The Lords and Bankside
The debate in the House of Lords on Monday added materially to the overwhelming weight of opposition expressed in every quarter to the proposed power-station on Bankside. Lord Llewellin, who opened the discussion, Lord Samuel, who submitted the project to the most damaging criticism it has yet received, Lord Latham, who spoke with emphasis and feeling as leader of the London County Council, the Bishop of Hereford, who as a former Bishop of Southwark was in a special position to voice local knowledge and sentiment, all adduced cogent arguments against a scheme which at best will contribute no more than 5 per cent. to the total electric supply of the London area and which could almost certainly supply as much if erected on another site. The Lord Chancellor observed that the speakers had told the Government nothing that it did not know before ; Lord Jowitt himself produced no defence that had not been produced before, but he did promise, that the views of the House should be laid before his colleagues. Nothing has been more impressive in this whole controversy than the virtual universality. outside obviously and quite legitimately interested circles, of the condemnation of the Bankside scheme. When all allowance is made for the need of increasing the output of electric current, when all recognition is given to the artistic merit of power-stations like that at Battersea, the conviction remains as strong as ever that this vast industrial building cannot, without shattering the whole plan for the area, be sited in the midst of offices and residential flats at the new Bankside. It is hard to believe that the Government will not yield in this matter to the reasoned insistence of public opinion.
Previous page
