Sir, – Please add our comments to the East Street debate.

We are an exterior design company based in Farnham. We specialise in designs for refurbishing tired and ugly buildings, which are mostly from the sixties and therefore have considerable experience in what materials last in our moist climate.

In England architects are often afraid to put forward schemes that they could be accused of copying the architecture of the past and the word "pastiche" has for them become an insult. And yet traditional scale and materials have a proven track record.

Architecture in this last

century has tended to be subject to fashion, which by its nature tends to be temporary. Most of the schemes that have been put forward are using geometry and materials that will go out of fashion very quickly. Materials especially.

When designing in glass, steel and large sheeted cladding it will look good for about five years then it will start to become water stained, vegetation stained and covered in lichen and green algae which grows on anything in England due to the moist climate.

Buildings such as these are suited to a dry hot climate where they will look good for much longer. Obviously if a development had an extensive cleaning and maintenance

contract carried out every year for the next 50 years (if it

lasted this long) it would help, but this you will find will not be in the developer's brief.

They will be contracted to deal with the snagging and then the development will be left to "mature". Maintenance

budgets are usually dealt with separately and if Waverley are keen to use these modern

materials they will need to

budget this in now.

Otherwise Farnham will have to go through another "What shall we do with the monstrous East Street Development built in 2003?" in 20 years time.

Given that yearly

maintenance is not likely to be budgeted for, may we suggest that the development which is supported is the one who intends to build an individual series of buildings, each with its own identity, and in materials that are traditional: Ivory and Sime. Hence when the algae starts to grow it will compliment the materials.

This developer is also responsible for the Lion and Lamb Yard, which has proven itself popular with the residents of Farnham and matured well without maintenance.

This is not to say that their scheme is entirely faultless as it still needs some refinement for some of the individual

buildings have an "infill" look about them.

But out of the schemes put forward this is the most promising for the town to enhance Farnham today and for the future generations to come.

George and Yolande Hesse

Mount Pleasant, Farnham