Bold New Plan For Piccadilly Circus

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29798, 14 April 1962, Page 12

Bold New Plan For Piccadilly Circus

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright) LONDON, April 13. An imaginative proposed new design for Piccadilly Circus, incorporating a piazza, fountains, floral displays and skating pools at Christmas, has been put to the British Government.

The design is by one of Britain's leading planners. Sir William Holford, for the London County Council, said the “Evening News ” Almost an acre in the centre of the Circus would be taken up with a piazza The statue of Eros would be moved about 15ft north to make way One ,arge section of the piazza would be chequered, with every 9ft segment movable They would be raised to carry displays of flowers in the way that azaleas are shown on Rome's Spanish steps, or towered to form shallow pools with fountains At Christmas the whole section (72ft by 90ft) would be flooded and frozen for skating displays

Piccadili on Tower Where Shaftesbury avenue branches off from the Circus would be a three-sided tower. 170 ft high Topping it would b a slender steeple with a piccadili (symbol of the linen ruff from which Piccadilly takes its name) on top.

Nearby would be an almost transparent building, four storeys hiih capped by six elegant cupolas. Its open ground floor would be windproofen by hinged glass screens which would turn through 90deg according to the weather It would contain three restaurants, and could also be a viewing site for the Christmas skating From it, road pedestrian bridges would run to two other modern buildings Possibly they could become moving pavements.

On the remaining side of Piccadilly will be a theatre and a block of flats. Sir William Holford said his plan was intended to make Piccadilly “as attractive in reality as it obviously is in the imaginations of people from every quarter of the English-speaking world.”