IN recent weeks praise has been pouring in for the proposed Millennium Bridge, apparently from readers who live in those parts of the city least affected by the visual impact of it.
Understandably, any major construction project generates excitement and optimism, an illusion of well-being and prosperity.
But, viewed objectively, this zany futuristic space-age fancy has no place in the ancient city of Lancaster. New technology has not advanced building skills - it has totally destroyed them.
A quick glance around and what do you see? Prefabricated concrete, crude steelwork, plastic laminated tinplate etc. Not exactly progress is it?
Alleged architects are pulling our leg with their weird and wacky concoctions on the pretext that they are "modern" designs. A lousy excuse for lack of quality.
Council chiefs will welcome the bridge on the grounds that anything, no matter how bad or ugly, is better than nothing at all. But surely in the interests of civic pride and good taste we cannot allow this lopsided ramshackle pile to deface our skyline.
Better to forfeit the Millennium Commission funding than to squander it on a cheap attempt at copying the styles of Milton Keynes or Teletubbyland.
The celebrations will be over in a flash, but given state-of-the-art construction methods that ghastly bridge could last as long as fifteen years!
M Zajac
Vicarage Terrace
Lancaster
Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.
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