Grand backer Kevin McCloud gets behind doomed Port Adelaide shed

Popular TV architecture authority Kevin McCloud has added his voice to a campaign to save Port Adelaide’s Shed 26 from demolition, as protesters prepare for more action at the historic site.

Shed 26 at Port Adelaide. Picture: Tom Huntley

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Popular TV architecture authority Kevin McCloud has added his voice to a campaign to save Port Adelaide’s Shed 26 from demolition, as protesters prepare for more action at the historic site.

The English Grand Designs presenter has signed an open letter to Premier Steven Marshall and developer Cedar Woods begging for the demolition, slated to begin as soon as tomorrow, to be delayed.

Kevin McCloud.

In his note, McCloud, 59, said the conservation of historic buildings such as the old boatshed, on the banks of the Port River, was “about our industrial and commercial past as much as it is about churches and twiddly columns”. “We can’t let the quieter, more modest buildings be swept away when they’re so much a part of who we are and where we’ve come from,” he said.

“Their contribution to the uniqueness of place is almost beyond measure and something you can’t reproduce with the newfangled.”

Save Shed 26 campaign spokeswoman Emma Webb said the group would consider all options to save the building, and did not rule out protesters chaining themselves to the site.

Ms Webb said the group would work with the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union this coming week to stage a new protest but said it was too early to detail what form that would take.

“We’re looking at all possible options,” she said, adding that all was not lost despite the plan to run a bulldozer through the site this week.

“The Premier can intervene and ask Cedar Woods to delay the demolition,” she said. “It’s also not too late for Cedar Woods to give the shed one last chance.”

The building is set to make way for a $160 million housing development.

A host of prominent South Australians have signed the open letter to save it, including satirist Bryan Dawe, Adelaide Festival artistic director Neil Armfield, Deputy Opposition Leader Susan Close and federal Labor frontbencher Mark Butler.

The soon-to-be-demolished Shed 26 at Port Adelaide. Picture: Tom Huntley

In April, the State Government quashed a bid to have the old boatshed permanently State Heritage-listed.

Mr Marshall is away in the US but Environment Minister David Speirs said the Government’s position remained the same.

He told supporters last month that Cedar Woods’s ownership of the site had “limited the options available” to government and upgrading the site would cost taxpayers millions of dollars.

Cedar Woods said “no viable new ideas” to keep the shed had been raised. It said “removal” had started and would continue over coming weeks.