The City Council's Vision for Winchester - TrustNews Feb 05
The City Council has sent the Trust a draft of its Vision for Winchester, inviting our comments, to which we have responded.
The Trust endorses the idea that the City should have a vision of where it believes Winchester should be going, so that future decisions can be informed by that sense of direction. The draft contains many very good points, including caring for our heritage, improving traffic and air quality and pursuing the “green agenda", for example. It is, however primarily intended to promote Winchester to investors and tourists, and therefore does not fulfil in all respects what one expects from a Vision document. Nevertheless, it is clearly a big step forward.
Quality of Life
While welcoming the document in general, the Trust has concentrated its criticism on one key area - quality of life - which is such a concern in Winchester and the south-east. We have pointed out that the Vision should recognise clearly the conflict between these quality of life issues, and economic growth and housing development, and show how it will be managed. For example, we believe the document should state that if the major development north of Winchester which might be at Barton Farm should be forced upon us, it will not be developed until critical problems such as infrastructure, traffic congestion, pollution, sustainability and the setting of the city have been solved. There is also a worrying dichotomy between the fine aspirations of the Vision concerning the overriding importance of good design, and the absence in other documents of how better design is to be achieved.