Planning
permission for these premises was originally granted by DLR on the basis that
it was to be an art gallery, for use by the public. This palpably did not happen. It would have been easier to get a camel through the eye of
a needle than to gain access to the alleged gallery. Many tried and many failed. Phoenix Magazine regularly elaborated on these failures. And I don’t recall a single exhibition ever taking place
there.
The
owners should never have been allowed build such an architecturally brutish
structure in such a scenic location in any case (think German gun emplacements at Normandy). They now seek to compound their aesthetic insensitivity, and failure to provide the promised amenity, by changing its official use to residential.
