For ever Egypt - a northern temple to industry is at serious risk

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Jaw-dropping - and just a step from the flourishing Round Foundry complex of Leeds' mills.

The threat to British industry's greatest monuments raised by English Heritage is dramatically illustrated by the partial collapse of Temple Mill in Leeds, a vast Egyptian-style monument which became world-famous within months of its completion in 1840.

Launched with a temperance tea for 2000 flax-spinners, whose facilities in the huge building included private bathrooms – cold water free, hot a penny – the building was an attempt at more enlightened employment practices and featured as such in Disraeli's novel Sybil.

Lauded by everyone from Pevsner to Sir John Betjeman, the mill has been listed Grade 1 for more than 30 years, placing it in the top 2.5 percent of the UK's built heritage. It figures both on the English Heritage 'red alert' list and in the top ten Victorian buildings at risk published earlier this month by the Victorian Society.

Salt's Mill in Saltaire, now the centre of a Unesco world heritage site. Photograph: Alamy

There is incredulity in Leeds that the city's most famous industrial monument can have reached such a parlous state that one of its 18 beautifully carved lotus pillars has collapsed, bringing down with it a section of equally ornate wall. But the lethal effects of neglect on a vast but delicate structure, which depended on constant use and maintenance, has combined with the bite of the recession on over-optimistic developers.

For all its massiveness, the mill depends on a web of tie-bars which anchor an exceptionally heavy roof of 60 saucer-shaped brick domes, each crowned by a cone of glass, to the Egyptian walls. Inspired by the Pharoanic temple of the falcon god Horus at Edfu, the system included a meadow of grass to preserve moist temperatures for the flax, which was grazed monthly in summer by imported sheep.

The fracture of a tie-bar led to the pillar collapse and left the mill like a 'wobbly table' on its forest of slender iron pillars, also adorned with lotus leaves, which double as drainpipes. Further damage is certain if other ties fail.

Stonework is also broken on the ornate gatekeeper's lodge, an extra adornment which survived when the original chimney, an obelisk inspired by Cleopatra's Needle, became structurally unsound and was demolished in the 19th century. English Heritage lists the building's condition laconically as 'very bad'.

The developers Arndale Properties have begun repair work and use of parts of the building as a cultural centre on the lines of Salt's Mill in neighbouring Bradford, an even vaster leviathan whose collection of David Hockney paintings and World Heritage Site status has been one of northern England's greatest heritage successes. Temple Mill's neighbouring, and flourishing, Round Foundry complex is a model too. But progress has been slow since the last major occupier, a mail order warehouse, moved out in 2004. The clock for crucial and ever-more expensive repairs is ticking.

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Newzbin2 judgment: industry reactions

Newzbin website. A landmark High Court ruling forcing BT to block access to the site illegal file sharing

Internet -providers, right holders and lobbying groups reacted Thursday's landmark High Court ruling forces BT block access to file sharing illegal website Newzbin2.

"This is a useful judgment which provides clarity on this complex issue. It demonstrates clearly that rights holders must prove their claims and persuade a judge to make a court order. BT has consistently said that rights holders must take this route. We return to the Court after the summer to explain what kind of order we believe to be appropriate. "

"This ruling by Justice Arnold is a victory for millions of people who work in the UK creative industries and demonstrates that legislation in the country must apply online. This trial was never an attack on internet service providers, but we need their cooperation to manage your site Newzbin, which constantly tries to circumvent the law and judicial sanction. Newzbin is a notorious pirate website that makes hundreds of thousands of copyrighted products available without permission and without regard to the law. "

"This ruling sends a clear signal that ISPs have a role to play in protecting their customers from rogue Web sites that take advantage of and benefit from creative work without permission, ignore notices not hesitate and Find themselves beyond the reach of law enforcement."

"The decision is crucial to the sector of content as it continues in its efforts to create a sustainable and secure environment for the distribution of legal content online. After this ruling, can other sites that are focused on violating copyright now be susceptible to blocking actions. UK content owners have just established a powerful weapons to help them to protect their copyrights online. "

"This is a terrible day for regular UK internet users. The verdict set a worrying precedent for internet censorship. This is the thin end of a very large wedge. It also leaves the Coalition [Government] internet policy in disarray. Our digital rights is obviously determined by Hollywood, not Parliament. "

"Website blocking is pointless and dangerous. These judgments will not do to stop the violation, or increase the creative industries. And there is a serious risk of legitimate content will be blocked and service slowdown. If the goal is strengthening the creators ability to earn money from their work, so we must give up these technological naive measures focus on genuine market reforms, and satisfy unmet consumer demand.

"Intermediaries like BT are forced to accept that policing the Internet for IP rights infringements is as much your responsibility as holders. The sentence suggests not, there may be a flood of similar claims launched. This misses the point. Now that this test case establishes that an injunction may be granted, the intermediaries is likely to adopt a notice and takedown approach which has worked for many years in relation to defamation claims. When notified claimed IP infringements of rights-holders, probably intermediaries to test attitude in animal trials. "

"Although the law as film studios trust to block access to Newzbin has been in force for some time, this is the first time that a court has upheld it in relation to an internet service provider. This is a welcome victory for rights owners who have been deprived of income due to Newzbins illegal activities. However, it as a test case create a precedent which has the potential to result in a hectic less dignified Court programs to block offensive content. Countless websites any user-uploaded content, and could now be the subject of a request for ISP block. YouTube is just one example. "

"ISPA has long maintained that this is an issue of rights holders should seek to address in court, rather than through voluntary funds, and today's decision should go some way to offer clarity on what is a complicated issue. However, concern over-blocking, facilitate circumvention and enhanced encryption is widely recognised, which means blocking is not a silver bullet to stop online infringement of copyright. Rather, as the Government-commissioned review recently Hargreaves found, there should be more focus on offering innovative, fully licensed content services that provide consumers with the demanding clear. "

"The Court's ruling has no direct or immediate impact on the TalkTalk. If the MPA is seeking a court order against us to block the site NewzBin then we will consider it. "

"The Web site blocks only treats the symptoms, not the reason why consumers to infringe the copyright. Blocking access to Newzbin2 is short-sighted and will not reduce demand for Hollywood movies. Consumers will seek out other sources, and the only long-term solution is more and better legal alternatives. We are on the way to a blocking injunction-arms race-what we really need are members of the Motion Picture Association to be innovative and focus on meeting the UK consumer demand legally. "

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The IT industry must do more to be green, says Microsoft's environment Chief

Companies are not doing enough to be energy more efficiently has Microsoft, Chief environmental strategist told the guardian.

Rob Bernard want to drive the efficiency gains, he has made on the world's largest software firm – in everything from waste, transport emissions and greener buildings – through the company's network of partners and the broader it sector.

"A small percentage of the IT industry is really progressive, proactive thing. But the problem is that over 80% of it professionals are still not really addressing the problem at the level they could. They do not actively monitor the drive and energy reduction. The problem is behaviour change — not the technology. "

Bernard says Evergreen problem is IT departments do not pay your energy bills. "The first thing to do is have a governance model, as have the IT Department, the Department of real estate facilities and financial officers all working together."

While Microsoft has marked a change in corporate strategy, which has seen it take on established players such as Google and Amazon in the domain of the cloud computing, view Bernard such providers may be more effective.

"Anywhere access to your information is a crucial support hvors the industry heading. From my perspective, this is really about ensuring that you are not inefficient in the way you do that, and I would argue that many companies are very inefficient in this area today. "

Bernard says IT industry need to look at efficiency in data centers – "clouds" of gigantic computing facilities that store digital data.

"Most data centers are operating at a capacity utilisation of power efficiency of 2.0, which means that the other one for each two electrons entering in a building only one goes to computation – goes to air conditioning and lights. We have already received our buildings down to 1.12. We got to drive the entire industry way down on, 2.0, "Bernard said.

Last November Microsoft commissioned a study which found that implementation of its cloud computing solutions in large organizations could reduce energy consumption and CO2 emissions with more than 30% and more than 90% in smaller operations.

• read the full interview with Rob Bernad and profile of Microsoft's environmental efforts

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