Old Church Hall

[jack b]

Can I just say what a disgrace I think it is that they're going to pull down the old church hall and replace it with new flats when they could surly refurbish the existing building and keep our important heritage. Too many of Bedlington's old buildings have been lost to make way for bad ideas. The old hall would make a brilliant house.

[Adam Hogg]

Completely agree with you Jack, NCC should be shot for letting it go ahead via a poor turnout by them at the planning appeal, one member of the planning department and one member of legal services, that was all that was there to try and stop it, the developer had a top legal team from London there.

[threegee]

Well, I'm going to disagree here.   It has been pretty much a waste of space for many years now, indeed unsafe!  We can't preserve absolutely everything, and some things have to go to make way for the new.  And.. it wasn't actually a church hall for a lot of the time I was around there.  That's a use it assumed because there was little else to do with it.

 

Let's preserve the things that are worth preserving, and don't let the bad decisions of the past - I'm referring to the council driven carnage of the place in the '60's - make us overreact when things have seen out their utility.  Many things have gone which should have been preserved, but this certainly isn't one of them!

 

So... nice to have known you Infants School / latter day Church Hall, but Bedlington needs a touch of "The Doctor".  It needs to regenerate if it is to survive as other than a dormitory for other places.  Places that have had a fairer deal!  Presently, we need to grab whatever reasonable quality development we can attract.

 

Excessive clinging to the past is a sure sign of decline. We owe it to the future, our children, and indeed our forefathers, to move on!  I do hope I haven't stifled the debate here; are there actually any rational reasons why the development shouldn't go ahead?

[mercuryg]

Threegee, in many ways I agree with you; while I love exploring local history, and find old buildings fascinating, it's worth remembering that much of it is deservedly that - history. I'm not sure renovating the building concerned would have been commercially viable - I don't have the details, of course, but am sure there are many considerations to be made - and to be fair, it's been standing, falling evermore into a state o disrepair, for many years now, so there's a clue there, I think. Bedlington is a fine town to look at in many ways - especially thanks to the heritage initiative of recent years  - but preservation for the sake of it is not the way forward. Is this building actually historically important, or is it just an old building, looked at nostalgically? I strongly suspect the latter.

[Adam Hogg]

Excessive clinging to the past is a sure sign of decline. We owe it to the future, our children, and indeed our forefathers, to move on!  I do hope I haven't stifled the debate here; are there actually any rational reasons why the development shouldn't go ahead?

The development is not valid as I see it, the demolition order has the post code of the house behind the top end dentists on it, and the planning application has front street west on it when it is church lane, the planning of the development is completely and utterly wrong and the planners should have seen that.

(Saying that they can't see anything I wrote into them about Elliots garage and the address being of the hairdressers next to watsons papershop but they gave the all clear to it.)

Also the developer put in three planning appliations, if i remember right it was keep the original building and build three house behind it, keep the original building and build flats behind and the one that was given permission was for 39 flats with the orginal building demolised.

However the building is important the our history like the listed buildings in the area like the vicarage, the old barclays bank and st cuthberts some of which have been allowed to fall into a state of disrepair.

[ex Bedlingtonian]

20 years ago I used to go to a dog training class in the building.  It was falling down even then.  The floor was rotting, and there were parts of it we couldn't use in case we went through the floor.  I don't remember any remedial work being done to it in the ensuing years, so I doubt there would be much left to conserve.

Edited April 14, 2014 by ex Bedlingtonian

[John Fox (foxy)]

You can whinge all you like folks,

                                                       the County Council Planners have already ruined the Market Place with the Elliots Garage "Sight" and after  a presentation they gave  at last weeks Town Council Meeting, it looks like the Onslaught will continue.

[Alan Edgar (Eggy1948)]

Would someone please enlighten me, and I am sure many others. Does this 'Old' church hall have a name and a specific location?

[Adam Hogg]

Would someone please enlighten me, and I am sure many others. Does this 'Old' church hall have a name and a specific location?

It is know as the old church hall to some, others call it the old school depends who you speak to eggy but it is the building between the market place club and the St Cuthberts church.

[Alan Edgar (Eggy1948)]

It is know as the old church hall to some, others call it the old school depends who you speak to eggy but it is the building between the market place club and the St Cuthberts church.

Thanks Adam.  The school that developers wont touch because their are two many restrictions?

[mercuryg]

"However the building is important the our history like the listed buildings in the area like the vicarage, the old barclays bank and st cuthberts some of which have been allowed to fall into a state of disrepair."

 

Is it really that important to our history though, Adam? I understand your reticence and annoyance at the planning procedure, but surely it's best to have usable, inhabitable buildings on the site than one that, as far as I can remember, has been crumbling away? How old is it, anyway, and what is its historic importance other than, as I said before, nostalgia? Also, I don't think any of the buildings mentioned above are listed, as such.

[threegee]

... Also, I don't think any of the buildings mentioned above are listed, as such.

 

The Old Vicarage is actually Grade II listed. To quote from the English Heritage guy who surveyed it: "If I have to see yet another Grade II listed building I will scream."  He meant, of course, that they were going through a phase when everything that was old enough was being listed without any consideration of merit.  Not that there's anything wrong with the Old Vicarage; it's a fine building that was built without much consideration of the cost - because the church at that time was flush with funds from the sale of the Glebe Lands.  It will certainly be standing long after the New Vicarage is bulldozed.  But it's not representative of the town in the past, and indeed not even that old. Nor is it in any way unique in itself. That's recognised in the Grade II; preservation on the cheap, as no public money is available. There's no doubt that Grade II listings need to be reviewed.  Either they should be marked as worthy of public money, or be released from most of the restrictions.  Like the Old Vicarage most will survive anyway, because they still serve a purpose into the 21st century and beyond.

 

The entire conservation area is a bit of a joke anyway, because just about everything that was worth conserving was vandalised by none other than the very people who should have at least preserved some of the better examples.  Some of these had been flagged up in surveys paid for with public money before the vandalisation, yet these were ignored when politically convenient.

 

Bedlington is still a working town, and a working town that has had the raw-end of many political stitch ups.  It isn't a twee village in the stockbroker belt with sky high property values, and almost all of the historical treasures have gone for good.  It now needs to be able to regenerate with as few shackles as possible.  Getting rid of the odd derelict and decrepit building that has long had its day should be just a start.  We've got an enviable central position and should be screaming out for this to recognised in regional government decisions, not squabbling over the odd pile of nondescript stones.

[keith lockey]

I'm all for preserving old buildings and such, but what concerns me more is the fact that there are buildings in Bedlington that are standing empty and which could be used to enhance our town - namely the old Co-op (Milne House), Johnson's shoe shop, which seems to have come to a sudden stop where renovation is concerned. Town planners, etc, should be concentrating on these not, as someone said above, buildings that no longer serve a function. Preserve them by all means, but turn them into viable concerns where the towns folk can benefit from them.

[Keith Scantlebury]

I startidd my eggtensive heducayshun  at the villuj infants.  Thatt skule mayd me wot I am twodae

Edited April 15, 2014 by keith

[Alan Edgar (Eggy1948)]

I startidd my eggtensive heducayshun  at the villuj infants.  Thatt skule mayd me wot I am twodae

Shud your name not be Kieth? Barton infants were taught 'i' before 'e' accept after 'c'. And that's why I failed my English Language - 1/2 a mark deducted for every spelling mistake.

[Alan Edgar (Eggy1948)]

The Old Vicarage is actually Grade II listed. To quote from the English Heritage guy who surveyed it: "If I have to see yet another Grade II listed building I will scream."  He meant, of course, that they were going through a phase when everything that was old enough was being listed without any consideration of merit.  Not that there's anything wrong with the Old Vicarage; it's a fine building that was built without much consideration of the cost - because the church at that time was flush with funds from the sale of the Glebe Lands.  It will certainly be standing long after the New Vicarage is bulldozed.  But it's not representative of the town in the past, and indeed not even that old. Nor is it in any way unique in itself. That's recognised in the Grade II; preservation on the cheap, as no public money is available. There's no doubt that Grade II listings need to be reviewed.  Either they should be marked as worthy of public money, or be released from most of the restrictions.  Like the Old Vicarage most will survive anyway, because they still serve a purpose into the 21st century and beyond.

 

The entire conservation area is a bit of a joke anyway, because just about everything that was worth conserving was vandalised by none other than the very people who should have at least preserved some of the better examples.  Some of these had been flagged up in surveys paid for with public money before the vandalisation, yet these were ignored when politically convenient.

 

Bedlington is still a working town, and a working town that has had the raw-end of many political stitch ups.  It isn't a twee village in the stockbroker belt with sky high property values, and almost all of the historical treasures have gone for good.  It now needs to be able to regenerate with as few shackles as possible.  Getting rid of the odd derelict and decrepit building that has long had its day should be just a start.  We've got an enviable central position and should be screaming out for this to recognised in regional government decisions, not squabbling over the odd pile of nondescript stones.

I assume the building, and land, is now owned by the council, not the church. I would expect the council to be applying for the building to be removed from the Listed Building register, as it is on in error, so they could sell the land for development. If the building is not removed from the list then in some circumstances could the council be forced to repair the property?  

[Malcolm Robinson]

Council own nowt being talked about Eggy.  

 

In fact these days its a rush for them to get rid of anything they own in a dash to save money.  

[mickypotts]

So if they build 39 units at the old school, maybe 2 people per unit maybe 3 where is the parking for all the cars that will need it ????? on Church Road??

[threegee]

Ah, but think of all the parking fines, and the warden jobs so created!  39 more two-car families - goodness, why did that car showroom close?!

[Alan Edgar (Eggy1948)]

Sorry for dragging this on, I know things are always repeated when new people join in on old topics. I have attempted to find out as much as I can on any ongoing discussions on developing  this old school but only find that witch I take was rejected.

Just searching online I could only find the one story about the derelict site, in the Chronicle on May 11^th  2009 : -

http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/public-inquiry-over-derelict-building-1454307

 And then a developer's site :- http://www.nicholsonnairn.co.uk/project-template.php?id=60

That suggested it was in the bag and the projected images they had posted on their site looked to fit in Ok.

 

Can't find anything since 2009!

[Andy Millne]

See the decision from the planning inspectorate attached.

 

I have to echo others thoughts in this topic too. Preservation for preservation's sake does the town no good whatsoever. It is understandable that people will feel nostalgic over old buildings like this but it has no use in its current state.

59c0d895-2a5e-45c6-bcaa-1ffa92d886a7.pdf

[threegee]

Can't find anything since 2009!

 

You need to select what site area you are searching on with the grey button before hitting the green search magnifier, else it will return too many results.

One of the 2010 links I can spot: http://www.bedlingto...y-adjourned-r58

[Malcolm Robinson]

Why is everyone talking about 39 flats on the old school site, the planning permission was for 19 not chuffing 39!  

 

I had this same argument last night too, didn't I Adam!  

[Malcolm Robinson]

Its here.....

 

 

 

[Adam Hogg]

Why is everyone talking about 39 flats on the old school site, the planning permission was for 19 not chuffing 39!  

 

I had this same argument last night too, didn't I Adam!  

Not with me Malcolm, As I was not sure.