Stormy passage to salvation
Green issues were not at the forefront of the agenda in 1991. Building started the year on a solemn, yet hopeful, note:
"Today's front cover will not please the angry reader who called on the Friday before Christmas to complain that the cover of the 20 December issue was too glum. But the pastiche of Géricault's Raft of the Medusa shows hope diffusing the distant sky. The almost-lost souls of the shipwreck in 1816 have suddenly spotted a ship of salvation on the horizon.
A metaphor, perhaps, for the fate of construction. Last summer the industry crashed on to the reef of recession. Between June and December some were lost in the worst economic storm for a decade. Now the question is: when does the good ship Economic Revival come to the aid of the emaciated majority still clinging to the raft?
2 January 1981
Pollution risk to Taj Mahal
Newly positioned industrial centres to the north of Agra are contributing to the deterioration of one of the Seven Wonders of the World – the milk-white marble mausoleum on the banks of India's Jamuna River, the Taj Mahal. The acidic atmosphere is already responsible for "stone cancer". The title of a recent London symposium, "Taj Mahal versus industrial development", was attacked by the High Commissioner for India as a gross exaggeration of the current situation.
5 January 1951
National Parks
The Designation Order for the Peak District National Park – the first Order to be made under the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act, 1949 – was signed by Sir Patrick Duff, chairman of the National Parks Commission, on December 28, and has since been submitted to the Minister of Town and Country Planning for approval.
Other designation Orders are likely to be made shortly for the Lake District and Snowdonia. The Commission is also planning the provision of a number of long distance walkways in various parts of the country.
4 January 1851
Proposed park for Finsbury
A deputation waited upon Lord John Russell, on the 24th ult., at his official residence in Downing-street, to present a memorial agreed to a meeting of nearly 3,000 inhabitants of Finsbury, on the subject of a new park so much desired in that borough. The members of the deputation having severally addressed his lordship, the noble lord remarked that it appeared that the proposed park was desirable and he would confer with Sir George Grey and Lord Seymour on the subject. The deputation having thanked his lordship, withdrew.
