History repeats itself, but not for the better

May I add on to Mr Chapman’s wonderful story of the last 50 years in Bingley (Yorkshire Post, February 2)?

He, like me, has probably noted that town planning, having been invented in 1947, all the really horrible buildings that we hate and which are falling apart seem to have been built since then, and all the wonderful buildings that make the heart sing seem to have been survivals from before that era.

He knows, for example, that much of the town centre in Bingley was originally built to a fanfare of the great and good saying how absolutely fabulous it was, and that the people who thought otherwise were all neanderthals.

This is now being pulled down by the self-same type of people who are now telling us how awful it is and how on earth did we ever put up with it in the first place?

Their new effort will probably now spend the next 20 or 30 years falling apart again, going the same way.

Then the same band of folk will come along and tell us again how awful it is and how they’re going to pull it down and bring us an absolutely top-notch replacement that nobody could possibly disagree with because it’s a work of architectural genius.

In Bingley, as with everywhere else, everything is always changing, but everything is always staying the same.