Civic Voice AGM Sheffield October - TrustNews Dec 11
Two trustees (Keith Leaman and John Beveridge) represented the Winchester Trust at the AGM of the Civic Voice held in Sheffield. I have to admit that I looked on this expedition to Sheffield with some trepidation for my one and only previous sortee was as an architectural student to view this great social living experiment, Park Hill, undertaken in the late 1950s.
The building was inspired by Corbusier’s Unite d’Habitation in Marseilles and undertaken by the City Architect’s office and built by Sheffield’s own building department – how things have changed!
Park Hill, Sheffield
Sheffield was then a shock to see with a sharply declining industrial base, hundreds of people out of work, wartime bomb scars everywhere, so against this background, one could see what a brave experiment this mass housing scheme was. At the start it was very successful with the people who moved in considering it a form of paradise after the appalling conditions many of them had been subjected to. However as time moved on the complex became a ghetto for the underclass as the more wealthy moved away during the Thatcher era.
Recently the buildings were listed II* reflecting this very important slice of immediate postwar history when Britain was struggling to get back to an economic normality particularly in the industrial north.
The Manchester based firm, Urban Splash, has taken a stake in beginning to renovate one of the blocks. Urban Splash are probably one of the most interesting developer firms in the U.K. and have taken on some ambitious 19th Century industrial mill complexes and converted them into popular design-led conversions. So far the flats that they have renovated (about 20) are exciting and invigorating. They are on the market for £90,000 (one bed) and £110,000 (2-bed), a far cry from Winchester prices. They are beautifully finished and a pleasure to be in, although it would appear that the modern flat dweller does not require storage!
The outside, when seen then by a brighteyed bushy-tailed young architectural student, was overpowering – and today, I still had the same reaction. There is no doubt that Sheffield has reinvented its image. Of course, there are still major problems but to the visitor it appears a vibrant clean city with an excellent cohesive interlinked public transport system, a central Park Hill, Sheffield historic core full of interesting buildings and spaces. One of these buildings – the Town Hall – is one of those great Victorian buildings presenting the confidence and wealth of that period and this is where the Mayor had invited Civic Voice, our hosts, to a reception.
At this reception the City of Winchester Trust was presented with an award for partnership working, which in fact was helping to find Winchester’s favourite building with the help of the Hampshire Chronicle via a voting system. So congratulations to all those responsible for making the arrangements for that event, and in particular Vicky Feldwick and Sharon Watson.
The next day was the business day and I have to say that for a very young organisation with a small core of dedicated, well-informed professionals, backed by an equally dedicated board, Civic Voice is impressive. They are a voice representing 75,000 members and therefore carry some clout when confronting political excesses. However as they constantly were reminding us, more members and a wider representative age/social base would result in more respect for the decision-making process at government level.
The Winchester Trust currently has 800 members in the 75,000 hat – it would be great to double the Trust’s membership and to widen its base and therefore the Trusts credibility.
Civic voice considered it important that we should involve our local M.P. concerning the NPPF consultations together with neighbourhood plans. Even though these consultations are being concluded in the near future there are inevitably going to be comments required as parliament debates the issues over the coming year and our dialogue with our M.P. could be important over this period.
Civic Voice also set out ideas that could be promoted by the various trusts in order to promote themselves to a wider audience. It would be very helpful if members had any ideas as to how to widen the membership scope to inform the Trust secretary.