Bank Street High Street Bridgegate Junction - by Crawford Fulton
This image was taken by Gordon McCreath.
£9 million has been spent on transforming a 1973 office and shopping development from this: www.flickr.com/photos/crawfordfulton/5153884492/in/set-72... The property is located in the heart of Irvine Central Conservation area. It is out of scale with the surrounding properties, it does not follow the historic relationship between buildings and the street pattern (older buildings are parallel with the road line), and, particularly under often grey Scottish skies, the use of black and grey hardly constitutes a morale-boost! The property had exceeded its life span and should have been demolished. Having been built in energy-wasting times, it was not fit for purpose and has proved very costly to bring up to modern insulation standards. It has also been a monumental act of folly in one other regard, the bulk of the property is used by the local authority itself - this is the most expensive land in the town, the location which has the most appeal for private development (whether that be for offices, flats, hotel, or entertainment use, or more probably a mixture of some of these). All the alternative uses, which could have been developed on a redevelopment of this site, have been effectively rejected for the duration of the newly-extended life of this obscenity. North Ayrshire Council has failed in three duties: financial prudence, they have not only wasted money, but they have turned away an annual receipt of income from the private use of the site (through business taxes); promoting economic growth, they have located a use which has very little commercial impact in the heart of a struggling town centre, had the site been used for private investment, it could have sparked wider interest within the development community in the growth of the area; and finally, the preservation and enhancement of a Conservation Area (which is a statutory responsibility), this crass redesign, of a wholly inappropriate structure, has extended the visual blight on, what had the potential to become, one of the West of Scotland's most appealing historic areas. The Council is currently engaged in producing a 'Vision for Irvine' ; I dread to read its final proposals. They will emerge from a body which has produced this half-baked scheme. North Ayrshire Council has shown itself to be: ignorant of land economics and commerce; clueless on conservation; and completely visually illiterate.
Maritime museum gates GJC_016159 - by j_on_tour
Irvine, North Ayrshire.
Why not check out the story of how these Irvine images fit together at my travel blogpost ...
jayzspaze.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/irvine-north-ayrshire.html
HARBOUR WALK 14 - Harbour Street 1, looking North East - by Crawford Fulton
This photo was taken by George McMaster. Shown here is the entrance to part of the Scottish Maritime Museum (on the left). The flats of Dublin and Belfast Quays can be seen behind it.
