There was a big fire last night near here – an old shoe repairer’s premises, long disused, on Northgate caught fire. I passed it in the cab on the way to last night’s family function. It was well alight, and I’ve just been round to take a look. The outside of the building is relatively unscathed, but looking inside, the whole of the roof is ruined and the inside is a charred mess. Judging by the burnt blankets that the firemen have left beside the building, someone was squatting in there, although I can’t imagine that it was a particularly nice place to be.
It’s a shame that that building, and the old Electric Cinema next to it (which was one of the first cinemas in the country) are being left to slowly rot into the ground. The site itself is a prime location – there must be some developer who would be willing to do something with these buildings to bring them back into usefulness.