The London County Council on Tuesday rejected the proposal to
ask the Government to set up a Technical Commission of Inquiry into the proposed underpinning of Waterloo Bridge. An amendment in favour of the reconstruction of the bridge was then carried by 82 votes to 32. Mr. R. C. Norman, Chairman of the Bridges Sub-Committee, who was formerly in favour of rebuilding, appealed strongly for the Government Technical Com- mission. Perhaps the question will be raised in Parlia- ment as the final court of appeal, but we suspect that the matter is now settled. Although we reflect with sorrow upon what London will be like when deprived of Rennie's magnificent bridge, we have never been able to go the whole way with those who think that this issue is exclusively artistic or sentimental. A bridge must perform the function of a bridge. If the decision that Waterloo Bridge must go holds good there will be not so much an invitation to tears as a challenge to the architectural genius of our day. Posterity will judge us by What we put in place of Waterloo Bridge. We must think more of being equal to this great occasion than of anything else. * *
Previous page
