Manchester mill blaze triggers alarm over spate of historic buildings fires

Telegraph

a day ago

Conservation chiefs have raised fears over a string of fires gutting historic British buildings after a blaze burned down Manchester's earliest surviving textile mill.
The Hotspur Press, also known as the Medlock Mill, has been partly demolished to enable 'safe' internal firefighting after it was hit by a major fire on Monday.
The historic site dated back to 1801 and was repurposed as a printing press in 1902. Andy Burnham, mayor of Greater Manchester, said the city's Fire Rescue Service would undertake a 'rigorous and forensic investigation'.
He added that police and fire services will 'use all the powers at their disposal to pursue all necessary action' if there is evidence of criminality.
Anya Lucas of the Georgian Group said the blaze was part of a worrying trend of historic sites going up in flames.
'We're noticing an escalation in the number of fires, it's ... a real concern. There's no national way of recording fire damage to historic buildings, but it's going on far too often,' she said.
The Manchester site has been slated for redevelopment into a 35-storey student accommodation tower by London-based developer Manner, which filed revised plans for the building in May after taking on the project in 2020.
Its plans involved installing aluminium cladding above its historic brickwork.
At the same time, it was a contested heritage site, with campaigners calling for the building to gain protected status. Lisa Nandy, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, rejected a bid to make part of it listed in January.
The Georgian Group appealed the decision in the following month, and had been waiting for an update before the fire struck earlier this week.
The fire has stoked concerns from conservation specialists that historic buildings are being gutted, whether through arson by the owners, third parties or by accident, at significant cost to Britain's heritage and place-making efforts.
Prominent examples include the Crooked House pub in Staffordshire, which was unexpectedly demolished days after it burned down in a suspected arson attack.
There was also a suspicious fire at a derelict part of West Yorkshire's Dalton Mills in December last year, months after two teenagers were found guilty of starting an inferno that destroyed much of the historic complex in 2022.
There are no allegations that the fire at Hotspur Press was caused by wrongdoing and the blaze is under investigation.
Ms Lucas said: 'There's a separate point about what can be done in terms of more active protection, monitoring and recording how often this is happening and then potentially linking it to the development context, because more often than not there is one. It's not always arson, but there often is a link to what's going on in terms of live planning applications.
She said it was an issue that the Government needs to engage more on, adding it is an issue that her group is 'keen to work on' with fellow preservation societies'.
'When these [buildings] are lost, you're losing the warp and weft of towns and cities up and down the country. That's an insidious process that cumulatively has a real impact on our heritage nationally,' she added.
Thomas Ollivier, the Northern conservation adviser at the Victorian Society, said heritage buildings are 'seen as easy targets'.
'There is an onus on the owner of a building - whether it's the developer, council or private owner- to look after them,' he said.
A spokesperson for Historic England noted there have been 'several serious mill fires' in the past decade including at Drummond Mill, Bradford in 2016, and Newsome Mill, Huddersfield in 2016.
He added: 'Fires like these can have a devastating effect on local communities who cherish their local heritage.'
Nicholas Boys Smith of Create Streets, a think tank, said northern textile mills were as 'precious to our story as Blenheim or Chatsworth'.
'Yet we are letting too many of them slip through our fingers, through decay, indolence or conflagration,' he said.
Manner was contacted for comment. A spokesperson previously issued a statement to media outlets that called the fire 'truly heartbreaking'.
'We are absolutely devastated to see the extent of the damage that has been caused, and it is incredibly hard to come to terms with what is now left of this important building,' he said.