The last five years - Trust Annual Report 1984
The 'Character of Winchester' by Terry Riggs
for the new Trust leaflet
The last five years have been eventful for the future of Winchester and a rewarding time to have been chairman of the Trust. I cannot begin to cover the subject here, but there are a few significant things that I would like to put on record. The first is that our efforts, and the efforts of all those who have supported the Trust for the past 27 years, have at last prevailed: it is now respectable to see Winchester as an entity which is so special that it need not try and emulate Eastleigh or Basingstoke to survive commercially. There are a few diehards who would still like to remove houses to make more car parks, ring the centre with dual-carriageways and wreck the setting with motorway slip roads in the mistaken belief that such things are necessary for prosperity, but we need no longer fear their influence. the problem is now to guide the growing prosperity which is already bringing high rents, tall offices and yet more traffic into the centre. The second point I want to make is that it is no good trying to preserve a way of life that has gone: the economic conditions which lined every street with shops (even converting whole rows of houses) cannot be repeated at will. We must learn to live with things which are beyond our control, and to concentrate our efforts to channel the new pressures so that they help rather than spoil Winchester. Offices can preserve buildings rather than destroy them, sensitive use of planning control can produce fringe benefits such as pedestrian routes, market places and trees, and growing demand may provide the opportunity to find a better answer to traffic than the destructive solutions put into practice elsewhere. Imagination, hard-thinking and a sense of adventure are necessary. But, perhaps, above all, we have to resist the forces of expediency which not only make the wrong things happen but kill off initiative by premature dismissal.
Two Examples of expediency overcome are the superb new gates in the Great Hall, and our own success with St. John's Street. Two examples of expediency in action are the threat to the viaduct and the steady destruction of the carved gravestones in Westhill Cemetery. Two examples of expediency triumphant are the dreadful imitation paving stones in the precinct and the loss of the vigorous ltalianate terrace in Eastgate Street. No doubt you can think of your own examples!