MARCH

Alan Clawley in the Birmingham Post:

The arguments of Friends of the Library in favour of listing the Central Library were viewed so seriously by government that it took several years and three ministers to decide in the council’s favour.

By ruling in the interests of the prospective developers of Paradise Circus the minister ignored the evidence of his own experts in English Heritage who had twice recommended listing.

Instead he chose to listen to the advice of the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, a body that the new government has now abolished. 

Later by email:

We are up against the council machine that blunders on with the help of its business friends regardless of rational criticism. 

Knocking down a building, like executing a prisoner, is a way of curtailing any further debate on the matter.   

Friends of the Library will go on looking for a happier outcome until the bulldozers arrive.