Margaret Hodge, the Culture Minister, accepted a recommendation by English
Heritage for listed status after the buildings were touted for sale by the
record company EMI amid spiralling debts.

Mrs Hodge said that the studios represented “our greatest gift to postwar
culture: the best pop music in the world”.

The studios were also used by Sir Edward Elgar, Paul Robeson, Glenn Miller and
Pink Floyd, for the recording of Dark Side Of The Moon.

– Various buildings that played a key role in the Battle of Britain have
been given listed status.

The “Ops” Room at RAF Uxbridge, from which the Battle of Britain was
controlled and fought, was one of 172 buildings from the aviation history of
two world wars to be given statutory protection by the Government.

A host of other structures at RAF Northolt in Middlesex were granted Grade II
status last year. They included a hangar that housed Sir Winston Churchill’s
personal aircraft; the squadron watch office from which pilots were
scrambled; and an operations block that was a prototype of the “Dowding
System”, which allowed chiefs to communicate to intercept enemy
aircraft.

– Brighton’s Saltdean Lido was recently granted Graded II listed status –
making it the first swimming pool to be afforded such protection.

Designed by Richard Jones and built in 1937, the art deco outdoor swimming
complex was hailed as the most innovative design of its type in Britain.

Its condition has gradually deteriorated since 1997, when owners Brighton and
Hove Council assigned a 150-year lease to an accountant and businessman,
Dennis Audley.

A campaign group has fought to prevent plans to develop the site into flats
for the past year and had pressed English Heritage for a review of the
building’s listing status.

– Plans to bulldoze a concrete bus depot in Bournemouth described as
“hideous” were put on ice after the 1950s building was granted Grade II
listed status.

Staff at Bournemouth’s Yellow Bus Garage were pleased when plans were
announced to develop the site and to move the business to a more suitable
location.

To their dismay, the scheme was halted in 1999 after the then Arts Minister,
Alan Howarth, pronounced the garage to be “a landmark modern building”
that illustrated “the wealth and variety of Britain’s architectural
heritage”.