Interesting news item today about the rebuilding of the Weston super Mare's pier which was destroyed by fire two months ago.

Only eight weeks after the blaze a shortlist of designs has been selected for further investigation. This was procured after a design competition was announced to get ideas for reconstruction.

Now a pier isn't like a pools complex - at the end of the day it can only be a long projection which stretches from land out to sea. But isn't there a message here for LBL in relation to FH pools?

A design competition should be organised for the FH pools site and it should be got underway with delay.

Architectural companies are screaming out for safe commercially-reliable work in the current credit crisis. This is a local government-backed scheme with a ?7.5m "subsidy". If you tell companies that they have 3 months or so to get an outline scheme together, then they will get that scheme together . You can then select a shortlist and give them a further 3 months or so to flesh out their scheme for public scrutiny.

Please don't let this scheme be returned to the "Works Department" at LBL. Under the current scenario, we have to wait 5 months for them to undertake yet another feasibility study, where presumably another wad of our money goes down the drain with no certain conclusion.

We have already seen where a direct LBL scheme has got us (at a cost of around ?250,000 for "design" and "consultation").

Enough is enough. Let's get on with a design competition ASAP.

http://www.birminghammail.net/news/top-s...-21929004/