Without improvements to the disabled access, fire escapes, catering and toilets the superb 18th century Gibbs Barts Great Hall is at risk of decline, deterioration and decay. It will be unable to meet statutory requirements necessary for it to become a financially self-supporting Heritage Site, managed by a separate body, so preserving this unique cultural, medical, aesthetic and historical site.
The plans by the renowned architect Michael Hopkins for a Barts heritage quarter which have been approved by the City of London are threatened by a current application by the Trust to build a new Maggie’s Centre building abutting the Great Hall.
Construction of this building would prevent the Hopkins’ plans for essential improvements to the North Wing. The Hopkins plan also includes essential improvements of the storage conditions for the archive collections and their display.
I am not at all against Barts developing its cancer services-indeed a Macmillan Cancer Advice Unit is named after my late wife Dr Vicky Clement-Jones there- but the current plans for the Maggie’s Centre are entirely inappropriate in the current form and I have laid an objection to these plans.
The only access for the disabled would thereafter only be through catering facilities at the West end of the Great Hall and very inconvenient access for them to toilets.
The Hopkins plans allow the building of a suitably designed Maggie’s nearby.
Approval of the Maggie plans would mean that an opportunity to restore the Great Hall to its former symmetry and to modernise it’s facilities to make it viable for future use and upkeep will be lost.
See the Friends of the Great Hall site for further info.
