Talk:T. Dan Smith

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page.	Biography Portal
B	This article has been rated as B-Class on the project's quality scale. [FAQ]

	This article is supported by WikiProject North East England, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to North East England on Wikipedia. For further information or to participate, you can visit the Project page.	North East England Portal
B	This article has been rated as B-Class on the assessment scale
Mid	This article has been rated as mid-Importance on the importance scale.

At no point in the current article does it mention that/when/if he was an MP.

This is because T. Dan Smith was never an MP. David | Talk 19:39, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

"While Smith did make many mistakes, including destroying much of the historical fabric of the city centre, some of his projects are now appreciated. These include the A167 Central Motorway, without which the city centre would now almost certainly face gridlock, and the Eldon Square Shopping Centre, which has helped to keep the city's retail offering competitive in the face of stiff competition from Gateshead MetroCentre."

I think this is a little lacking in context. In order to build New Eldon Square, much of Old Eldon Square (2/3rds, iirc - now only a small row of the remaining buildings stand, with their backs to Grey's Monument) was demolished, and replaced by a fifty-foot high, turd-brown toilet block lookalikie, which is to say, the exterior of New Eldon Square. I think the article could do with a little more on the damage Smith, and the wider tendency he represented, did to Newcastle's architectural heritage in the name of 'progress.'