Can Paxton's Crystal Palace be rebuilt?

Over the years, plans to restore the site of the Crystal Palace have come and gone, stymied by local agendas, politics, planning and a lack of funds. I have seen sympathetic butterfly houses suggested, trees mapping out the template of the original palace, a car park, houses, a shopping complex and a huge private scheme which envisaged hotels, shops, a conference centre and the inclusion of an Olympic sized swimming pool  alongside restoration of the enormous fountains. All have been conceived, some with greater detail than others, but they have fallen by the wayside.

Several local pressure groups have their own, competing ideas and have been known to take consultants on site, show them around and then, one by one, take the expert aside to whisper that the others had little idea what they were talking about. It is no surprise nothing significant has happened.

But yesterday Mayor of London Boris Johnson was joined by Mr Ni Zhaoxing, the chairman of the ZhongRong Group. Mr Zhaoxing – worth $1.25 billion and 76^th on the China Rich List according to Forbes – has a dream of restoring Joseph Paxton’s Crystal Palace to its former glory (a video of their scheme is below). It wouldn't be the same as Paxton’s original, which sadly burned down in 1936, but will update the ‘innovative, translucent and delicate structure of the original along with its size and scale’, about 50 metres high and 500 metres long.




The palace would be a ‘culture-led exhibition and employment space’, the Italian terraces restored, a central tree lined boulevard running through much of the park created, the concert bowl renovated and the dinosaurs given new lighting (they were only recently restored in 2002). Sadly, no mention of the magnificent fountains which came with the original building but you never know.

They anticipate it would feature a hotel and conference facilities, studios, galleries and other commercial space. Not altogether too dissimilar from the scheme I mentioned above. Currently it remains all a bit vague. Detailed plans are, we are assured, ‘to be developed’. But if they want to stick with their timetable, they had better get cracking. A figure of £500million has been mooted for the project and they hope an application could be submitted as early as Autumn 2014, with building starting in winter 2015. And all of that includes the minefield of consultation, with the myriad of interests bickering for attention.

Paxton's original Crystal Palace

Leader of Bromley Council Stephen Carr describes it as a ‘visionary proposal’ but admits it is at an ‘early stage’. ‘It has to be worthy of serious consideration,’ he believes. They claim up to 2,000 jobs could be created.

On its website Bromley Council says the park needs ‘significant financial investment to its infrastructure to ensure that it can be enjoyed by generations to come,’ and this plan boasts that it would not need housing to be built. But it does mean handing over a large swathe of the park to a private, Chinese investment company. We know that: ‘The investor has submitted a request for an exclusivity agreement from Bromley Council.'

And already there are concerns about the project. In a letter to Bromley Council in August, the Crystal Palace Community Stakeholder Group (CSG), after they got wind of the scheme following a private reception at the Houses of Parliament, said the ‘proposal threatens the growth of community engagement and enthusiasm for a new sustainable future for the park’. They fear the park would be ‘under threat from commercial developers’. And they are particularly worried the scheme may jeopardise the Masterplan for the park, which has spent years working its way through the planning system, as well as scuppering chances for a Heritage Lottery Fund bid.

And in the London Assembly, the Green Party are already against it. Assembly member Darren Johnson said:

‘While I’m sure many people would love to see the Crystal Palace raised from the ashes, this precious parkland isn’t the right place for it. When the palace was moved there in the 1850s the newly laid out park was near countryside, but today it’s an urban park with a lot of space already taken up by the national sports centre, car parks, road and the caravan site.

‘The Mayor and the council need to concentrate on enhancing the park and backing the community groups who are doing their best to restore heritage features without losing green space.’

And as with the CSG, he raised the prospect losing the chance for an HLF bid.

One does not want to be too negative as it may be an interesting scheme and it is certainly ambitious. There are serious people on board, such as the co-founder of the Eden Project, Sir Tim Smit, who will sit on an advisory panel, chaired by Boris Johnson, which will have the challenging task of steering a path through the minefields ahead. But, at the moment, it feels it was too early to announce, such are the scant details. Details need to be urgently fleshed out and meetings with local community group need to be held within weeks. 

Update

It only seemed sensible to go up to Crystal Palace, from our little Penge cottage, to see what locals made of the idea. A prominent local businessman, who has been involved in previous restoration plans, was very keen.

'I think it's fantastic. Brilliant. It's definitely going to happen. The government are behind it, Boris is behind it; it's inevitable. They'll be a few people round here who won't like. They'll say it's like a Westfield, but it won't be. It will be great. I've been involved in plans before and I've had poison pen letters. But the vast majority of people will be right behind it. Great for the area'

A woman at the Westow pub, however, was a bit more circumspect.

'Oh no, it won't be a replica, it will be an ugly, horrible thing and they'll fill it with Caffe Nero's. We'll lose green space, and they better restore the park properly.'

Not scientific, or comprehensive, survey; just a bit of local anecdote.

Meanwhile, the egregious Stephen Bayley, writing for the Telegraph, says a new Crystal Palace will 'shame Britain'. In an absurd, pompous article, he thinks a new palace will be a 'convention centre for the lanyard-festooned suits with the inevitable yawn-inducing hotel' and calls it 'architectural debauchery'. yes, there are plenty of hurdles and issues ahead, but this is written before he has seen any plans, architectural drawings, even before an architect has been appointed. In fact, his biggest concern appears to be that such a building might appear in south east London. He writes:

'The legacy of 1851 was Albertopolis, the extraordinary collection of colleges and museums that make South Kensington one of the intellectual centres of the worlds. That's not going to happen in Penge.'

This is true. Penge is never going to compete with South Kensington, with its palace, museums and conspicuous wealth. But if he ever bothered to come to Penge he would find plenty of links with old Prince Albert, who, despite his regal bearing, wasn't such an insufferable snob; such as a beautiful estate of workers' cottages, which, if not based on his designs, were certainly inspired by them.

Listless Cameron looking for answers

It is a measure of what trouble the Conservative Party is in that its leader must reassure his most fervent supporters, gathered at the annual conference, that he wants to secure a majority government at the next election.

But that was one of David Cameron’s most heartfelt passages in his oddly flat conference speech today, vowing to fight ‘heart and soul’ at the next election, scotching any rumours that talks with Nick Clegg about continuing the coalition have amounted to anything significant.

At the last election, the Tories got a 36 per cent share of the vote and to win in 2015 it is very likely they will need their vote share to rise. It’s not impossible, of course; Cameron is their best asset – he remains more popular than his party – and incumbent party ratings tend to improve closer to an election. But, being split on the right by bumptious Nigel Farage and UKIP together with the Liberal Democrats’ decision not to support boundary changes, this remains a very tall order.

To win, Cameron has to try and control the centre ground and broaden the Conservatives’ appeal. Much of the last year the party has spent probably too much time shoring up its core support to try and stop the haemorrhage to UKIP; in this, it has probably succeeded but it has done little to improve its poll ratings, which remain stubbornly in the low thirties.

Given Ed Miliband’s supposed leap to the left, there should have been a fair swathe of centre ground into which David Cameron could have jumped this afternoon - yet it was ignored. In fact, not very much was said at all. Backed up by the vapid and schizophrenically-hyphenated slogan ‘For hardworking people’ (I got bored of counting the numbers of press releases from the Tory press office which included both ‘hardworking’ and ‘hard-working’), the prime minister ticked all the right Tory boxes, but did little else. Cameron can deliver a rousing speech but this wasn’t one of them. It felt forced; even the slivers of anger towards Labour, most noticeably on the NHS, sounded too scripted and rehearsed.

The key phrase of ‘land of opportunity’ is decent enough, so decent in fact it was used by Margaret Thatcher in her 1987 conference speech. And indeed by Harold Wilson back in 1965, who claimed that the 1964 election of a Labour government was a decision that ‘the old closed circle of opportunity based on family connections and school connections should go and should yield place to a land of opportunity for every boy and girl’.

Worse of all was the dearth of ideas. Cameron presented no new policies whatsoever. Some on the right have cheered this, satisfied that ’big’ government is taking a back seat, replaced by steady-as-she goes, a firm hand on the tiller. But around the country people can see that things need to be done: schools and homes to built; roads to mend; train tracks to be laid; services improved. By this measure, George Osborne’s speech was by far the more significant.

The nearest hint of a new policy was ‘everyone under 25 – earning or learning’. Halting benefits for the under 25s – particularly housing benefit – has been hinted at before and Downing Street sources, recognising the lack of much else to talk about, suddenly became eager to brief a few crumbs of detail. Housing benefit and job seekers’ allowance could both be affected and single parents could be included; this ‘land of opportunity’ Cameron spoke so much about will look an awful long way off for the children of the 166,002 single women on housing benefit, if it ever comes about. It all seemed very back-of-a-fag-packet stuff; it certainly won’t be a coalition policy and it will do little to broaden the party’s appeal.

Ed Miliband’s populist – and popular – targeting of the big six energy companies was inevitably rubbished; it may be economically illiterate but the prime minister didn’t explain why and he certainly didn’t present an alternative strategy to break the energy firms’ cartel; a problem all parties now acknowledge.

For well over a year now, Ed Miliband and Labour have threatened to win the next election without having to bother coming up with any policies. Now they have some and they remain unanswered. Obviously, next year’s conferences are to be the crucial clarion calls ahead of the 2015 election, but Cameron’s listless, uninspiring performance today gave little indication he has any idea how to respond.

'Red Ed' or not, Miliband is playing shrewd politics

So far, so predictable; energy companies reacted with apocalyptic warnings of blackouts faced with Ed Miliband's plan to freeze energy bills for two years if a Labour government is elected in 2015.

First, Angela Knight, chief executive of Energy UK (and former Tory MP and head of the British Bankers’ Association) said:

‘Freezing the bill, may be superficially attractive, but it will also freeze the money to build and renew power stations, freeze the jobs and livelihoods of the 600,000 plus people dependent on the energy industry and make the prospect of energy shortages a reality, pushing up the prices for everyone.’

Liberal Democrat energy secretary Ed Davey was even more worried: ‘When they tried to fix prices in California it results in an electricity crisis and widespread blackouts. We can’t risk the lights going out here too.’

Yes, the Californian experience; suddenly, every critic became an expert in the 2000/2001 horror story when blackouts were widespread. Today’s conclusion was that price caps were to blame, though no one mentioned the failure to build any new power stations as the population increased by 13 per cent, or the extensive criminal actions of Enron, as possible mitigating circumstances.

Ed Miliband knows energy prices are a problem. So does David Cameron. Since 2007, the average prices of gas and electricity has increased by 41 per cent and 20 per cent in real terms respectively. An average annual bill is now over £1,400.

Coping with such bills is a problem affecting more and more people, especially as wages rises stubbornly stay behind inflation. The National Debtline received 15,592 calls between January and June this year from people struggling with their bills, an increase of 111 per cent in five years.

All the while, customers see energy companies' profits soar to record levels. According to figures assembled by Labour in August this year, the total profits of the big six - British Gas, Eon, nPower, SSE, Scottish Power and EDF, responsible for supplying 98 per cent of the country - was £3.74billion in 2012, up from £2.16bn in 2009. Energy company fears about the implications of such a measure may well be genuine, but they will fall on uncaring ears.

When David Cameron announced his plan to force energy companies to offer the lowest available tariff to customers, almost a year ago now, the prime minister’s official spokesman told reporters: ‘The point is, in practice this market is not operating for everyone.’ New laws were needed as energy companies had failed to reform and clean up their ‘bewildering array’ of tariffs as Cameron had asked. Cameron thus declared himself for the consumer and against the big six energy companies.

Politicians of both parties know that customers, whether rightly or wrongly, feel they are being fleeced by what is effectively a cartel. They both agree that ‘something must be done’.

Cameron is in a tricky position; coming out as a champion for the energy industry is not an option. No doubt, questions about the legality of Ed Miliband’s scheme will be raised, though the advice I've seen so far says that it is. And, of course, Tories will make great play on ’the return of Red Ed’.

Already, some hysterical commentators are fatuously heralding the return of ‘class war’, ‘the politics of envy’ and ‘divide and rule’. Yet – though there is a palpable shift to the left – Ed Miliband is gambling people won't mind a little bit of state interventionism if it means holding down bills.

It remains unclear how the plan will work. Miliband wants to ‘reset the market’, whatever that means, and to break up the big six, though quite how is a mystery. It almost sounds as though Labour is planning a form of temporary renationalisation of the sector before reprivatizing it in hopefully more competition-friendly bite size chunks. Is this vaguely realistic? I have my doubts.

But regardless of whether it happens or not, Miliband, in easily his most commanding, fluent, powerful speech as Labour leader, has come up with an idea which may well prove popular. And with a marginal general election two years away, politically that may be the most important thing.

When is a resignation not a resignation?

I’m aware it’s not the biggest political story of the day, what with publisher Iain Dale’s comical sumo bout with a veteran anti-nuclear protester (speech, what speech?) but good old Godfrey Bloom from Ukip has succeeded once again in putting smiles on faces. Read more

HS2 needs an alternative, not just scrapping

There is an ever-so-slim danger the Labour Party might soon have a firm policy to defend as Shadow Chancellor Ed
Balls gave the clearest indication yet the opposition are preparing to dump their support for HighSpeed 2 (HS2). In his conference speech, the Labour bruiser repeated his line that there would be no ‘blank cheque’ for the inevitably controversial scheme. 

And he said:

‘The question is – not just whether a new high speed line is a good idea or a bad idea, but whether it is the best to spend £50 billion for the future of our country.’

As someone who fails to be convinced by the pro-HS2 arguments I should be pleased, but alarm bells are ringing in my head that simply scrapping the scheme – which has already cost hundreds of millions of pounds without so much as a piece of ballast being put into place – will simply result in lethargy filling the vacuum. HS2 needs to be replaced with a coherent, well-argued, realistic vision of Britain’s rail network, not scrapped in favour of our traditional shambolic, day-to-day, knee-jerk, panicky, management which has typified much of Britain’s transport policy for so many years.

Even the most maniacal supporters of HS2 – and on Twitter there are inevitably some CAPITAL LETTER SHOUTING fanatics who clearly weren’t allowed into debating societies – must accept the case for HS2 has not been won. 

Yes, capacity on the West Coast Main Line (WCML) is an issue but alternatives have not been exhaustively sought. The business case is flimsy, the dangers of sucking money from the regions into London – rather than the other way round – are just ignored, and the passenger number predictions are likely to be exaggerated, much as HS1’s were.

The problem is frequently, those arguing the strongest for HS2 are the ones who have the most financially to gain from the train line; their assertions cannot simply be taken at face value.

The issue of vested interests undermined KPMG’s report when it was released a fortnight or so ago. It was commissioned by HS2; obviously it would focus on the positives. And it had some glaring omissions as highlighted by Robert Peston here. He wrote that:

‘….many of the gains to the regions that KPMG calculates are based on the reasonable notion that companies will be established in places where transport links are better. But it has taken no account of whether those regions actually contain available land to site new or biggest companies or have people with relevant skills to employ.’

He added, damningly, that KPMG was ‘ignoring one of the fundamental causes of lacklustre growth in many parts of the UK, which is a shortage of skilled labour and of easily and readily available land’.

It's too late for the coalition government to abandon it as too much capital, political and other kinds, has been invested. And while this may just be another politician trying to keep all people happy all the time, with its eye-wateringly hefty price tag,  it is very easy to see why Ed Balls and senior Labour figures might want to ditch the whole plan. Suddenly, they would have made huge savings and could plot to redirect the money into their pet projects. But the whole rail network could lose undoubtedly needed investment and suffer as a consequence.

Already, a Labour source has indicated that while Balls is committed in principle to the rail link, he has no alternative route in mind. No mention of more east-west connections, more electrification, or countrywide fast broadband provision to negate the need to travel at all. 

The most convincing and articulate champion of HS2 is Andrew Adonis. The project's architect, he is a genuine train enthusiast. As transport secretary he took the radical step of taking trains around the country, to actually experience what train travellers had to put up with. In his August New Statesman article he was scathing about the management failures already besetting the project, bemoaning the complete lack of legislation for even the first phase of the line to Birmingham after three years of coalition government. He has urged for the creation of an HS2 minister to get a semblance of coherence and control on the project. Neither the coalition or the opposition has responded to his pleas and created such a role.

We are yet to hear what he makes of Labour's latest prevarication but I imagine it would a blend of annoyance, anger and disappointment.  If HS2 does get ditched, it will need someone like him to pick up the pieces and forge an alternate vision.

Update

We have now heard what Andrew Adonis has to say about Balls' HS2 threat. Speaking at  fringe event in Brighton, he said: 

'I'm very mindful of HS2 and where we are on this too. We cannot as a party preach long-termism and not practise it ourselves. We have got to be very clear about that.
We are the party that started HS2. I published the plan three years ago. We set the whole thing our, we set out the rationale, including capacity.
'We went through the whole thing. We did a major job of work.
'You have got to in politics, you cannot say that your principles and all that apply to other people but they don't apply to you when short term political advantage might rear its head. We have got to stick with this. It's very important.'

And, bitterly, he told the New Statesman the only thing the coalition had done 'since coming to office is add £10bn to it'.

He's clearly still flying the flag.

At least we have a piano

There's no question the NHS needs to improve. Its recovery rates from too many cancers are woeful. Yes, they've improved, but they remain woeful. Agency nurses, who may be good individually but lack local loyalty and accountability, are too widespread. GPs have contracts which pay for responsibility without accountability, while A&E avoid working weekends and leave it to junior doctors to tackle the chaos of Saturday night.

The system makes mistakes. I have a family member whose broken back was missed by an X-Ray; my grandmother died at Wexham Park Hospital, much to the apparent irritation of a senior nurse and a close family member lost a baby when she shouldn't have done. These were not good experiences.
.
But, and it is a big but, the Channel Four news programme last night comparing the death rates of the NHS with the United States health system left me little short of livid with frankly shoddy use of statistics.

Ostensibly they have a good story. Sir Bruce Keogh, the NHS medical director, is to investigate after being shown statistics which reveal the death rate in the NHS was 58 per cent higher than the United States back in 2004, 45 per cent in 2012.

Channel 4 claimed to have access to exclusive data but the viewer only heard comparisons between the United Kingdom and the United States; other countries' figures were kept secret for reasons of 'confidentiality' which is a shame.

But no mention is made of the methodology. Professor Brian Jarman has been credited with highlighting the unusual death rate at the Stafford Trust and he deserves credit. But, his 'HSMR' system is no longer used by the NHS. It doesn't, for example, include deaths within 30 days of discharge.

No comparison between hospital deaths and home deaths in either country was made.
In US, 29 per cent of people died in hospital in 2010. In this country, it's roughly about 58%. Moreover, the cost of treatment in a US hospital was not mentioned, let alone end-of-life bills.

The programme had several moving, disturbing stories from family member whose loved ones died, having apparently suffered unnecessarily, while in hospital. All undoubtedly tragic. Yet, no further investigation is done. No causal link between the deaths and the NHS is made. They just died in hospital.

No comparison is made between health spending per capita. In 2011, in the United States it was $8,608, while the UK spend $3,609. Quite a contrast.

Life expectancy isn't noted either. For all the US spend per head on health care - and let's ignore the multitude who get no health provision at all, as the US government does - it lags behind Britain. For men in the UK it is 79, in the US 76. Meanwhile for women, in the UK you can expect to reach 82, in the US 81.
And for the record, US GDP per capita in 2012, according to the World Bank, was $49,922, the UK's $36,941.

But, I repeat, this is not to say genuine issues were not raised and investigations should be held into aspects of NHS care and death rates. But casual statistical use undermined an otherwise good story. And this is not what Channel 4 News normally does.

And perhaps most riling of all, the Channel 4 journalist was terribly impressed to find piano music echoing from the hospital she visited in the United States. Mayo hospital was 'impressive, with piano music paying in the lobby and sunshine streaming into the rooms' her blog read. Not sure there's much British hospitals can do about sunshine, especially in comparison with a centre in Phoenix, Arizona.

But, I was even more impressed to find a pianist playing a grand piano in the atrium at Guys and St Thomas' during my frequent visits there a few years ago. Better than piped muzak in dull, hotel-style ersatz, this was a patient having fun.

Accidents, hospitals and Uri Geller

The last couple of days have been dominated by frequent trips to a pair of hospitals after my wife had a fall while carrying our baby in a sling, injuring her hand to break her fall and protect the little one.

I don’t have a tale of hospital woe to report. Swabs weren’t left in open wounds, the incorrect part of the body wasn’t x-rayed. It’s fair to say all the service we received was good; reception staff courteous and helpful, nurses attentive, radiographers efficient, doctors sympathetic and reassuring.

And, for those that are interested, thankfully, apart from a small bone in my wife’s wrist possibly being broken and our daughter suffering a few bumps and bruises on her head and knee, they both escaped lightly; my wife’s shock and upset being the most serious consequence. And the whole experience did much to remind me of what lovely neighbours we have, with several rushing to our aid and helping throughout the evening.

None of this, however, made the process anything less than tortuously slow forced, as we were, to go from Beckenham Beacon – a small, old cottage hospital, nearby – to the Prince Royal (PRU) in Farnborough – a huge, PFI-funded, monolith, seemingly miles from civilisation, that no doubt played a part in the South London Health Trust going into administration. At the Beacon, the x-ray clinic was closed for the day; at the PRU we waited in the Urgent Care clinic, our baby exhaustingly perky. And why are hospitals always so damn hot?

The most curious aspect of the evening occurred as we were waiting for a taxi to take us home. As we waited in the dark, empty foyer of the Princess Royal’s main reception, I noticed a plaque on the wall:

I apologise for the angle; I was on fixed phone to cab at the time

What on earth was Uri Geller doing planting a time capsule beneath the hospital? Was he paid an appearance fee for his time? Did they have money to burn back in 2001?

Unsurprisingly, the event attracted little press coverage at the time but Mr Geller’s own website is informative as it references a brief write up in The Bromley News.

To celebrate the first stage of the new £155m hospital being built on the Farnbornugh site in Bromley, a time capsule was buried yesterday (Wednesday) created to Inform and intrigue future generations of Bromley residents. The time capsule was Buried by Paranormalist, Uri Geller, in conjunction with Bromley Hospitals Trust. As well as plans for the new hospital and NHS memorabilia, one of Uri Geller's trademark bent spoons was included, together with a DVD record of his life.

It fails to reveal whether Mr Geller was paid or not, but we can be sure when the Princess Royal is razed to the ground, whoever discovers the capsule will no doubt be grateful for a bent spoon and an inevitably modest DVD of his life. I imagine they’ll pop it right back in the ground.