It’s up for listed building status from English Heritage, but as our story says, ‘if the demolition continues there will be nothing left to list’. Plymouth photographer Joakim Boren has been heading up the campaign to save the building, which has support from around 400 on a Facebook petition and has gained the interest of ITV, Architects Journal and Building Design Magazine. Here’s the story, to date…
The Hoe Centre and former NAAFI building in Plymouth, is the subject of a campaign to save it even though demolition has started. It is owned by Plymouth University and is on Plymouth City Council’s Buildings at Risk Register where it is noted as having Townscape Merit. While this does not offer the protection of statutory listing or local listing (which Plymouth hasn’t put in place) it does acknowledge that this is a heritage asset.
An application to list the building has, as a last resort, been made to English Heritage which has notified the university and the council – which means the application is being considered, but does not mean it will necessarily be listed. Only the local authority has the powers to stop the demolition. If the demolition continues there will be nothing left to list. In a strange twist, the intervention of the Health Safety Executive on grounds of threat to public safety did halt the major demolition but stripping out continues.
The building was one of the first to complete in the massive reconstruction of Plymouth’s city centre after the war, and was opened by Princess Margaret in 1952. Film footage of the opening is available to view on line
The previous attempt to list it was turned down largely because through the conversion of the building into the School of Architecture much of the interior fixtures and fittings were lost. Looking at it with today’s more pragmatic ‘constructive conservation’ approach, the conversion has extended the life of the building considerably for many more people to enjoy and remains a landmark historically and architecturally. Under new heritage protection policy developers and local authorities are also required to consider the environmental impact of new building over re-use.
The architect EM Joseph and the practice of Messrs Joseph have a number of buildings listed. He designed other post-war NAAFI Social Clubs but there is little available evidence that any of them have survived which makes this almost certainly the last of its kind and unique to Plymouth.
The bigger question is about its value to the urban identity of Plymouth. The Church of Christ the King the neighbouring building to the west, has been recently listed grade II. Together the church and the NAAFI/ Hoe Centre are a pair and mark the gateway to the Hoe – the brick towers and composition across the grand axis of Armada Way of Abercrombie’s Plan for Plymouth are significant, furthermore the church which is later references the NAAFI in its choice of materials in its form. The demolition of the Hoe Centre compromises the setting of the church and the urban plan.
If new developments are required by planning policy to ‘create or reinforce local distinctiveness’, what case has been made to justify the loss of this handsome building and its distinctive clock tower? And how high a quality must the new development attain? This particularly worrying because without consultation on what is intended to replace it (the plans are to be revealed on the July 21) – the citizens of Plymouth are, in effect, being forced to trade in a valuable asset without knowing what they are getting in return. Almost certainly a Pig in a Poke.
The university does know better, arguably it has done a great deal of good for the built environment of Plymouth including imaginative reuse of heritage assets. The Scott Building was awarded the regional RIBA award in 2009. This, however, is a step too far – Plymouth can ill afford to lose this building and many more valuable buildings which have inadequate protection.
The social networking group Save the Hoe Centre on Facebook has attracted 370 members and rising in less than a week – does this mark a change in the way people feel about their city and how they express it?
The people of Plymouth are being urged to voice their concern and to engage with the planning process more, to not only protect this one building or the other important heritage assets including the historic centre of Plymouth but also to demand better quality new development.
(Image: front elevation of Hoe Centre and former NAAFI building in Plymouth with demolition by Joakim Boren)
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