a deep buff, variously described as "bile yellow", "putty and chocolate" (some parts were brown) and "vomit-coloured". They inspired the epithet "the longest lavatory wall in Europe" and variations. According to The Guardian, the description was coined by Norman Shrapnel, the paper's political columnist. Consequences A backlash against comprehensive development was underway before the centre opened. Amery and Dan Cruickshank's The Rape of Britain, with a foreword by John Betjeman, was published to mark European Architectural Heritage Year in 1975. The book describes the redevelopment of about 20 towns under the heading "scenes of rape" and uses the Arndale as an example of "brutal obliteration" undertaken by "the mind that seriously believes that the centre of Manchester should look like a futuristic vision or a barbaric new city borrowed from Le Corbusier". In the same year the pressure group Save Britain's Heritage was formed, in part to discourage the wholesale demolition of unremarkable industrial buildings in the north of England. Several factors, including the property slump of 1974–6, changes to local government in 1974, and changes in the law after the Poulson affair, in which developers corrupted politicians to expedite schemes against the wider public interest, acted against further developments of the size and type of the Arndale. Built Environment commented that while Arndales are "an asset to any town", this scheme "smacks of opportunism beyond the general interest of the city as a whole". The presence of over of retail space distorted shopping patterns in Manchester city centre and many established retailers and retail districts struggled to adapt. Oldham Street lost large stores from their long-term sites and it was clear the area would suffer. Closures of shops and former textile warehouses comparable to those cleared for the Arndale meant the area quickly became run-down and in Bennison et al.'s eyes "almost fossilised". The area remained run down until it was revitalised as the Northern Quarter in the late 1990s. Piccadilly Plaza, completed in 1966, lost trade when the Arndale opened and was put up for sale for £10 m in the middle of 1979; as a shopping centre, it never recovered. Stocks argues that these factors lay behind the Greater Manchester County Council's strategic view that the county had too much retail capacity. From 1977 onwards the GMC consistently opposed further development, and would not support any before 1986. Trade increased in the early 1980s, though GMC policy