An architectural marvel? Surely not...

Following neatly on from the sad story of The Point, I have recently discovered that not only is the Milton Keynes shopping centre a listed building but the same honour has more recently been bestowed upon another site of even more dubious merit, which has left me quite frankly flabbergasted. Who would believe the city centre's old bus station has Grade II Listed status?

It seems incredible, but in August 2014 English Heritage successfully proposed listing for the bus station, their application including the following quote:

"The design of the bus station with its projecting canopy, exposed steel girders and lightweight supporting steel columns, draws on influential buildings by the acclaimed modernist architect Mies van der Rohe, whose ideology inspired the new town plan and its buildings. There is a sculptural quality to some of its internal features and the core building is detailed to an unusually high standard for its use."

Are they really talking about the same grotty old building that has never been fully utilised and is generally regarded as an eyesore by locals? The decision to list the bland bus station for being 'architecturally interesting' and yet reject the far more important and unique Point just makes no sense at all to me.

It's hard to believe this ugly and underused box is listed and the iconic Point isn't.

The bus station opened in 1983, a box-like building that is a typical example of 1980s brutalist concrete architecture, and while a practical design for both bus operators and passengers it was really built in the wrong place and soon became a white elephant. It is beyond walking distance from the main shopping and leisure areas, meaning passengers had to catch another bus to get there, and not close enough to the railway station either; while it is possible to walk from one to the other, this is a trek across a bleak and windswept square that is not at all pleasant in bad weather or when burdened down with luggage and hurrying to catch a train.

As a result, many services didn't even use the bus station, stopping instead on the railway station forecourt and at street stops in the city centre, surely defeating the point of the bus station as a central transport interchange entirely. For a long time it has been used principally as a driver changeover point and layover area for out of service buses while becoming increasingly run down, and completely ceased to be an active passenger facility several years ago. I have only ever twice seen the site anywhere near filled to capacity, once as a waiting area for coaches involved in the massive West Coast Main Line replacement service in 2002, and again a few years later when the Routemaster Owners' Association held a bus rally there one Sunday. Apart from those occasions it has stood largely empty and desolate, a big grey blot on the landscape and a waste of valuable land.

The busiest it ever got was as a holding area for rail replacement coaches.

The building itself has at least been put to good use as a youth centre known as the Buszy. While that is undoubtedly a worthwhile cause, it hardly made the site any more deserving of being listed. The decision to award Grade II status to the shopping centre and the bus station, two buildings many would argue typify all that was wrong with seventies and eighties architecture and would not be missed if they were demolished, and overlook The Point with its iconic appearance and immensely historic status, is quite frankly nothing short of astonishing.