Instant skyline

The Government has approved - or, rather, Eric Pickles has nodded through - the proposed Liverpool Waters development. Individual buildings within the scheme can now just go one by one to the city council for final planning approval. And that's my problem. A little like MediaCityUK, this Peel scheme attempts to look as if it might have grown organically, by conglomerating buildings of slightly different styles. This trick didn't work at Poundbury, and doesn't work along the Liverpool waterfront. Oh, for the unifying stamp of a single architect with a vision, not jobbing practices colouring in boxes in a masterplan that suits a developer rather than a city, without much concern as to how the neighbouring boxes are being finished...