The property Section of the weekend 24/25th March Financial
Times carried a front-page promotional article on the result of the RIBA
competition. Written by one of the competition judges, Gerald Cadogan, described in the Cardale's promotional brief as 'The Property Correspondent for the Financial Times', it was disturbingly inaccurate.
The purpose of the article was presumably to expand some of
the myths generated around the project and, of course, to promote it. In fact
the gross inaccuracies in the article generated many letters to the FT. None
were published. Some of them are reproduced here.
Cadogan’s headline for the piece ‘From pig farm to
parkland’ showed either a total disregard for objectivity or a lack of
knowledge about the area that he was describing since neither the site nor
adjacent fields have been used for farming pigs for at leaast 70 years. Although it is not apparent
from the article one imagines that he must have visited the site so the
most likely reason is to add spin, to persuade his target audience that the
proposals have some merit.
The Cardales, reports Gerald Cadogan, had ‘invested
many years and much money …to set up an architectural competition…’
Surely the competition, underwritten by the RIBA and judged
by some prestigious sounding judges, was conceived merely as a vehicle by which
the Cardales’ real investment might bear fruit. That investment was in the
purchase of some agricultural land to convert to real estate, on which perhaps
to build a house in which to live (or there again perhaps not).
According to Cadogan one of his (unidentified) fellow
judges described the site as ‘sadly degraded parkland.’
Is this then two judges who haven’t visited the site? It is quite apparent from an inspection that it
has never been parkland. It has, though, has been carefully managed as environmentally
sensitive farmland.
‘If officially an area of outstanding natural
beauty…’ Cadogan claims, ‘…this is essentially a human landscape..’
I’m not clear what is being said here. Is Cadogan
suggesting that the site has been landscaped in the past ie. the profile
of the terrain has been changed with shovel and wheelbarrow (or even JCB)? Is
this another attempt to allude to the site once being ‘parkland’? Or is he
suggesting that a natural landscape that has been farmed or felled for timber
shouldn’t qualify for AONB status? In which case there would be precious few
AONB’s in the UK.
For the ultimate in spin Cadogan tells us that the site
is now called Brimpscombe Park.
Why not call it ‘Yardway’, ‘Further Yardway’, or
even ‘Bradles’ - the old
fieldnames, rather than naming it after the adjacent Brimpscombe Wood which is
not even in the owner's possession. No, if you call it a park you might
influence a few more people into believing it was always a park and ‘Further
Yardway Park’ doesn’t have the same persuasive ring about it.
‘Along the valley,’ Cadogan quotes one of the
judges, ‘you find a ribbon of parkland created for the different houses. But
there is a gap where our site is.’
Local historians would be interested in identifying
this ribbon of parkland. Old fieldnames suggest ‘pools’ of parkland around
the four larger houses but there are large gaps between all of them. There is no
ribbon. It is the gaps that make the area particularly beautiful.
Perhaps Cadogan can be excused for thinking it was a pig
farm though. He reports that one of the judges quotes David Cardale …
‘It will be infill parkland…turning 80 acres of pig
farm into park.'
If the developer doesn’t know where the site is
then its fair that the judges be forgiven for getting it wrong.
