| HADAS Letham Mains Development
HADAS AGM
October
12th 2006
New
local housing not fit for purpose
Housing for the new estates in East Lothian is not built to
twenty-first century standards. This was the theme taken by
Professor Howard Liddell , the fourth Frank Tindall lecturer at
the HADAS meeting on 12th October.
In a
strongly argued case to a capacity audience at the Trinity
Centre, Haddington, Howard Liddell compared housing standards in
the UK with those in continental western Europe. In western
Europe, estate housing is constructed by builders under very
strict quality control for insulation. Moreover, most house
components are factory built to extremely high dimensional
standards, rather than being fabricated on site. The result is
energy-efficiency houses with high insulation and minimal heat
loss.
Howard Liddell also criticized the style of most modern housing
as a pastiche of older, traditional styles with designs that
lacked originality. He blamed house-builders for slowness in
introducing innovative energy-efficient designs by falling back
on the excuse that tradition was what the customer wanted. He
considered that house buyers needed to be better educated about
energy efficiency rather than giving prime importance to issues
such as the distance to the nearest school. The design of the
new modern house at Seton Mains is apparently disliked by
neighbours but has won outstanding commendations by
architectural societies nationally.
At
the 11th HADAS AGM preceding the lecture, the
outgoing Vice-Chairman, Bob Heath, described HADAS’s opposition
to the proposed 750 new housing development at Letham Mains and
the consequent likely traffic problems. A team of 7 is in place
to appear at the Local Plan Inquiry in November.

The Frank Tindall Lecturer, Professor Howard
Liddell, and the retiring HADAS committee member Mrs Nessie Gell
are flanked by retiring Vice-Chairman Bob Heath (left) and new
Chairman Neil Fraser (right).
The HADAS Treasurer, Francis White, contrasted a relatively
quiet financial year for normal activities with the busy
fund-raising activities for the Local Plan Inquiry. Neil Fraser
was elected as the new HADAS Chairman and Peter Stephen has
joined the existing committee. Flowers were presented to Nessie
Gell who is retiring after serving actively on the committee
since it was first set up in 1996.
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