No 4 New Buildings for Old

Seems strange to suddenly be in April. It appears to have sneaked up on me a bit, maybe I'm getting old.

Took myself off to Southport today, which used to be rather quiet refined seaside resort on the west coast of Lancashire. Brother how it has changed!! It's becoming more of a Blackpool type of place with Kiss Me Quick hats and sticks of rock with the name of the town through the middle of it.

On the plus side there is a rather nice residential development apparently nearing completion on the sea front. I believe it used to be an old hospital dating back to 1882 - if the inscription near the roof is anything to go by - and now there is a large attachment on the back side of it which appears to have at least doubled the size of the place. From the outside, and this is what I am particularly interest in, it looks to have been constructed in exactly the manner as the original building, with the same lintels and roof ornaments in place. Looks terrific to tell you the truth. More power to the elbow of the architect who designed it.

Comparing that to the many new properties being thrown up all over the place I wonder why the planning authorities allow some of the rubbishy monstrosities to crawl their way up from the slime. We allow developers to get away with murder in this country.

Compare these building with the ones put up by Spain - I'm thinking mainly of the ones in Barcelona like Antonio Gaudí. They are fantastic looking buildings. I sometimes think that in the UK we are too easily convinced that second best is good enough.