Trees or Buildings?

I happened to listen to the ten o'clock news on Radio 4 last night, and they did a whole piece from the Hay Festival, following up one of the talks. It was called Trees or Buildings, and talked about which the British people preferred. After all the uproar about the selling off of Forestry Commission land, it seemed that trees were the favourite, and several people at the Festival were interviewed to see what they thought. Rosie Boycott went around one of the new developments in Hay and basically said what horrible buildings they were, and how 'we' ought to care more about what our buildings look like.
Which is all very well - but what voice do 'we' have?
A few years ago now, Brecon Pharmaceuticals wanted to build a new building on the Brecon Road. When local people saw the plans, in which the new building would be disguised as an old barn, they were up in arms.
"It'll look horrible," they said.
"It'll be fine," said the builders. "Just wait and see."
So they built it.
"It's horrible," said the locals.
But it was too late then.
There was a court order for part of the building to be taken down and rebuilt, but it was never done, and the original building is still there now.
One of the big problems round here is the planning department of the National Park, which is widely known to be obstructive and unhelpful and frankly bizarre in some of its decision making. Eddie at Kilverts would like to take down the shelter at the front of the building, which is fairly basic wood and plastic, and replace it with something that looks more Victorian, with fancy ironwork. It would fit better with the Victorian building, and look a whole lot nicer. Can he get permission? It's a long and tortuous process.
So maybe we do care about architecture, but we can't do anything about it.