AS THE architect who seems to have incurred the wrath of Michael Jackson, may I provide some response with regard to the Wetherspoons/JJB building ?

The two storey building which remains to be built on the corner of the site will indeed leave on view the stone and zinc gable end on North Road, which is what I intended. I do not think that there is any chipboard to be seen and I wonder why Mr Jackson has referred to this? "Wooden structures faced with thin zinc sheets" have been in existence for hundreds of years and, for instance, provide for the particular character of central Paris.

The original building was built in a style appropriate to its time, using materials and construction techniques available to the builders of the day. If this is a definition of putting public responsibility before profits, do we all deserve praise?

The original building was built with a tight control on costs. This is obvious from our findings inside the building, where corners were cut to save costs and we have had to repair and strengthen the existing structure. We found, for instance, that the building makes use of earlier foundations and it was literally placed on top of an older neighbouring wall. In this way, the original builders saved the cost of new foundations.

It is suggested that changes to buildings are driven by profit, and it is inferred that this a bad thing. Profit has driven the built environment ever since buildings began to be sold by one person to another, and ever since the skills to build had to be bought by the person commissioning the building. Look no further than the Regency terraces in London and Bath. To be blunt: no profit, no building. However, profit is not the sole driver of change. Stone was changed to zinc on my building because I could not guarantee long term stability of the thin stone element conceived in the original design. A window was omitted because it affected the way in which the building could be used. National building rules and regulations are updated regularly, and they also change aspects of buildings which are in design.

Incidentally the police did not object to the development, and in my experience magistrates on the licensing bench are not swayed in their deliberations by how nice the building might look on completion!

Ken Jones

Hattrell & Partners