City Council tour of recent developments - TrustNews Sept 13
Following an invitation from the City Council, two representatives of the Trust — Antony Proudman and Arthur Morgan — joined a coach tour on October 11th for Planners and Councillors to view recently-completed developments in order to make an evaluation.
Once gathered in the Broadway, we heard John Hearn, Urban Designer and Town Planner, explain the itinerary and were given forms for each development, containing score schemes with specific headings by which comments could be made. These were to be collected at the end of the day for evaluation towards a report for later circulation. The itinerary was extensive: four sites within the City and three sites outside.
The City developments, familiar to many Trust members from presentations given to the PAG, were: the paddock next to St John's Croft on Blue Boar Hill, halls of residence for the University of Winchester on Burma Road, the old Winchester Laundry Company site on Hyde Park corner, and Chestnut Mead on Kingsgate Road. Developments outside the City were the Forestry Commission holiday woodland chalets at Black Wood, Micheldever; Whiteley town centre; and Exceptions Housing in Storey’s Meadow, West Meon. ( in fact time constraints ruled out the visit to West Meon.)
At each venue a brief account was given to help us understand the history of the project and be conversant with the relevant design principles involved. We were then able to make an inspection with a view to testing the success or otherwise of the scheme under four general categories: character and context, movement and connections, quality of the public realm, quality of architectural detailing and materials. These enabled us to examine design considerations for layout, scale, topography, landscape, access, public/private spaces along with use/suitability/durability of materials and standards of finish.
To visit these places in turn and see how the original plans had been executed was interesting and illuminating. One could recognize that site-specific challenges of design had been tackled with creative verve and enhanced by the use of good materials to a high specification of finish. Inevitably we found aspects that might be considered less successful but overall we were encouraged by the City’s policy for planning with integrity such diverse and sensitive projects. Trust members might be interested to visit some of these sites themselves to see such exciting variety of building that gives our city its living character.
The day was informative, rewarding and convivial, and we are grateful to the City Council for so kindly inviting us to share it.