The Grand Shaft Barracks site is a dead zone at the moment. Sadly we can't reverse time or rebuild those incredible buildings, so what are we left with? Scrub land with a few display boards, thorny bushes and a couple of brick walls. The area is mainly used for fly tipping, dog walking and dubious male 'liaisons' early each evening. Even as someone who spends an unhealthy amount of time dedicated to the Heights, I wouldn't miss this waste ground should a developer come along. Certainly the War Memorial is in keeping with the military setting, would create a source of revenue and put an end to many of the less desirable activities in the area.
Sadly a conference centre or housing simply wouldn't work on the Barracks site - the hair pin bend at the end is unsuitable for heavy vehicles making construction and delivery extremely hard. Therefore the potential uses of the site are extremely limited, at least the Memorial would not suffer these shortcomings.
The Grand Shaft lift is a huge no-no due to the potential damage it could create to an iconic feature, the intrusive off loading terminus at the top and sheer pointlessness of vastly modernising a Napoleonic structure. I have doubts about how serious a proposal it really was, it probably just thrown in there as a wildcard to get people talking.
At least the housing proposals have been cut far back from the initial monstrous 600 to a more reasonable 180-ish. However, given the heritage status of the whole monument such housing development should be considered unobtrusive and fitting tastefully into the military landscape.
If there is to be any future to the conservation of the Western Heights, something has to be done. Money is just not going to spring out of no-where one day, if just left as it is, the whole monument will continue to decay. And let's face it, no matter how well-meaning WHPS are, there is only so much a small group of a couple-of-dozen monthly volunteers can do in a vast monument of miles of ditches and three forts with very little money.
I have to add that CGI have been trying to covet opinion via their website for some time, and held a few public consultations that I gather were not particularly well attended. The High Street and empty properties is totally outside their remit as property developers as they own no land there, so that's a bit of a non-starter I'm afraid. This development really is the only way the heritage of Heights might, just, be saved.
Please note that the above is just my personal view, not that of WHPS.
