Planning Appraisal Group - TrustNews Mar 11
As all interested members will no doubt be aware, the Barton Farm Public Inquiry began on 8 February. The decision the Inspector will make on this crucial development is more important to the future of Winchester than any other being made at present, although it should be appreciated that the cumulative damage resulting from many apparently unrelated smaller schemes could also have a detrimental effect on the fabric and setting of our city. An example of this is the scheme in the outskirts of the city for 3 dwellings to be built around Copperfield, Lanham Lane, which we found unacceptable and has now been withdrawn.
At present our unfortunate planners are having to work in the vacuum resulting from the changes (many of them welcome) that are due to be made to existing planning legislation, which makes reaching decisions on current developments very difficult.
We supported the City’s decision to refuse the conversion of the existing house at 28 Chilbolton Avenue to 11 dwelling units because we felt the accommodation provided would be sub-standard, although apparently legal; this scheme has been allowed on appeal by the Inspector because she felt it would not be detrimental to the amenities of either the neighbours or the area as a whole.
The scheme to build 5 blocks of accommodation for the students of the University of Winchester is wending its way through the system, now described as being on land at the rear of the Royal Hampshire County Hospital, Romsey Road, rather than in Burma Road, West Hill Green, the address given in the last TrustNews. Apart from one or two minor quibbles, the panels felt this should be a successful development and that the siting and layout of these large blocks prevented them from seeming too monolithic.
Two applications that have been outstanding since March have at last been decided. The proposal to build two blocks of student accommodation at the junction of Sparkford Road & Close and the replacement of 110 & 112 Cromwell Road & the allotment behind with ten dwellings have both been refused by the Planning Committee, the first being against the officers’ recommendation to permit.
A second scheme has been submitted to change the shop front at Stanmore News, 86A Cromwell Road. Although the windows would now have the small panes that are characteristic of the other shops in the area, it is still proposed that the entrance should be moved because of the problems supposedly suffered by “flustered” elderly customers when the shop is busy. No drawing of the internal layout was provided to justify the proposed alteration of the existing central doorway, so it could not be judged whether or not relocating the entrance would help. Every shop in this crescent-shaped parade has a centrally placed entrance, including the unfortunate modern shop front of the Post Office, and we again objected, feeling that offsetting the entrance in the way proposed would be out of keeping with the original design concept for the street scene, as well as being detrimental to the appearance of the building.
Another scheme that surfaced more than once during the past few months involved the enlargement of the existing rear dormer and the addition of a rear extension at intermediate first-floor level at 7 Clifton Terrace. On both occasions it was claimed that precedents had been set by other rear extensions in the terrace and an enlarged rear dormer that had regrettably been allowed at No 9 some time in the past. The rear of the terrace is visible from Clifton Hill, and all the other houses in this listed terrace have small two-light rear dormers similar to the present one at No 7, so although the size of the dormer had been slightly reduced in the second proposal we continued to object to it as being detrimental to the character of the Conservation Area and the appearance of the terrace. The scheme has just been refused for a second time.
Peninsula Barracks
A number of new directional signs have been proposed for Peninsula Barracks, Romsey Road. Although individually tasteful and acceptable we felt there would be far too many of them, especially if they were in addition to the signs already in place, and eight seemed to provide information already given elsewhere; there are also to be some interpretative free-standing maps, but it was not clear whether they were to be additions or replacements to those that are already there. We objected, suggesting that further thought should be given to the signage being proposed. The installation of external and internal air conditioning units is also being proposed for North Block, Peninsula Barracks, to which we have objected on the grounds of inadequate information, feeling that the description of “a cage and galvanised box” for the external unit and a drawing showing it as a large cube obscuring the sill of a ground floor window were insufficient for a Listed Building in this sensitive position.
Staple Gardens is about to have a facelift: the unexciting Staple Chambers is to be demolished for a block with offices on the ground floor and 11 flats above. The architect gave us a helpful presentation of his interesting scheme, and we welcomed the high level of sustainability and the fact that the positions of TV satellite discs and burglar alarms were to be prescribed as part of the application.
An influx of broadband cabinets is about to descend on Winchester. They could scarcely be called things of beauty, and will be large (1.6m high x 1.2m wide x 450mm deep), and their proposed siting did not indicate that any thought was given to how they would look in the street scene. We found only two of the chosen sites acceptable: one at the top of St Swithun Street and the other at Alresford Road/St John at the back of a reasonably wide pavement and with a background of trees and shrubs. We objected to the other five positions proposed for these ugly boxes: at the back of the pavement close to the railway bridge parapet on Romsey Road, in front of the low retaining wall of the Southgate Peugeot dealership in St Cross Road, in front of the attractive brick and flint wall of the Old Coach House in Edgar Road near the corner with Ranelagh Road, in St John’s Street where it would intrude on the appearance of the Joyce Gardens area, and in King Alfred Place where its position in front of a strip of private land would make it appear isolated and visually intrusive. Technology can be a wonderful thing, but we should not let it ride roughshod over our historic city!