Nottingham’s ugliest building could be protected from the bulldozer, blocking any hope of developing the 45-acre site.

Imperial Tobacco’s Horizon Factory, England’s last cigarette manufacturing plant, is scheduled for closure – but conservation agency Historic England has confirmed to the Post that it may press for the huge concrete building to get Listed status.

A Grade 1 listing would mean the factory, designed in the 1960s, getting the same “hands-off” protection as Wollaton Hall and Newstead Abbey.

“I can’t believe it,” said chartered surveyor Tim Garratt, managing director of Nottingham commerical property agent Innes England.

“The factory was bespoke-built for Imperial Tobacco to make cigarettes. All a listing will do is hamstring this site. It is going to be very difficult to shift as it is – but even more difficult with the factory.”

Nick Gregory, a director at Nottingham architects firm CPMG, said: “It’s a unique structure and a listing would not surprise me.

“But I can understand the antipathy towards it. It was very advanced and ground-breaking when it was first done. It was very bespoke.

“I think it’s a difficult building to find another use for and it will need some real creative thinking to find a useful way of bringing it back to life.”

The site is on the books of property agents JLL, whose director Matthew Smith said the threat of listing was an occupational hazard and would make it more difficult to sell.

A spokeswoman for Historic England confirmed: “We’ve been asked to look at it by a member of the public and the building is being assessed for spot-listing.”

Wollaton Hall is Grade 1 listed

A spot-listing triggers a process without time limit. After consultation, Historic England makes any recommendation for Listing to the Department of Culture, Media and Sport. The decision, which could take months, will be down to the next Secretary of State.

The consultation will involve Nottingham City Council, whose spokesman said that if a listing was granted, the authority would “seek sufficient flexibility over future development and reuse of the building so it can continue to provide jobs and growth for Nottingham.”

The Horizon Factory is on Thane Road, adjoining the Nottingham Enterprise Zone created on the Boots estate at Beeston.

Although the Horizon site might be seen as a target for any future expansion of NEZ, a spokeswoman for Boots said the future of the cigarette factory “would have no impact on our plans for the enterprise zone.”

Nottingham Civic Society is enthusiastic about the long-term protection of the factory.

The society’s vice-chairman Ian Watts said: “Listed status does not necessarily mean it is an attractive building.

“Sometimes it may have an important place in the history of construction, and this building says something about Nottingham as an industrial city and one of its major industries.”

The Horizon factory, which opened in 1972, took up production of cigarettes formerly made in Imperial subsidiary John Player’s old plants in Radford.

At one stage more than 1,000 workers were employed at the site, which had the capacity to produce 36 billion cigarettes a year.

By 2014, a workforce of 540 produced 17 billion cigarettes. Last year it was announced that the factory would close in 2016.

Are there other modern Nottingham buildings which deserve the protection offered by listed building status?

We asked Nottingham Civic Society vice-chairman Ian Watts for some examples.

“I suspect the Inland Revenue buildings (pictured) will be candidates one day,” he says.

“I think the Victoria Centre flats deserve a mention, and buildings on the University of Nottingham Jubilee Campus.

“And I also like the Hopkins Architects extensions at the Newton and Arkwright buildings at Nottingham Trent University.”

We would like to receive your nominations for Nottingham’s best buildings of the 20th and 21st centuries.

We would also like your nominations for the very worst.

Is the Horizon Factory, as Tim Garratt says, the ugliest building in Nottingham, or are there structures more deserving of wrecking balls and controlled explosions?

Good or bad, send your nominations to newsdesk@ nottinghampost.co.uk

The Post says…

It’s Nottingham’s architectural Marmite. Nobody is ambivalent about the Horizon fag factory – now available to buyers but with the threat of conditions that may forever protect the concrete structure.

You either love the in-your-face brutality of the four-square edifice…

Or you hate it and wonder what could possess Historic England to consider Listed status for the building – protection that would limit future uses and make redevelopment of the 50-acre site impossible.

No prizes for guessing where Elain Harwood stands. The architectural writer states on the 20st Century Society’s website: “Horizon looks as good today as when it was built, and I love its massiveness and tactile griminess.”

Seconding the cause is Nottingham Civic Society vice-chairman Ian Watts, 64, an English lecturer who campaigned for Listed status for other modern local landmarks, like architect Peter Moro’s 1960s Nottingham Playhouse and – a stone’s throw from Horizon (pictured) – the D10 Building created for Boots by Sir Evan Owen Williams.

He said Horizon was an example of a new way of working, with engineers Ove Arup working closely with builders and fitters to achieve an integrated design. One of the main challenges was the air conditioning, which had to be at the right pitch to keep tobacco moist.

The building was designed to absorb all Nottingham production for John Player, whose operation had been based at factories in Radford since the late 19th Century.

In moving the workforce almost to the banks of the Trent, parent company Imperial Tobacco did its best for staff cut off from Nottingham. Facilities for workers included not only a restaurant but two shops and a bank.

Horizon opened in 1972 and 1974 saw the peak year for UK cigarette sales. Since then, sales of tobacco products have declined steadily and in 2013, overall sales of cigarettes fell by 11.2 per cent. Manufacture has switched to foreign plants.

So will there be life after fags at Horizon? Matthew Smith very much hopes so. As director of property agents JLL he is trying to get the best price for Imperial and without the handicap of listed building status the site could fetch £350,000 to £450,000 per acre. A listing, he concedes, “will have an impact”.

There could also be consequences for Nottingham, he said. The land, sited in the corridor of the upgraded A453, would be attractive to investors and capable, with redevelopment, of generating 1,000 jobs. But not with an unwanted but protected factory on the site.

Ian watts is unimpressed. “With something as iconic as this, you have to think in a different way,” he says. “Besides, what would go up in its place? More banal sheds?”

Chartered surveyor Tim Garratt, (pictured inset) managing director of agents Innes England, has long been a blogger on subjects ranging from squash to architecture.

Three years ago he wondered about Nottingham’s ugliest building and wrote: “There are some contenders, but my favourite (least favourite, I mean) is the Players Horizon factory.

“Built in 1972 when architects had a concrete fetish (some still do) it really is the ugliest building I know in Nottingham. It was built as Players moved out of the assortment of buildings they owned in Radford. It makes 120 million cigarettes a day. And that is the extent of the ‘wow’ factor. It is perhaps the most depressing of styles, the concrete is a sea of grey, other ‘features’ are brown.

“It was designed by Arup, who do some stunning buildings and structures now, but I don’t recall seeing this one on their brochures. Their website makes the merest hint of their involvement!”

Mr Garratt’s views have not not been moderated. “I find it difficult to believe that anyone would want it listed,” he says.

“It is important for this part of Nottingham to have inward investment and one day it may make a lot of sense to extend the enterprise zone on the adjacent Boots site. This won’t help.”

Meanwhile a Nottingham City Council spokesman said: “We are aware that Historic England is considering an application. We will be consulted as part of this process and in our response we will weigh both economic development and heritage considerations.

“We are pursuing development across the city and this site is adjacent to the Boots Enterprise Zone, which could make it an attractive location for future investors.

“If the building is to be listed, then the city council would seek sufficient flexibility over future development and reuse of the building so it can continue to provide jobs and growth for Nottingham.”