Christchurch Road - Trust Annual Report 1972
One of the attractive features of Winchester has been the large open spaces in our midst, the large gardens and plenty of trees.
The Planning Department of the County Council produced an excellent Report on the residential area of Christchurch Road in July, 1970 but in the meantime very little attention seems to have been paid to its findings and the re-development taking place is of a high density and seldom sympathetic to the area.
Under Heading 8 "Density and Form of Development" the Hampshire County Council Report reads as follows:
"It is considered that any significant increase in density would markedly affect the character of the area due to the change in the pattern of development, the need for additional car parking and public spaces (for example childrens' play areas). Without large scale development the provision of such open spaces would be difficult.”
“An increased intensity of land use would also lead to a steady demand for the felling of trees to make way for development. However the nature of the development appropriate to the area could vary considerably and applications should be considered on their merits. As a guide it seems appropriate to restrict development to either:
- Individual houses at five dwellings to the acre
- Blocks of flats up to a maximum of 36 habitable rooms to the acre subject to the suitability of the particular site."
The City Council seemed to go along with this particular view up to and including the Public Meeting held on January 27th 1971. By September, 1971, however, this view had been abandoned, with a recommendation that all reference to specific densities should be omitted.
In the planning application for 90, Christchurch Road, it was claimed that adherence to the original County Council Report would limit the development to two storeys in an area consisting mostly of three storey houses. This was curious. for out of a total of 76 houses only four have three storeys proper and twenty have two storeys with gable rooms. This leaves 52 two storey dwellings in the area. Contrary to the recommendations in the Report approval was given for a three storey building in a predominently two-storey area, thereby considerably increasingthe density. In the Winchester Town Plan the area is scheduled to reach a density of 15.6 persons per acre in 1981. This, after a Council Minute in 1971 "... it is considered that any significant increase in the density would markedly affect the character of the area." This view is endorsed by the recommendations of two of the groups contributing to the Winchester and District Study.
The dangerous words in the H.C.C. Planning Report are "... applications should be considered on their merits."
The local residents of the Christchurch area are certainly alarmed at the way things are going. Christchurch Road is unique in having a number of houses which the County Council Report says "show no significant signs of the degeneration of the environment frequently encountered in districts containing the larger type of Victorian family residence and where a demand for houses still exists." In fact it was found that multi-occupancy in the district is on the decrease.
The Preservation Trust has considered whether the whole of the area of the Report should be declared a conservation area, but preliminary enquiries show that this approach would not be likely to succeed. But, as Sir Desmond Heap, President of the Law Society, has pointed out, ever since July 1st 1948, under this country's post war town planning law, it has been possible to exercise complete control over the kind of buildings which are erected anywhere. It has been unlawful for the last 24 years to put one brick on top of another without first getting planning permission which is granted by a local government planning authority and may be granted (subject to appeal to the central government) subject to such conditions as to height, bulk, materials etc. as the authorities think fit to impose. Sir Desmond goes on to wonder whether the town planning control is not too important to be left to the tender mercies of local government committees at all. Making a mistake is one thing—repeating would be intolerable and we are therefore pleased to learn that permission for two more re-developments have recently been refused.