Development Control - Trust Annual Report 1992
Although in planning application terms this has been mainly the year of domestic conservatories and of extensions (one and two storeys on any available wall, plus many in the roof), there are also a few more sizeable schemes afoot.
The two largest are creations of the Hampshire County Council: the already opened Information Centre by the Westgate and the new Records Office on the Carfax site that is fast becoming a landmark in the City. The County also raised a stir with its purchase of the South Western Inn on Station Hill, since many people feared this was to allow its demolition to make more space for the adjacent Records Office. This was also the Trust's fear, so an effort was made to get the building listed on the grounds that apart from the station there was no other period building remaining on the hill. The Inn was not of sufficient interest to merit listing and so remains unprotected against the predations of potential demolishers. The County Council has assured all and sundry that there is no intention of pulling it down and that the building is quite safe, but the nagging doubt remains: Why was the pub ever acquired in the first place? Surely not as an office, since there was a huge new building and those to be relocated to the Inn professed no joy at the move. Whatever the reason, it is the people of Winchester who are the losers, for they no longer have the use of this popular pub.
The proposal to turn the garden behind No. 9 The Close into a parking area is also causing concern. For only six additional spaces a garden would be lost and a very dangerous precedent could be set for the Cathedral Close, recently described by a member of English Heritage as unique because of its remarkably unaltered state. Two very similar applications have been made, and the Trust has objected to both on the grounds that the loss of the garden would be contrary to parking aims for the City in general and that it would be better to have stricter control of the cars already parking in The Close. The.applications were refused by the City, and appeals on both are pending; the Trust has written to the Department of the Environment supporting the City's decisions.
Appeals are also pending on two alternative schemes that A & B Homes want to build on the slope above Petersfield Road. The first consisted of three large blocks of flats of undistinguished and inappropriate architecture (one was mock-Tudor!) with associated garaging and parking. The height, bulk and insensitive siting of the blocks meant that they would be very visible from across the valley and the Trust objected to the scheme on grounds of density, design and scale. The City refused permission, and another scheme was submitted by A & B Homes. The mock-Tudor block had now gone, but the other two remained much the same and their siting had the same disregard for the topography of the hill as in the previous scheme. Again the Trust objected, this time on grounds of design, scale and misuse of the site. Again the City refused the application, and three months later appeals were lodged for both schemes; the date of the Public Inquiry is still to be fixed.
Applications that take up a disproportionate amount of time, to both members of the Development Control Committee's panels and the officers of the City Council, are those concerning signs and shopfronts. Both categories are open to much abuse, as it has become usual for the application to be made after the requested sign or shopfront is actually installed. On occasions (sadly too few and presumably due (we hope) to lack of time and money) the City Council takes action against offenders. Recent recipients of attention from the City's legal department are the new occupiers of the Wessex, Fortecrest, who installed their intrusive and de-personalising signs without permission (* see later), as did Wyatts (Citroen) of Bar End Road.
If similar action was taken against all such retrospective applications, perhaps the word would permeate that it was not worth pushing your luck in the Winchester City Council's area, and a lot of time would be saved all round. It would also be time/cost beneficial to all concerned if applicants (inns, pubs and restaurants excepted) wanting to put up new signs and shopfronts were informed at the outset that it was a waste of everybody's time to apply for a hanging sign or illuminated fascia in a designated Conservation Area of the City. Individually such signs seem of little importance, but they can have a cumulatively damaging effect on Winchester's historic environment, and the City rightly resists such applications almost as a matter of course. We see many schemes that are obviously going to be turned down out of hand for these reasons, and as it seems unlikely that commercial concerns would actually wish to waste the money each application costs we can only presume that they were not warned at the outset that their scheme was virtually certain to be refused on these grounds.
* If any members resent the Wessex Hotel (a name that has historical connotations) becoming known as Winchester Fortecrest, we suggest that they should write to the chairman of Fortecrest, and if possible take time also to write to their MP, their councillor, the local papers and anyone else they think would be influential.