The New Princesshay

No wonder Karime Hassan, the former planning director on Exeter City Council, made a quick getaway! He is now unleashing his titanic planning philosophy – either total urban destruction or total rural development – on East Devon, where he wants three thousand new homes in Rockbeare, next to the old A30.

I can remember Hassan back in 1999, in the Princesshay public information centre in the old Lloyds building in Bedford Street, his face the picture of glee, beaming as he proudly explained the Princesshay tinpot models on display. The city council had passed wisdom on redevelopment and that was that, whether you liked it or not.

The £175 million Princesshay scheme, by London-based Land Securities, is total rubbish, a series of glass, modernist, cubist boxes more suited to somewhere like Camberley or Crawley. Except for Summerland Gate, that is, which is better than the old Focus store. If they want to level anything, why not start with the bus station and the whole area south of Sidwell Street – Bampfylde Street, Summerland Street, Verney Street and all the trashy, cheap post-war junk around there? Build the glass boxes around this area and either leave Princesshay alone or honour Exeter with something truly remarkable.

Take the new High Street pavement: a load of cheap, low quality, shiny and slippery Chinese or Indian granite, all embellished with even worse, showy but unusable street furniture. Even in winter, you now need sunglasses to walk in Exeter High Street. Just suppose they’d spent twice as much and re-opened an old Dartmoor quarry and paved the place with local stone; the tourist opportunities would be incredible. It would be darker and mellower, too. And why the ugly, cheap re-surfaced bus lanes running down this road? The buses should stop at Paris Street and South Street with no entry to the High Street. There are more buses now than there ever were cars thirty years ago.

The late W G Hoskins would be appalled at the Princesshay plans. Why not honour him and the history of Exeter with some more classical buildings, all faced in Heavitree stone, something that actually has local resonance and tourist potential? Then you could walk through the new Princesshay and see Exeter all around you, the red stone synonomous with Exeter. The Canterbury redevelopment – Whitefriars, by Chapman Taylor Partners – has been more sympathetic with the city’s similarly ancient history.

In the words of the Canterbury City Council:

'The architectural design of the scheme aims for a series of individually designed buildings drawing on features from Canterbury's architectural past, but providing modern detailing so that the scheme is perceived as a 21st Century development. The exception to this is a retail building which is being designed as a modern "pavilion" with a high proportion of glazing and modern detailing.'

Where are the 'features from Exeter's architectural past' in the Princesshay scheme? Where is the Heavitree stone cladding? Where is the individuality? Why is the Exeter scheme totally dominated by a 'high proportion of glazing'? Why is the new 'flagship' building of Exeter - the revolting, mundane and anonymous Met Office building - totally invisible behind hills? The Princesshay website promises new, 'state of the art' public toilets in Catherine Street. Never trust someone who uses wording like 'state of the art'; it is meaningless drivel, facile and lazy rubbish.

If Exeter really must compete with Taunton – a traditional style town centre – or Cribbs Causeway or Plymouth, then why not put it all up in Sidwell Street or out of town somewhere? Anyway, what sort of person would drive eighty miles to go to Cribbs Causeway on a Saturday afternoon? Why the obsession with shopping and consumerism?

Land Securities make great propaganda about Debenhams taking up their ‘flagship’ new department store, but surely they are already in Exeter? I can see them vacating their tall Sidwell Street tower only for that to be demolished and replaced by offices. Overall, there is not even any gain in prestige retailing in Exeter. If Debenhams take the '130 000 square feet flagship department store' where is the space for any other 'prestige' store? What about Selfridges, Army and Navy, Fenwick or any true high maintenance, retail giants? What about Fortnum and Mason, or someone like them? There will be no space left.

And the Post Office will land up in even more cramped conditions in the old Tesco building, all those enormous queues - due to the idiots closing all of their other branches - trailing out into Sidwell Street, causing mayhem. This is what you might call the 'Midas' touch in reverse although, admittedly, their Summerland Gate effort is acceptable enough even if it does present an enormous sheet of glazing on the roundabout side.

'Environmentally, there is a unique opportunity to provide a new urban form which responds to the character of Canterbury rather than turning its back on that character as the post-war redevelopment did.'

Where is this sentiment represented by Exeter City Council? No wonder the Princesshay scheme is virtually invisible on the City Council website, unlike the Canterbury project, which is almost identical in size, land space, budget, historical significance and outline.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/devon/news_features/2004/princesshay.shtml

http://www.princesshay.com/

http://www.canterbury.gov.uk/cgi-bin/buildpage.pl?mysql=140