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Originally Posted by WillowTheWhisp
So what have we been offered then apart from "High Form" which was a bit of a non-starter. I remember asking if we were compelled to have that artist but I don't know if I got an answer to that.
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A steering group was formed - chaired by Cllr Brian Walmsley and including at least three other councillors from both parties.
A curator was asked to come up with a shortlist of five architectural practices that were interested in designing something for the Coppice. She looked at the work of a number of architectural practices and brought a short list of five to the group. The past work of these architects was put in front of the steering group and they chose three out of the five to produce some ideas.
The three architects came up with designs which were then put on public display in six places and a questionnaire was put by the side. We received only about 50 responses. Only about 12 said that they did not want any of the designs, the rest expressed a preference for one or the other.
The steering group then had presentations from each of the three architects and selected the architect Peter Beard based on the responses and based on their own opinions.
Peter Beard was then asked to go away and redevelop his design which is when he came up with the High Form design. Before he went away to redevelop his design he'd actually submitted four ideas and I personally preferred one of them but when he was asked to redevelop the steering group asked him to look at the possibility of including the Accrington Pals in his thinking.
So, in answer to your question, we haven't been offered anything other than High Form however, there were plenty of opportunities to influence the design along the way. As I said, the incident with the Halo and then the rejection of High Form really left us with no room to manoeuvre at that point.
What frustrates me a little is that only 12 people actually bothered to look at the complete sets of designs and object. A higher proportion than that actually voted for one or the other of them. About 40 people turned up at the Town Hall meeting and the majority were in favour, equally a meeting at Huncoat Area Council had a majority in favour. I don't count the poll in the paper because they didn't print all the designs and so gave a biased picture to the ones that were never likely to be acceptable in the first place. Even people on here have said that they would be open to the right design given a chance.
But when you're faced with 'no, no, no' without any dialogue there really isn't anywhere else to go.
We (MPA) have four out of six of the designs being built this year so at the moment we're too focused on them to go looking for new sites and new architects for Hyndburn but it isn't totally ruled out yet. Having said that, the project time is running out.