A total of 16 building facades are going to look fresh-faced and clean, thanks to funding from Historic England.
A gentle facelift with a specialist steam spray is now underway for blocks of buildings in Old Town Street, St Andrew’s Cross and Royal Parade.
Decades of grime and dirt, together with some algae will be coming off revealing the light Portland Stone that was widely used in the post-war rebuild of the city centre.
The work is being carried out by specialist cleaners Prestige Cleaners and will be carried out by blocks over the next few weeks.
The funding has come from Historic England via the Plymouth High Street Heritage Action Zone, with Historic England contributing half the costs, while the property owner pays the rest.
Councillor Mark Shayer, deputy leader and cabinet member for finance and the economy said: “We have approached a number of landlords and companies who own buildings and British Land are working with us on cleaning some of their more historic city centre estate.
“We have already seen what difference a clean makes to the buildings – look above the store at Flannels. We are very grateful to Historic England for their support on this project. It helps the city centre look better and also reminds us about our history.”
Simon Hickman from Historic England said: “Plymouth City Centre has the highest number of 20th century listed buildings in the country and its post-war architecture makes Plymouth unique. We are delighted to play our part in helping residents and visitors view the city centre with a fresh eye.”
Plymouth City Council’s role has been to negotiate between Historic England and the property owners and to work with them to identify specialist cleaners as well as the grant application. Other landlords are also in discussions with the council about cleaning their buildings.
Plymouth City Centre is unique. It was destroyed during World War II, but instead of rebuilding, the council appointed leading town planner, Patrick Abercrombie, to create ‘The Plan for Plymouth’.
The plan proposed replacing overcrowded and congested city centre with a bold, modern style with wide streets, space for landscaping and greenery – all completed with a uniformity of architectural style and materials. It is the only large-scale example of post-war town planning to be fully implemented in the country.
Abercrombie was trained in the French classically-inspired ‘Beaux-Arts’ style and the Plan for Plymouth is heavily influenced by the style’s symmetry and use of intersecting boulevards.
This can be easily seen in Plymouth’s main shopping streets (Cornwall Street and New George Street) being intersected by Armada Way and Royal Parade. Like most of his contemporaries, he hated Victorian architecture with its lack of zoning and poor forward planning.