Landmarks

Some of the schemes had plans included to dress up the shelter and restore the monument and paths but that's when people (mostly PB) started saying that we were blackmailing them into having a panopticon. This simply was not true, we were saying that we had the money for a panopticon and on the back of that we were looking to raise additional funding for all the rest of the stuff. If we (MPA) weren't building a panopticon then there was no reason for us to be involved otherwise but other bodies, including the council, could quite happily have pursued funding for the other stuff on their own - they haven't done to my knowledge.

I think that now it has got to a point where the name itself causes the problems. For instance, in Ribble Valley the nicest design was a wall - it was slightly subtly coloured and it had a featured window in it but essentially all it was was a wall. If we had gone to RV and said, we think this site is a bit dangerous because it's on the edge of a quarry so we'd like to build you a pretty viewing platform and wall and oh, by the way, it has a bit of a feature window in it would that be ok? I firmly believe they'd have said yes. But, we went to them with a design competition to build a sculpture and we got some other designs which the press had a field day with and which again got stuck in people's minds so the whole thing was never going to get off the ground.
 
Shame that is. So they've got nothing too?.
Well From the pics on here in the gallery of that shelter and graffiti'd monument, I would go around bragging that it's a nice place. but who am I to comment, I'm just an outsider with unbiased views that most outsiders will have.

could we have an explanation from peter britcliffe as to why they were trying to con them into having something. (blackmail is money with menaces)

I think maybe your right, and I think maybe the councils should get involved and just override the public. If the public were consulted on every little monument, viewing platform, bench, lamp post and path, you'd end up with nothing.
In runcorn, the local council has just gone ahead and built a park with wooden viewing platforms over the mersey, could be better but at least they are there, and sculptures, one is a living willow sculpture that you can walk through.
Your never going to please all the people alll the time and your never going to please the press. they will put a spanner in every time just to create another failure story. Shame that residents of accy couldn't see that.
You've lost out on something and you think you've won. I think you should all get back to the table and start to talk to each other.
 
yerself said:
I blame the why-aye men. They started it with their 'Angel of The North' and ever since the rest of the country has been trying to emulate them. The geordies' heap of rusting steel knocks any of these crackpot panopticon ideas into a cocked hat.
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Love this or hate it, I always get a thrill from seeing it off the A1, can't ignore Gateshead now and that's what it's all about.

Think possibly we give artists too much choice here and should focus more on a theme. Maybe I am a little old-fashioned and look back too much instead of the future hopes of the town, but would like to see something that reflects our past textile industry; like a new Nori brick chimney that could be climbed and viewing platform on the top with images of the industry as you climb the stairs.

Shame about the parks though, isn't it ? Think they are improving again now and this is about parent power instead of pester power to take our children there on a day like today and NOT to Eureka, Camelot, etc.
 
Madhatter said:
well there you go then build a new shelter on the coppice out of bricks but design something into perhaps even using light like the spaceship one. you could do something then on the ground to link that across to the monument which would be refubished and perhaps raised on a new plinth. or encircle it with twelve monilith stones to represent time and have scenes of accy carved in to them. brick lines radiating out from the centre to each stone. or have chrome steel carved and outlined in black, each uplit at nite with colour changing lights.
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Now if we HAD to have something on the Coppice that actually sounds better than some of the things we've been offered.

My main objection to the placing of something up there is the very fact that the only two things we have up there already have been vandalised and there is no guarantee that something new would not also succumb to vandalism. There is no real concrete plan for maintenance and upkeep, just some kind of vague hope that the council would find the funds from somewhere because of all the new business the existence of a panopticon would generate.

OK Gayle I'll grant you that Wycollar isn't a park in the sense of Oakhill but the panopticon there isn't actually towering over the town is it? It's snuggled away like theBlackbirn one in Corporation Park.

I did think we'd been offered and rejected the spaceship as there was a story about it in the media at the time along with the Hollywood style Accrington sign. 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.
 
Madhatter said:
well there you go then build a new shelter on the coppice out of bricks but design something into perhaps even using light like the spaceship one. you could do something then on the ground to link that across to the monument which would be refubished and perhaps raised on a new plinth. or encircle it with twelve monilith stones to represent time and have scenes of accy carved in to them. brick lines radiating out from the centre to each stone. or have chrome steel carved and outlined in black, each uplit at nite with colour changing lights.
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Now if we HAD to have something on the Coppice that actually sounds better than some of the things we've been offered.

My main objection to the placing of something up there is the very fact that the only two things we have up there already have been vandalised and there is no guarantee that something new would not also succumb to vandalism. There is no real concrete plan for maintenance and upkeep, just some kind of vague hope that the council would find the funds from somewhere because of all the new business the existence of a panopticon would generate.

OK Gayle I'll grant you that Wycollar isn't a park in the sense of Oakhill but the panopticon there isn't actually towering over the town is it? It's snuggled away like theBlackbirn one in Corporation Park.

I did think we'd been offered and rejected the spaceship as there was a story about it in the media at the time along with the Hollywood style Accrington sign. 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.
 
WillowTheWhisp said:
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.
 
The site is the coppice in my opinion because it's the only open publicly accessible space available from which people will be able to view it. The land project could do something in the other parks possibly.

It's about time people got talking so that you got something instead of nothing, because it's obvious that most people want something.
Perhaps peter beard should hve asked for local ideas first, makes people think that they have input rather than being asked for opinions after somone has designed something. Make the design process a big community thing, even a competition the final design being based on the winner.
 
The thing is Mad that there are 100s of different ways to have gone about the process and yes, in hindsight you could argue that we chose the wrong way but how were we to know that at the time?

The basic idea was to get an up and coming trendy, professional architect enthused about the town. If it had all worked out then Accrington would have got a name of the future designing something of significance. It worked in four out of the six districts so it wasn't a bad system. The Burnley one has won awards and is going to be featured at the Royal Academy this summer.

There is a community engagement programme that would have kicked in after the Panopticon was in progress - the Land project.
 
I've sledged down devils drop, kissed girls in the shelter, played 'japs and commandos' in the trenches, fished in the quarry, watched the red devils jump out of their plane, strolled over to 'gamblers caves', swum in the lagoons and simply sat on the steps of that sighting stone (or whatever it is) and took in the view, to name just a few things that the Coppice has given to me over the years...I still have the pleasure of just walking my dogs up there a few times a year

Designing something to put up there would be like putting hardboard over an oak panelled door. I wish someone would slap a preservation order on it or declare it a place of natural beauty.
 
lol a preservation order on the shelter or the graffiti on the tumbling down stone?
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Nowt wrong wi them emblems of teenage fun. :D Like Guiness I did all the same and a few I will not comment on. :o
 
yes, you did, as I did down here, but life goes on, and so does progress, as it once did when both the shelter and the monument were built. I wonder if people objected back then.
 
There is graffiti in Pompeii, and the Acropolis is 'tumbling down', maybe those should be altered by some trendy young architect, and we'll call that progress too shall we?
 
ah so you think those pics are ok. you like them. Right I'll do accy town centre to match then. green paint over broadways new planters, that will make it look ace, then we can all play japs and cammondo's through the arndale too, Me and gale will have our base at the arndale and try to take your's the coppice.
 
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