Living in the country as I do I am more used to taking landscape pictures of countryside.  A visit to Brentford in West London has challenged me to look for pictures in the urban landscape.

Right at the end of the street where my daughter and her family live is a huge tower block, now disused but adorned with enormous illuminated advertising posters.  The current one which greets drivers at eye view on the elevated section of the M4, as they drive into London draws attention to the photographic capabilities of the iPhone.  All the old industrial building round it have been demolish and replaced with town houses, but the tower.  Just the remain s of an old ramp up to the base of the tower, and the tower itself remain on the “Great West Road”.

Soaring above all the new houses in the development (which has been designated, Great Western Quarter (GWG)) is the Tower, a 27 storey block which we have watched growing on our visits to Brentford.  Now completed I see you can rent a two bedroom apartment there for £595 per week.  I pass the Tower quite regularly, on visits to the Sainsbury’s Local there, or on the way to school with the grandchildren.

Just over the road from the block with the advertising poster used to stand a derelict pub.  Now hoarding board surround it and this week we have seen the old building reduced to a pile of rubble as the diggers do their work.  My daughter tells me that there is to be a development of some 20 flats there at the end of their road.   It will certainly put an extra strain on parking in the area which is terrible at the best of times for local residents,  even those with parking permits.

It is sad to see old buildings with character demolished.  I do hope that the new development is a building with some character.