Sadness as plans for London's new £288 million Centre for Music are scrapped

We were sorry to hear that dreams of a new state of the art 21st century concert hall in Central London have now been consigned to the dustbin of history.
However in the current climate, with the terrible economic fall out from the global pandemic consistently threatening to sideline the arts, the scrapping of the £288 million project was almost inevitable.
Much has been made of the vocal support given to the grand Centre for Music plan by Sir Simon Rattle. Indeed his appointment in 2017 as head of the London Symphony Orchestra was seen by many to hinge on the project going through.
It would have been great had it happened but I am sure that Sir Simon - now off to take up another appointment in Germany - knew only too well that the combination of Brexit and Covid-19 was almost certainly going to spell an end to the plan.
Suddenly culture seems to be off the agenda as far as the Government is concerned. I suspect that new concert halls are seen as a luxury too far in a world where even re-opening many of the existing ones is far from guaranteed.
What a terrible shame.