On Fri, 11 Aug 2006 21:43:39 +0100, Greg Hennessy
wrote:

On Fri, 11 Aug 2006 19:00:49 +0100, Paul Corfield
wrote:


If it's not fit for purpose, it's 'niceness' is irrelevant. LT is there to
provide public transport, nothing else, it's assets are not there for the
benefit of train spotters, architecture wonks or unaccountable quangos who
don't have to pick up the tab for specious contradictory regulation.

So LU shouldn't do anything to reflect its heritage, its history and its
design excellence?

A straw man.

We (those LU employees who work there) should just be shoved in some
modern office equivalent of a battery hen shed should we?

There is absolutely no reason why you or any other public sector employee
should be provided with facilities which have higher operating costs than
equivalent ones elsewhere.

Does your logic also apply to the private sector? If this is the case
then I trust we will see bankers and corporate lawyers sharing the same
facilities as privatised dustmen.

You are employed to serve the public, not the other way around.

Cheers for the reminder about why I am employed. I must admit that I had
forgotten and had assumed that the millions of pounds in fares that are
paid everyday were only there to keep me in a life of unbounded luxury
while I sit on my backside doing sod all.

If that means the public is better served by placing LU's back office staff
in Stockley Park rather than St James' then so be it.

If you don't like it, tough, work somewhere else.

Are you this pathetically pedantic about everything?

All of the stations that are excellent examples of historical designs
should be flattened and replaced with mindless railway versions of a bus
shelter?

a.n other straw man.

I really do not understand your approach to building design and
preservation - does function always override form in your book?

When it comes to paying for it out of taxpayers money, most definitely.

'Form' has left London with a non standardised unmaintainable mess on the
underground.

So everything must be standardised then because standardisation is some
epitome of efficiency?

Please give examples of what you consider to be the unmaintainable mess?

Do you always buy the cheapest option in everything you purchase or do
you differentiate as to quality, longevity, aesthetics etc?

Holding up long overdue refurbishment because EH consider 70-80 year old
tile work to be 'worthy' is wholly unacceptable.

Why is it unacceptable - just because it might cost more than some rock
bottom cheap as chips option?

Speaking as a representative of the local electorate, I'd prefer that
we have guidance from experts on what is a proper historic building
design and what is undistinguished.

Such 'advice' is only valid if the alleged experts guidance is objective.
In the case of the EH et al, it is not.

They aren't paid to be objective.

They should not be paid period if they are not.

And what objective criteria should they therefore employ to achieve
their overall mandate as set down in legislation?
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!