It makes you turn to drink

I'M SURE I won't be alone in puzzling over the irony that is the planning application for the Marton Road site. Plans have now been submitted for, guess what, 1 00 new houses (no particular surprise there in a city where any available land seems to get a dose of the ubiquitous apartment block), but the real eyebrow raiser comes in the form of the 'leisure' aspect of the 'mixed' development. A pub. So that'll be a pub on the site of the old Navigation then, the Navigation which is now a pile of rubble at the side of the canal. In what universe of logic do these people move? Here we had a thriving little business in an historic old building, a business that its owner was keen to continue and develop after years of establishing his little empire by the water, but was unceremoniously booted out so that the new developers of the site could build - another pub. Brilliant. The 3,000 people who signed a petition to save Clive Rennison's business must be looking forward to the opening of that particular watering hole. Even the council, bless 'em, endeavoured to keep Clive afloat with a development brief for the site that suggested the Navigation should be retained. It may have created a logistical problem for the developers, designing a Site around an existing facility slap bang in the middle. But if the intention was always to include a pub then why did they ride roughshod over this man's livelihood when it surely could have been incorporated. The simple answer presumably lies in ease of design (or more likely making the maximum use of the space available to get as many units on the land as possible - of course more units equals more profits), but surely a more imaginative design could have been considered - I'd rather buy a flat with a charming, established and historic bar on the doorstep than the plastic-palm-tree, canal-themed bland and faceless place I suspect we'll get now. Likewise there are in existence some hugely exciting development briefs for other parts of Lancaster which appear to be in danger of being Ignored. The 'Brewery Quarter' around the old Mitchell's site, which includes places like the Grand Theatre, Musician's Co-op and Dukes, was breathlessly described as having the potential to become a cultural quarter, with artists workshops and associated businesses, cafes and green open space. Sounded superb, a bohemian oasis in the city centre, perfect for Lancaster and an ideal complement to existing tourist attractions. Instead we have a developer who is proposing to stick up 'big box' retail units, a supermarket and a new road. Highly visionary, not at all like a cultural quarter and utterly contrary to everything in the development brief. The destruction of the Navigation was a tragedy that could have been avoided. It will be interesting to see whether the same mistake is made an the Mitchell's site. Richard Machin