Redeveloping redevelopment

As far as I can guess there's no way that buildings can be maintained in the same way now as they were in the 1920s. Labour is much more expensive. It's right that we can no longer subjugate people into working so hard that they present a sheen of constant shininess to the paying guest. I don't want some poor worker constantly on call to clean roofs or touch up tilings, I don't want someone to have to stand in front of doors that we're not meant to use "helpfully" pointing us in the right direction. But this means that it's not possible to create a sheen over the real workings of a building, so there has to be another way to do it.

The Rotunda Bar in the hotel, but open to the public, (named for our Rotunda, I don't know) is another sumptuous, but somehow wrong setting. I expected, no wanted, a Noel Coward-esque piano artiste (he stayed in the hotel for a time, and is one of my heroes) serenading residents with bon-mots and frightfully clever lyrics while we sipped our iced tea. What we got was pumped in chart music, slightly too loud, while people dressed for Morecambe's sea-front (waterproofs and fleeces, it is Lancashire) drank pints of beer. It's my problem, I'm a snob I know -- but it jars with the idea of the redevelopment.

The second problem with trying to cling to this past is this: exclusivity can only be maintained by price, not by societal "rules". Attempt to bar entry (to the bar) by lack of tie, or bearing, with result in people demanding their "rights" or (that dreadful word) "respect" -- and since they're coming in anyway, why not switch the entertainment to lowest-common denominator (and cheapest) stuff anyway.

So, I'm thinking, you can't really redevelop for the past as it was and an attempt to sit betwixt two eras is doomed to disappoint (well, disappoint me anyway). Again in Morecambe the palatial Winter Gardens are falling down, and in need of £10M of refurbishment (according to a guy from the society trying to save it I chatted to). If they get the money, the only real plan is to make it look how it did in the last century, when Freddie "Parrot Face" Davies and Max Bygraves trod the boards. I can't see it working, it's gorgeous now in it's faded and falling down state - to put back the gilt will be to chocolate box it (they, for some reason, won't allow photos to be taken, but imagine the theatre at the start of Terry Gilliam's 'The Adventures of Baron Munchausen'). If it could be made safe without cleaning it up too much it would look wonderful, but where's the maverick willing to do that?

So redevelopment for the present or future? It seems that the current trends are for soulessness, identikit bars attempting to price out the lower classes -- which is what everybody is assuming that is planned for "Baskerville Wharf" in the stead of the Flapper.

Over a thousand members of the 'Save the Flapper' Facebook group, plus supportive articles in the Mail, seem to suggest that a fair number of people think that there must be another way.

If an area is underused, why not make it more accessible with bus routes, friendlier - and safer seeming - with better lighting, why not build some flexible shop units with low rents for creative types, how about housing for families rather than young professionals? How about redevelopment that doesn't start with ideas of exclusivity, or a scorched earth policy of destroying everything that was there before?

Oh, and if you can find room for a little bar with a witty 20s pianist I'll be even more happy.