Landscape Committee - Trust Annual Report 1990
The last year has seen the Landscape Committe increasingly active in contributing to the scrutiny by the Trust of planning applications to the City Council including in it's remit hard as well as soft landscaping and the paraphenalia of street furniture, road signs and lighting.
In the early part of 1990 the committee watched with increasing dismay the conclusion of Winchester College's efforts to re-align and consolidate the banks of the Itchen's flow through the water meadows. Having taken two years to carry out, the state of the adjoining meadows and footpaths was far from satisfactory. The committee considered that work on such a scale to an extremely fragile and historic landscape of national importance ought not to have been undertaken without expert and experienced professional advice and it was able to put this point to the Warden of Winchester College who invited the Chairman of the Trust and Miss Gillian Bauer to discuss the matter.
In commenting on the planning application submitted for the development of the Lower Barracks site, the committee stressed the need for provision to be made in the layout for the planting of large trees. Such trees are vital to the character of Winchester's townscape and one of the most delightful features of the City. Many have been lost in the last decade: others are at risk. Replacement of them needs suitable sites to be identified and planted as a matter of urgency. As the Brooks development nears completion, the committee has found itself critical of every aspect of the scheme's external landscape details. A drawing of the external works and landscaping was not made available to the Trust until the end of July when work on many items had already been put in hand and it was far too late for account to be taken of the committee's views. The committee is particularly critical of the omission of more than half the trees shown on the original planning application, the uncoordinated and clumsy street furniture, the sinuous unification of Friarsgate, Upper Brook Street and the upper part of St. George's Street and the extreme sterility of the environment of the lower part of St. George's Street. At the end of the year the committee hopes to see the Trust again contribute to National Tree Week by continuing the scheme of planting begun last year with the cooperation of Drewett and Neate in Staple Gardens. This year the cooperation of SCATS is being sought to allow and contribute towards the cost of planting trees on the wide grass verge within the firm's site reserved but now no longer required for road widening.