contacted the minister in June 1960 expressing their concern for the arch, and again requested to be consulted on the proposals for redevelopment of the station site. The minister did not reply to this letter. Decision On 12 July 1961, in a written answer to a parliamentary question by Sir Frank Markham, the Minister of Transport, Ernest Marples, confirmed that he had given approval to the early reconstruction of Euston station which, in his view, was urgent not only because of the electrification programme but also because three 50-year-old Underground lifts had almost reached the end of their useful lives. The replacement of the lifts would cost £700,000. As he recounted, The arch did not, in his view, justify such expenditure, and although he expressed his regret at the passing of a major monument of the early railway age, there was no practical alternative in his mind. Reaction and last-minute lobbying The arch's imminent demolition sparked a preservation protest in which Woodrow Wyatt, John Betjeman and Nikolaus Pevsner were prominent figures, and a wider debate about the modernisation of central London. There was public disquiet over how a local authority with a good track record for architecture and town planning such as the LCC, and the BTC, an important public service operator, could allow the demolition of such an important monument. Figures such as Sir Charles Wheeler, the President of the Royal Academy, backed by the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, the Georgian Group and the London Society, lobbied in vain for the arch's preservation. Arguments which had been successfully employed to see off the previous attempted demolition in 1938 failed to sway the BTC which said that it was unable to afford the costs of reconstruction. The Victorian Society, whose vice-chairman was Sir John Betjeman, attempted to raise £90,000 to pay for the relocation of the arch, and pleaded for a stay of execution for the arch until this had been done. A Canadian firm, Nicholas Brothers, had offered to move the portico on rollers to a site 200 yards nearer the Euston Road. It was reported in October 1961 that a promise had been received that the gates of the arch would be preserved and moved elsewhere on the railways. On 24 October 1961, a group of campaigners including J. M. Richards, the editor of the Architectural Review, went to see Harold Macmillan, the Conservative Prime