A New Erection

Grey plastic phallus rises,
Erect and dully gleaming;
Looms over the canal,
Fraught with hidden meaning.

It's full of student bedrooms.
But why is it so tall?
This city's rising higher,
No-one now builds small.

The city's older buildings
Are dwarfed by this new edifice.
Walls of plastic cladding
Now are thought to suffice.

It's near the Statue of  Liberty (yes, Leicester has one, though it's smaller than the one

in New York). It's discordantly tall,a narrow tower of oval cross-section. The plastic walls 

suggest a reduction in standards to me. Tall buildings are expensive, yet it has cheap walls?

The high strength needed at the lower floors to support the weight of the upper ones,

puts the cost up. 

     This city has seen an enormous boom in construction of student dormitories,

owned by private business rather than the universities. Most of them, at least 

in the canal area,  are designed to blend in with their surroundings, which are

mostly Victorian factories. This one clashes.

     There must be some planning decision, some change in basic values, behind its

construction.