The derelict Shannocks Hotel at the clifftop end of Sheringham’s High Street is, to be kind, an eyesore. With its tragic blind windows, flaking blue paint and generalised air of neglect, underfunding and hopelessness, the message it sends to the world regarding the north Norfolk coast is hardly an encouraging one. Quite clearly, something needs to be done about it.

Yet it is a source of concern — and a rather familiar concern, too — that the first instinct of the North Norfolk District Council is not to seek the renovation of the existing structure, sited within a conservation area, but rather to demolish the whole thing (including the greatly-cherished carpark attached to it) and develop the site. NNDC’s plan, apparently, is to replace the existing hotel with 10 two-bedroom flats, four commercial units and a first-floor restaurant.

NNDC have set aside £500,000 for a compulsory purchase from the developers who own the site at present if they fail to act. Meanwhile, the previous owners have expressed a desire to buy back the hotel, and to run it as a hotel. Yet the NNDC carry on, regardless.

I have not been able to discover the date of the Shannocks Hotel. (For anyone not local, ‘Shannocks’ is simply what people from Sheringham call themselves.) To our eagle-eyed team at NNPW, the building looks Edwardian, albeit with a recent injection of the egregious uPVC replacement windows that blight so much in our world today — in particular, blinding the easily-confused to the actual age of the structure.

And yet even in recent newspaper photos of the discouraged-looking site, e.g. here, the Shannocks Hotel, in a very prominent, cliff-top location, still throws up an impressive outline. Its extremely traditional, red-pantiled roof signals ‘north Norfolk’ as clearly as anything could. Its outline, more than anything, speaks to Sheringham’s fabled history as a Poppyland holiday town. Dereliction aside, it looks like Sheringham.

Alas, the NNDC is, however, seemingly oblivious to 20th century architecture. Let’s see what the current edition of Pevsner (2nd ed, 1997) has to say about Sheringham, shall we?

“The place was chiefly developed in the 1890s and early C20, i.e. it looks very much more cheerful and civilised than, say, Hunstanton, which was built in the 1860s and 70s.”

So, in the eyes of the UK’s premier architectural guide, the early 20th century is a key part of what gives Sheringham its distinctive — and, in this case, ‘cheerful and civilised’ — look. Let’s remember, too, that what the Pevsner guide references here isn’t important, individual set-piece edifices — it is the general, generic look of the town. So to demolish one of these mainstream, early 20th century buildings, especially in such a prominent and sensitive location, is to alter the look of Sheringham itself.

Certainly, it is not a thing that should be done casually. Possibly, it is not a thing that should be done at all.

What, however, do the NNDC propose by way of a replacement? The local press provides computer-generated images, e.g. here. Designed by Lucas Hickman Smith, a firm that has completed some strong work in Norfolk, including impressive projects related to listed buildings, the replacement structure — with its grey roof, glass balconies and whimsical yellow panels — does not seem keen to establish any very obvious bonds with the locality. It could be any building, anywhere in the UK, built on the specified budget by public clients of rather limited aspirations. We struggle to see how it connects with Sheringham, other than by showing indifference towards its history, its traditions — towards Sheringham’s ineffable, refined, definitely-not-Yarmouth-or-Hunstanton-either-thanks character.

Also, it is not by any stretch of the imagination cutting-edge contemporary architecture. It is patently the fruit of the 1980s, harvested late, dumped in a provincial seaside town that apparently doesn’t know any better.

We find it sad that there is nowhere, online, a strong defense of the existing hotel, spelling out its history, its architectural background, its relationships with the world around it. But we partially blame this gap on NNDC. Why on earth are local conservation bodies not more alert to the significance of historic local buildings? Why should  excellent but overstretched organisations like SAVE Britain’s Heritage and the C20 Society have to do all the heavy lifting? Should we not have an actual statutory conservation body, with both real teeth and real architectural knowledge, willing and able to fight for our built environment?

Remember, too, the all-too-obvious point that frequently eludes Norfolk planners — if we don’t preserve a few 80, 90 and 100-year old buildings, in time, the 200, 300 and 500-year old buildings are going to be a bit thin on the ground.

As mentioned above, the present state of Shannocks Hotel is not acceptable. We understand the impatience shown by NNDC when it comes to the improvement of the present site.

What NNPW will never accept, however, is NNDC’s default retreat to demolition, and redevelopment, as our go-to option.

The North Norfolk coast is special. It is beautiful, strange, stirring, compelling and unique. There is nothing like it on earth. It doesn’t suit everyone, true, but to those who warm to it, nothing on earth compares with it. This is not just the fruit of its natural beauty, either, although that is a part of it — it is a fruit of its unique, evolved, distinctive character. NNDC, with its tin ear for the built environment, and its total blind spot regarding 20th century buildings, ignores this at its peril. If you make our magical and historic coastline just like anywhere else, why will anyone come here to visit it? And who wants to live in some identikit flat above an unwanted identikit restaurant?

Let us picture, instead, a happier future for the Shannocks Hotel. Perhaps someone will buy it who actually likes and understands it. They will do up the existing building, playing on its existing strengths rather than pulling against them.

Perhaps they will, for instance, play up to the early 20th century history, installing Bakelite light-switches, traditional sanitary ware, historic decorating schemes — remembering, as they do so, the great success of the revived Poppy Line. The carpark, much valued by actual Shannocks, will endure. Meanwhile, Sheringham will get to work marketing itself as the beautiful historic seaside town it already is. It will embrace its history, rather than seeking to obliterate it under a sea of unsympathetic, reflexive modern development.

The north Norfolk coast faces many threats, but among them, obliviousness to the importance of early and mid 20th century building is a major threat. Put bluntly, people visit this place, love it, come to live here, because of how it looks right now. And much of north Norfolk’s built environment is rooted in the early to mid 20th century. Obliterate that under a sea of unsympathetic, ill-thought-out, budget-led contemporary building, and the spell is broken.

This isn’t to say that really first-rate, well-thought-out, sympathetic contemporary architecture doesn’t have a role to play. Of course it does, especially on green-field sites. But as for destroying what will, in another few hundred years, be incredibly important, listed, historic evidence of our distinctive local appearance — that is a disaster. A Norfolk that looks like the rest of the world is, let’s face it, like the rest of the world.

Is that really what you want, NNDC?