Help save demolition of Wells next the Sea lifeboat station

Thanks for sharing, I read through the arguments you linked to, putting it to good use sounds better than knocking it down to me. Have voted.
 
It's not an architectural gem is it? Just because bits of it are old is no reason to save it without a plan. It being made available to groups etc needs a business plan to cover the cost of running it, building up a maintenance fund, finding responsible people to manage it. and finding long term users. Some vague sentimental ideas are not going to save it.

It would be nice to save it but this petition won't make any difference.
 
We aren't told NNDC's stated reason for requiring its removal.

Preserving the openness of the area is a conservation and historic environment consideration to be weighed against any potential benefits of retention.

I see no historic or architectural merit to the current buildings shown in the photo. (It's too long since I've been there to remember them, or perhaps that's an indication of how nondescript they are.)

I am a strong advocate of thoughtful conservation (and much of my career has been devoted to it), but we neither can nor should preserve everything. It strikes me that our country has become obsessed by the past (albeit a rather selective and rose-tinted version of it), and has no vision or aspiration for the future.
 
My only case for keeping the old lifeboat station is as an exhibition / storage / maintenance space for the two classic lifeboats based in Wells - the Liverpool Class (Lucy Laver) and the Oakley 37 (Ernest Tom Nethercoat).
Together with the Shannon in the new LB house would make a pretty unrivalled exhibition of the evolution of lifeboats in the last 70 years.
 
LittleSister said:
We aren't told NNDC's stated reason for requiring its removal.

Preserving the openness of the area is a conservation and historic environment consideration to be weighed against any potential benefits of retention.

I see no historic or architectural merit to the current buildings shown in the photo. (It's too long since I've been there to remember them, or perhaps that's an indication of how nondescript they are.)

I am a strong advocate of thoughtful conservation (and much of my career has been devoted to it), but we neither can nor should preserve everything. It strikes me that our country has become obsessed by the past (albeit a rather selective and rose-tinted version of it), and has no vision or aspiration for the future.
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REALLY are you serious ?

Please tell how the removal of our History diminishes our Future , surely you misconstrude ?
 
I am very mixed on this one. The building its self has no architectural merit (IMHO of course) and in my eyes what we can currently see is a good deal more recent than 1895. If you want to see an old lifeboat station then the one at Blakeney is pretty much the same age and much more original.
 
It is a tatty old building & quotes about preserving old lifeboats in their scruffy sheds are really a non event. There are loads of them all over the country & really too many. It is not as if they are really that exciting for the modern populus either. Just a boat & a few pictures of old salts long since passed. Albeit brave old salts. They should not be forgotten. However, their memory can be displayed somewhere more suitable, grouped in an environment with all the other memorabilia apertaining to the heros of the RNLI. Then anyone going to see it would see the complete story of the service in all its glory.
 
LittleSister said:
Very serious.

I've already outlined my case for scepticism. You could read it again.
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Sorry but I have and did read your posting with your comments , but as having worked in Historical Buildings plus Museums of National if ot International standing I feel that you are mixing up factors tad ; These buildings in question are , as far , as can be , indicators of our time /society , not buildings of structual merit ; guess that nothing built to replace these buildings can effectively replace that which will be lost to eternity

Suggest that you Just tell English Heritage to demolish their holdings and rebuild something that you find architectually improoved , eh ?

We talk and view Life in different ways , kind Sir
 
Daydream believer said:
It is a tatty old building & quotes about preserving old lifeboats in their scruffy sheds are really a non event. There are loads of them all over the country & really too many. It is not as if they are really that exciting for the modern populus either. Just a boat & a few pictures of old salts long since passed. Albeit brave old salts. They should not be forgotten. However, their memory can be displayed somewhere more suitable, grouped in an environment with all the other memorabilia apertaining to the heros of the RNLI. Then anyone going to see it would see the complete story of the service in all its glory.
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Cripes Man , thats not so , is it ? how can removing old structures replacing them with a modern structure , filling it with displays of olden times , enable one to see the complete story ; part of that olden story would have been removed altogether ! wanton vandlism , plus quite unwaranted , performed and encouraged by heathens with short sightedness i recon ?
 
Capt Popeye said:
Cripes Man , thats not so , is it ? how can removing old structures replacing them with a modern structure , filling it with displays of olden times , enable one to see the complete story ; part of that olden story would have been removed altogether ! wanton vandlism , plus quite unwaranted , performed and encouraged by heathens with short sightedness i recon ?
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I used to do lots of work for English Heritage. Some of it was an enormous waste of money. But a money spinner for me, so I never complained. Some of the architects in the historic depts used to swoon when I said that I could make the carp that they wanted to copy or repair.
The only thing that I really wanted to re construct was a local wind mill. But the owner died & the project stalled. I would have loved making the top section & the vanes for that.
I won the European Heritage year award back in the 70s for my own house. It was & still is, a blot on the high street. But, hey ho, it got me planning permission that I might never have achieved & some prat in Essex council heritage dept thought it was a good idea. :rolleyes:

I had to install some stairs in some buildings with a conservation order on them in Dalston rd Hackney. The local TV filmed them. They were so tight that no one could get a bed or wardrobe up them, but they had to go back "exactly as was". When I went back to do the 6 months maintenance, the asian tenant had painted the walls & stairs in one property bright orange.:rolleyes:
I sometimes despair at the things they consider worth preserving.
 
Between 1895 and this current day, hundreds of Wells-next-the-Sea' townspeople have given large parts of their life to the running of the station, the maintenance of the lifeboats, machinery, and training to maintain their skills to enable them to save others and on numerous occasions risking their own lives to do so.

The selfless acts of these people, who trod many footsteps through the station, deserve to have this historic building conserved and preserved in their name!


Yes, all very stirring stuff. But a lifeboat station isn't a building, it's a community; a group of people who together go to sea, launch the boats, maintain them, train to go out in them, and fundraise to keep it all running.

This photo shows the new and old boathouses at Wells. The old one is a functional shed, but there's no way such a building would get planning permission in that location these days. I think the new one blends in rather nicely.

Something similar happened with my own station. When we needed more space for our new boat, a 1960s square concrete building was demolished, and replaced with something weatherboarded that very much fits into the local area.

Did I shed a tear for the old building, having spent many hours there over many years, at all hours of the day and night? No, I did not.
 

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Juan Twothree said:
Between 1895 and this current day, hundreds of Wells-next-the-Sea' townspeople have given large parts of their life to the running of the station, the maintenance of the lifeboats, machinery, and training to maintain their skills to enable them to save others and on numerous occasions risking their own lives to do so.

The selfless acts of these people, who trod many footsteps through the station, deserve to have this historic building conserved and preserved in their name!


Yes, all very stirring stuff. But a lifeboat station isn't a building, it's a community; a group of people who together go to sea, launch the boats, maintain them, train to go out in them, and fundraise to keep it all running.

This photo shows the new and old boathouses at Wells. The old one is a functional shed, but there's no way such a building would get planning permission in that location these days. I think the new one blends in rather nicely.

Something similar happened with my own station. When we needed more space for our new boat, a 1960s square concrete building was demolished, and replaced with something weatherboarded that very much fits into the local area.

Did I shed a tear for the old building, having spent many hours there over many years, at all hours of the day and night? No, I did not.
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Yes Lifeboat Man twothree , do not want to discredit your good much needed work , but at times your posts of events want to make me cry ; might suggest that you are not of that same image of lifeboatman before the changes in RNLI Managements appeared to obliterate that some of us (Posters on ere) might remember , fondley .

You as you oft state , are one of that New Breed of RNLI Lifeboatmen , maybe a modern version ?

So guess that your vision is not that of some others who have been or are still mentally atteatched to the real RNLI , but things are as they are , so guess you just might agree to preserve the Vision of an earlier generation or two ? even if you cannot agree with it ?
 
We camped in Wells a couple of times in the 1970s at a campsite pretty close to the lifeboat station. I don't remember it being quite so boxy and "functional" then - wasn't it about half that size with a curved roof?
 
Clearly the facade of the building is not 120 years old and the buildings have been modified as the lifeboats have changed over the years .
The replacement lifeboat station is under construction on adjacent land.
 
Just to add a bit of context, here is some info from the planning application for the new lifeboat station.

The planning permission for it was granted in 2018 by North Norfolk District Council (NNDC). Historic England had no comment on the application, and neither did Wells Town Council or any NNDC Councillors. No representations were received by from the public. There were various issue to resolve about landscape, ecology and flood protection before it was granted.

The removal of the existing building within 6 months of the new lifeboat station coming into use was a condition of the granting of permission for the new lifeboat station. The formal reason given by NNDC for that condition was -
'Reason:
To protect and enhance the visual amenities of the area and ensure that cumulatively the proposed new lifeboat station does not give rise to an unacceptable level of harm in a highly sensitive and valued landscape, while ensuring stability of the coastal defences in this area, in accordance with the requirements of Policies EN 1, EN 2, EN 3 and EN 10 of the adopted North Norfolk Core Strategy.'

Seems reasonable enough to me!
 
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