The Brooks - Trust Annual Report 1987
Last year Winchester City Council issued a Brief for the redevelopment of the Brooks site, which for the last 30 years has been a "temporary" car park. The Brief provided for a 3 stage competition in which up to 12 developers would be selected from the original entrants and subsequently, up to 4 finalists would be chosen.
In the event we understand that 57 developers entered the competition and, although 12 were selected for the next stage, Winchester City Council chose only 3 schemes for the final stage, and these were duly exhibited during July this year. The public were invited to submit their views and Winchester City Council is due to make a final choice in October this year.
Despite the short duration of the exhibition, the public attended it in large numbers and it was noticeable that very considerable interest was shown. However, if correspondence in the press is any guide, the reaction to the three finalist schemes has been unenthusiastic. This has certainly been our own reaction and, after detailed examination and very careful consideration, we wrote to the City Council saying that we are unable to support any of the 3 schemes as an appropriate solution for the redeveloment of the Brooks (the full text of our comments appeared in the August Newsletter) and we asked the City to think again.
The Trust takes no pleasure in saying "we told you so". However, we remarked last year in the Annual Report that "the Brief has some good points but in its present form it also has the seeds of mediocrity, if not complete failure". This, we fear, has proved to be the case. The three finalists' schemes are so similar in their overdevelopment of the site that the restrictive effect of the Brief is manifest.
However, it is still possible that the City Council which, despite an untypical failure to allow public discussion on the Brief before it was finalised, has a good record as regards public consultation and has shown itself by no means insensitive in planning matters, may have second thoughts, even at this late stage. Public attendance at the exhibition and the volume of correspondence in the local press are clear evidence that this is a matter in which the public are keenly, and intelligently interested.