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There is a current planning application for the conversion of the Grade II listed Bolingbroke Hospital in Wandsworth. While in principle the conversion of an institutional building into another institutional use may be preferable to the more damaging subdivision and loss of historic fabric caused by say residential uses, as always it is a matter of degree. In this instance the scheme calls for additional external staircases to aid circulation and the construction -in the main courtyard at the front- of a huge 2 storey shiny gold blot, sorry, box, to house the sports centre which pays scant regard for the listed building against which it is perched. Not even a nod of a reference has been made anywhere to the stock brick or stately proportions of the once-noble Bolingbroke.
As for community consultation: we got a series of display boards and two of the construction project team (no teaching or management staff from the Academy) four days before the final planning application went in. What chance of feedback from the consultation being used to inform the design? Exactly.