So what would you demolish?

LET'S hear it for the good folk of Cumbernauld, near Glasgow. When they learned that Channel 4 was making a TV series dedicated to finding and pulling down Britain's worst eyesore, they decided not to stop at half measures.

Instead, residents of the community once dubbed the place town planning students visited to learn "what not to do" begged the programme makers to flatten the whole town.

Hopefully, nobody in York is going to suggest that. But we should at least try to give the citizens of Cumbernauld a run for their money.

Demolition, the four-part programme Channel 4 plans to screen in the autumn, aims to create a shortlist of nominations for Britain's worst building.

A team of experts will then judge each on its design and construction. The 'winner' will be demolished at the end of the series.

There are plenty of contenders in York. Not even the city's official Loony, Eddie Vee, has much good to say about Stonebow House, for example - except that it houses a bookies and a snooker hall. And it is unlikely that anything could be done to make the monstrosity that is Ryedale House any less ugly - not even cladding it and turning it into flats, as was apparently once considered.

Then there is the telephone exchange; the Viking Hotel; and, for those who dislike anything big and new, the Westgate flats. They are blocky, bulky, ugly and too big, according to architectural historian Alison Sinclair.

Demolition is not just about being negative, insists George Ferguson, the President of the Royal Institute of British Architects, who will chair Channel 4's team of experts. The aim of the series is to kick-start a national debate about the built environment.

"Some buildings are an affront to our senses," he says. "What I seek is public intolerance of the worst and demand for the best. This is very much a positive proposals aimed at repairing damaged places."

Yeah, yeah. It's also a chance to give those buildings you really hate a good kicking. So get nominating.

To get you thinking, we canvassed a few opinions...

York architect Tom Adams

"The one that I want to knock down is Stonebow. It was a car park, and the ramp up to it was eight feet wide and you can see where it has been gouged by all the cars that have been damaged because it was not wide enough. When the cars parked it was shaped like a kite, so if they were in a corner they could not get out again. Also the roof leaked. It was repaired, then it leaked again and it was repaired. It was just badly designed, and it is not in keeping with the magnificent fabric of York.

"There are quite a few buildings that are nasty. Ryedale House, and the original Viking Hotel, which I always say looks as though it fell from the sky and happened to land at the side of the river in York.

And there is the building on the corner of Coney Street that is being built at the moment. It is going to be big and ugly. Wouldn't it have been nice if they hadn't put anything there? If they had made a square?"

Alison Sinclair, architectural historian

"I don't mind Stonebow. I'm one of those who thinks Stonebow is of its time and it is a quite good building. It is just in the wrong place. As to the right place for it - probably not in York. It obviously needs to go in an area which was developed in the 1960s.

"It would probably be a modern building that I wanted to see cast down. Perhaps the Westgate flats. I think the development is far too big for the site. It is just too blocky, too bulky, a very four-square building. If I had to go for one, I'd go for that."

Eddie Vee, official Monster Raving Loony candidate for York

"Apart from the tax office, it would have to be York Minster. It takes up a lot of space which could be used for flats. Part of me wants to build a conservatory there, and part of me thinks it could be a nice, open, green space. Then there is the Slug and Lettuce, because it is a trendy pub - too trendy.

"I do have a couple of sensible suggestions. Everybody would like to get rid of the Stonebow. The only merit it possesses is that it has a bookies and a snooker hall. And how about the old swimming pool in Rowntree Park? That would create a bit of space."

Lynne Jeffries, consultant on disabled access

"I would like to pull down Gillygate and the rest of historic York and start again! Keep it beautiful, but have proper disabled access.

"But seriously, I can think of a million buildings, a lot of them new buildings, that have not done enough to make themselves accessible. The new breast-screening unit at the hospital, for example, has steps at the front. There is a ramp at the back but you cannot see it so don't know it is there.

"Sometimes it is just bad management rather than the building itself. There is a soccer shop at Monks Cross, for example. You cannot get in at all. It is quite hard for non-disabled people getting around the aisles, but it is impossible if you're in a wheelchair."

Chris Wood, TV and video producer

"It is not the Stonebow at all for me: it is the telephone exchange. I have made a video about how much I hate it! It is so ugly. I imagine the mast was built like that so it would survive if a bomb fell on it. Why they ever allowed something as ugly as that, I don't know.

"The other place I'd really like to see go is Layerthorpe, all around the bridge by the Foss bank. There are so many poles and lampposts there. There was a programme once about a factory that made lampposts and the car park was full of them. Layerthorpe is worse than that!

"And then there are all those shopping centres out on the ring road, with the shops that are like warehouses. They can go."

Peter Brown, company secretary of York Civic Trust

"I think I'm not alone in wanting to see the demolition of Stonebow House. It really is Sixties Brutalist. There are some very interesting buildings and streetscapes opposite it, and it does not fit happily at all.

"There would be universal support for getting rid of Ryedale House too. Some schemes have been mooted for recladding it and turning it into residences. The problem is that it is two storeys too high."

Updated: 09:40 Tuesday, February 22, 2005