R.I.P. Old Harwich

O

Ohlin Karcher

N/A
Joined
20 Jun 2019
Messages
1,385
Location
Odessa
Visit site
IMG_2742.JPG
Navyard Ltd have sent in application to build 373 new flats, plus various commercial attachments, bistros, car parks, etc, etc, in Old Harwich on and around the Navyard site.
The character of the place will be casually destroyed, the property developers will clean up, and locals will be priced out of the area by these repulsive carbuncles.
 
Kukri said:
I'm trying to see where on Earth that picture is meant to be. Has it perhaps been reversed?
Click to expand...

No, but it doesn't bear much relation to the actual plan. The developer's website has lots of info - Home

02-crop-u512442_2x.jpg
 
Ohlin Karcher said:
View attachment 82852
Navyard Ltd have sent in application to build 373 new flats, plus various commercial attachments, bistros, car parks, etc, etc, in Old Harwich on and around the Navyard site.
The character of the place will be casually destroyed, the property developers will clean up, and locals will be priced out of the area by these repulsive carbuncles.
Click to expand...
What character is that? The navy yard is just characterless place. Are you sure you are not objecting because it is something new? How can locals be priced out of the area when new properties are being built?
 
DavidofMersea said:
How can locals be priced out of the area when new properties are being built?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure who'd want to buy a new house in that location. Harwich is still a dump, and it's at the end of a long boring road. About as much appeal as the planned development on the Ganges site at Shotley.
 
The last few times I've been into Harwich it struck me as being one of the most run down, depressed and unloved places I've seen for years, reminiscent of parts of the back of Hull.
How could injecting a bit of development and life into such a dead town possibly hurt it?
My concern would be the risk of investing money into a town with no facilities whatsoever that is all but a corpse.
 
Thing is about harwich, it’s in Essex which is aspiration territory for a lot of commuters. Any house in Essex will sell, especially if it’s near a station. Added to which, if there is no new building done there then it really will become even more depressing.
I still think those places are utterly fugly though. All the character of a doss house.
 
Looks OK to me. I think that too many of these old towns sit as if preserved in aspic, yearning for a bygone age, when in reality they are simply ageing, decrepit places that are no longer capable of serving their inhabitants. Certainly, redevelopments need to be considered properly and where possible the history of the town could be preserved but I see no reason to dismiss them outright. As for being 'fugly' well, that's in the eye of the beholder but in any case, developments have to be done in such a way that they can be afforded by their target market.
 
I actually like Harwich. It has the same sort of problem as some other port towns - there is only one road out, and with sea on three sides of the town "there's nowhere to go".

Navyard Wharf is certainly commercially limited with a small wharf area and poor road access, and it's probably due for being turned over to housing, but given the extreme prominence of the site and the quality of the nearby buildings in Old Harwich, I must hope that the developers come up with something really good., and not the cardboard stuff in the first picture.

And certainly NO Frinton-style block of flats (first picture) to ruin the skyline of the town.

Just in passing - how lucky we are that nobody decided to redevelop Lavenham in the four hundred years that it spent as an "ageing, decrepit place"...
 
Last edited:
I like Harwich, lots of character. The Navyard, though not exactly an inspired design, but better than what’s there now, and will remove some lorries from the narrow roads in the area. The big low warehouse is a useful nav mark though.
 
It all seemed to go wrong for Harwich when the local shops and services closed. I suppose this can be said for many places. Apart from visitors, nothing seems to be going on and the station I find depressing.

It's nice having a historical past and interesting buildings but surely it has to live with the present too. It needs a local community that can give the character back but agree that
the residents are probably mostly going to be train commuters .

How you blend the old with the new is going to be a challenge.
 
I too like Harwich, but it has certainly been run down, presumably through lack of a local economy. However, I am only an occasional visitor, so I would certainly want the best of the old town retained. I find the proposed development uninspiring, not offensive in itself but completely lacking imagination. It is such a magnificent site that they should get some real architects to have a go. If Sydney Opera House can reinvigorate a whole city, then I don't see why a proper development couldn't do the same for Harwich, but it would take a Norman Foster or someone like him to do it.
 
johnalison said:
I too like Harwich, but it has certainly been run down, presumably through lack of a local economy. However, I am only an occasional visitor, so I would certainly want the best of the old town retained. I find the proposed development uninspiring, not offensive in itself but completely lacking imagination. It is such a magnificent site that they should get some real architects to have a go. If Sydney Opera House can reinvigorate a whole city, then I don't see why a proper development couldn't do the same for Harwich, but it would take a Norman Foster or someone like him to do it.
Click to expand...
I can't see an opera house in the old navy dockyard, but a tower like the one in Portsmouth perhaps
 
Ohlin Karcher said:
View attachment 82852
by these repulsive carbuncles.
Click to expand...
Why do you say that? The place needs tidying up & new developments are needed. Just because you do not like it does not mean others do not. I suppose you complained about the improvements at that other dump- Dover -which surely needed something doing to it. The more these places are sorted the better. Just leaving them because of their " history" is b..,,lks. It is future that matters.
As I see it--It is not affecting any green field sites either, which is another plus
 
Daydream believer said:
Why do you say that? The place needs tidying up & new developments are needed. Just because you do not like it does not mean others do not. I suppose you complained about the improvements at that other dump- Dover -which surely needed something doing to it. The more these places are sorted the better. Just leaving them because of their " history" is b..,,lks. It is future that matters.
As I see it--It is not affecting any green field sites either, which is another plus
Click to expand...
Unlike OK, I don't find it repulsive but just plain dull. Would anyone actually want to drive out there to spend an evening walking up and down a housing estate? There are regeneration projects at historic sites in our major cities that have been very successful, even without opera houses, but it has to be somewhere worth visiting and not just a dormitory.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top