Sun Printers clock tower should be saved from demolition

With its white walls and green tiled roof it is one of the last remnants of a printing industry that once employed thousands of people across Watford.

Even dwarfed by blocks of flats going up around it and after decades of neglect it is an eye-catching sight.

Read more: Historic clock tower could be demolished

Read more: Mayor asked about application to demolish Sun Clock Tower

The building was an attempt to make something as functional as a water pump for a printworks beautiful - and is rightly a landmark. Heritage charity the 20th Century Society is among those calling for it to be saved.

The Sun Printers clock tower. Photo: Newsquest

Some say it is dangerous. The answer is that it should never have been allowed to get in that state. It should be made safe rather than demolished.

How many other historic buildings have been allowed to decay until some argue there is no choice but to pull them down?

In the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, people argued that roads should not be renamed and statues protected - even those named after people and practices whose values we might today find questionable.

To keep those street names but make no attempt to save a building that represents the working lives of so many people is inconsistent.

Watford does not have a good record when it comes to preserving some of its historic buildings. Cassiobury Park gates comes to mind.

And a town that pulls buildings down once they are no longer considered useful risks becoming a place with no history and no identity.

Even if the clock tower cannot remain on the site, it could be moved to nearby parkland where it remain a feature of the area.

One reader warned last week that Watford has become "a soulless place".

A town that made no attempt to preserve a building like the clock tower really would have lost its soul.

The Sun Printers clock tower