THE vicroftiAN gas lamp-posts in many Chelsea streets are being
replaced with modern electric standards, despite John Betjeman and 'Outrage.' The new lamps are out' of proportion to the houses and streets they will serve--the worst form of architectural bad manners; they show a remark- able lack of imagination in their design and detail; and they shed a light horrible beyond the !mid imaginings of a Poe. Two main arguments have been put to the Council : that Marylebonc (among others), has converted its existing (and, to be fair, finer) William IV gas lamps to electricity; and that no one in the many Chelsea streets threatened has been consulted. The Council's reply is that its meetings are open to the public, and that no voice was raised when the estimates and plans in question were discuSsed and approved. But Chelsea, since the war, has become a chosen area for the rich and successful. As the borough has become wealthier, rates have risen. For all its Saturday • morning pony-tails and slim jeans, it is no longer an area of Georgian slum cottages providing a seedy and lightly taxed Bohemian Cythera between the urbanities of Cheyne Walk and the insincerities of the Chelsea Square development. Even if rate, rayers do not attend the Council's meetings, the Council should realise that the elegance of the Queen Anne houses in St. Leonard's Terrace, and the gaiety of many smaller streets, deserve the expenditure of at least some ingenuity and imagin- ation—and even; perhaps, money.
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