The listing of a bank building across the Pennines could point the future of Preston’s bus station, an architecture expert has said.
Hugh Pearman, editor of the journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), said the decision to give Halifax House, the headquarters of the building society in West Yorkshire, could lead to a listing for the bus station.
The bank building was one of the early works of Building Design Partnership, the Preston-based architecture practice which designed the bus station.
English Heritage is expected to recommend the building be listed by architecture minister, Ed Vaizey, with a decision due by the summer.
In an article in the RIBA journal, Mr Pearman said: “Is this an omen? The Halifax building is BDP’s first to be listed.
“At the time it was completed, celebrated architecture critic Ian Nairn bracketed Preston Bus Station with it, saying: ‘For any one firm to have done two buildings of that scale and quality in 10 years, I would call a lifetime’s achievement’.
“Logically, emotionally and on its own merits as a great civic building then, Preston Bus Station should now also be listed as the first step in its renaissance.”
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