Ten Year Action Plan - Trust Annual Report 1967
Locally the year 1967 has seen the approval of Winchester's "Ten Year Action Plan" designed to solve the traffic problem. The views of the Preservation Trust have been put frward over the past few years, and some of these suggestions are adopted in the accepted plan.
The attitude of the Trust to the plan, however, is best summed up in the words of Professor Colin Buchanan, who is reported to have given his advice to the small town. "Insist upon a comprehensive demonstration of your problems, stick out for the removal of through traffic without necessarily specifying the means, and be extremely wary of accepting internal improvements, lest you find without realising it, that you have sacrificed your environment to through traffic."
Not only has the plan been accepted, but the sum of £1.9 million has been set aside for the scheme by the Ministry of Transport. The Trust can hardly feel jubilant about this. The £1.9 million spent on what Professor Buchanan sarcastically dubs "improvement" would have been far better spent on completing and improving the by-pass, which should have been done ten years ago. But the proposals of the City Council for the by pass have been delayed by the Government, and it is possible that the experience gained through diverting traffic round the city may well have resulted in quite different proposals within the city itself.