A brutal decision by English Heritage

The library, love it or loathe it, remains a splendid example of the "brutalist" school or architecture so beloved by public bodies in the 1960s and 1970s and as such clearly comes onto English Heritage's radar as a building that ought to be recognised as such. It may be a concrete monstrosity to most of us, but English Heritage exists to take a rather loftier view of architectural merit. After all, it wasn't so long ago that art deco was regarded as tat - so who's to say that the passing of years won't be kind to the brutalists?
The important thing to understand here is that English Heritage is not calling for the library to be preserved. An order to list, if the Government says yes, will simply classify the library as an interesting building worthy of special consideration when any future planning application comes forward.
Were the building to be Grade 11 listed, the most likely classification, the city council would certainly find it more difficult, but by no means impossible, to secure a demolition order.
The most famous example of listed building demolition in recent times is probably the decision to knock down the old Wembley Stadium with its historic twin towers. Wembley had its passionate supporters, even more so than the Central Library, who fought a long campaign about the importance of saving the home of football. But that didn't stop the Football Association, with the support of the local council, from winning planning permission to redevelop the site.
Birmingham City Council will do everything it can over the next few months to urge the Department for Communities and Local Government to reject the library listing request. Influential city organisations are being urged to get involved, led by Civic Society chairman Dr Freddie Gick who has already let fly about "this monumental, brutalist incinerator" which has "no place in the centre of our city".
Dr Gick, congratulating the council for helping to improve the ambience of the city centre over the past 20 years, went on: "The senseless listing of the Central Library can only impede this progress and would seem incomprehensible to an objective external observer."
The political consensus on the council is firmly in favour of demolishing the library, to make way for the redevelopment of Paradise Circus.
Except, that is, for the handful of usual suspects who have never been happy abut knocking down a "perfectly good building", or about the plan to build a new library in Centenary Square.
The last word must go to Moseley Lib Dem councillor Martin Mullaney, who is soldiering on almost alone with an alternative scheme to build the new library on the south side of the Town Hall, bordering on to Suffolk Street Queensway.
Here's Mullaney's take on the English Heritage decision: "If the Central Library is statutory listed, then it is as good as preserved. It would be very difficult for the council to succeed in getting the approval to demolish it.
"The council would have to prove that the building could not be retained as a library - economics does not come into it - or that the building could not be converted to another use eg: offices."
We shall see. My view, for what it's worth, is that the Government will refuse to list the Central Library and that the building will be torn down by 2015.