TOP STORY Fred Done's Manchester aparthotel UK: After three rejections from planners, bookmaker Fred Done's aparthotel project in Manchester has been replaced by a proposed residential apartment block. LATEST NEWS FEATURES VIDEOS Editor's comment
21-06-2019
• Architectural taste, as I mentioned in Tuesday's newsletter, is a highly subjective thing, and the proposal of a building that is intensely disliked can bring very strong feelings to the surface, as well as invoking memorable language.
Prince Charles set the bar pretty high 35 years ago when he described a proposed extension to the National Gallery in London's Trafalgar Square as "like a monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend”. The phrase resonated instantly with whoever heard it, no doubt helped by the Prince's appalled tone.
Fast forward to 2019 and a contentious planning application in Manchester is provoking some equally memorable objections. Fred Done, the founder of bookmaker Bet Fred, has had a proposal for a 13-storey aparthotel on Manchester's Shudehill rejected not once, not twice, but three times, due to its excessive height. But undeterred, his development company Salboy has lodged an application on the same site for a 17-storey block of flats.
Unsurprisingly the plan has already received a fair number of objections, and some of them are priceless. City centre councillor Joan Davies described it as a "giraffe among hamsters", although she was quick to add that "it lacks the grace of a giraffe".
Another objector, with dry Mancunian humour, was not impressed by the way Salboy describes its proposals, claiming: “Referring to a bench and tree as a' pocket park' is perhaps pushing things a bit." A third waded in with a more conventional "towering monstrosity".
Mr Done has not made his billions by being a shrinking violet, and drawing up these plans and lodging the applications does not come cheaply. He would not be doing it if he didn't think he has a good chance of success. And indeed planning officers are recommending the project for approval, saying: "The development would deliver a high quality building and regenerate a poor quality site, and would respond well to its context."
The application will be heard next week, and it could just be a matter of time until the giraffe is looming over Manchester city centre.
George Sell, editor
Katie Houghton
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