Letter: The Casino Site Needs an Iconic Building

Published on: 12 Sep, 2019
Updated on: 12 Sep, 2019

From Stephen Mansbridge

former GBC council leader

In response to: May I Make a Helpful Suggestion to Mr Harper?

Hon Alderman Bridger misses a number of points. An urban village is uneconomic for the freeholder and therefore the council would have to compulsorily purchase the land to add to its own landholding.

This area is a slum and yet a key gateway to Guildford, as the 2015 (now forgotten) Town Masterplan suggested. The site is at the nadir of the town and will have the station development in its shadow, so height should not be an issue.

In 2015, Guildford Borough Council reached an agreement with Michel Harper to cast aside his many vexations and the council’s wholly inappropriate treatment of him as a resident. Since then it has failed to build upon this relationship, which was designed to facilitate the joint development of the whole Bridge Street and Bedford Road area.

This site should see an iconic building that is aspirational. The council needs to re-learn that it should work with people, where it is in the best common interest to do so.

Responses to Letter: The Casino Site Needs an Iconic Building

Dave Middleton Reply

September 12, 2019 at 10:48 am

Bridge Street has a “landmark iconic building” already. The Rodboro Building.

Let’s leave the high-rise eyesores to the London Borough of Woking, please.
Jim Allen Reply

September 12, 2019 at 11:40 am

Clearly the current plan for this section of the town, situated in the flood plain and bottom of the valley, is a mismatch of spaghetti roads, rhubarb railway and misplaced bricks.

Perhaps a real town-planner should be engaged to convince the builders and a sensible approach to the whole area considered – like making it a transport hub – buses (or monorail or sky tram) to meet the trains (how novel would that be!) and the provision of a suitable road intersection covered by a suitable park, a flood meadow and a few scattered mews.

Or we could build a “Shard II” and totally destroy our heritage!
Valerie Thompson Reply

September 12, 2019 at 3:35 pm

This building would be a true “blot on the landscape”…inappropriate in its bulk, height, colour, design… iconic does not mean hideous.

Michel Harper lost our respect when he delayed the rebuilding on the Civic Hall site years ago and caused the cost of the new hall to rise hugely, necessitating the financial arrangements that exist today, which continue to cost the council vast sums of money.