Chairman's Jottings - TrustNews Sept 13
The last three months have been quite busy with two visits, one from members of the Guildford Trust and one from representatives of the Malvern Civic Society. There is nothing quite like leading visitors around the City to appreciate what is both good and bad about an environment you think you know really well. Everything you look at becomes much more sharply highlighted and I realized once again how lucky we are to live or work in such a City, with its views of the hills around, its internally layered views and glimpses of steep roofs, spikey chimneys and of course the Cathedral, all reflecting layer upon layer of history. So, as you can probably tell, I enjoyed the walks and I know all our visitors were impressed with the City of Winchester.
As you are all probably aware, there are regular walks on Wednesday evenings, all of which are well attended. John Beveridge has undertaken the organisation of these guided walks and deserves a huge vote of thanks for what I know can be a time-consuming and, on occasions, a frustrating activity to make certain the evening runs smoothly. These walks continue into September.
We continue to monitor progress on the design stage of the Badger Farm development and Michael Carden and the 20/20 group have devoted many hours at meetings with the developer's representatives, trying to obtain the best results possible from this large housing scheme.
You may recall that, early this year, a meeting was held in the Discovery Centre to discuss the Station Approach area. The station, its road and footpath links to the City centre have for many years been unsightly and not a good introduction for visitors to Winchester. The meeting was well attended, not only by the public, but by representatives from the Hampshire County Council and Winchester City Council. Subsequent to this meeting, Winchester City Council have organised a competition to compete for the work necessary to evaluate this whole zone and come up with answers as to how best to develop the area. Tibbalts, a well-known planning firm, won the contract and we look forward to hearing their findings.
Michael Carden and I were invited by Steve Brine, our Member of Parliament, to meet him at Westminster. We had a fascinating time, first of all wending our way through this historic building and then being entertained on the terrace overlooking the Thames. We had a question and answer session on all the various issues that exercise the Winchester Trust, most of which have been aired in copies of the previous issues of Trust News. Steve Brine is obviously well versed on Winchester matters and I hope he found the meeting as informative as we did. He felt that it would be useful to meet with the Trust on a regular basis in order to discuss matters relating to Winchester.
This leads me to the Annual General Meeting which is to be held on Monday 23rd September. Steve Brine has kindly agreed to give the main address with strict instructions to keep off politics! We are hoping to be entertained by four young students from the various schools that recently competed for space in a book of illustrations and prose that we are launching at the AGM. The students selected will be reading examples from the book and the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Joy Carter, has agreed to undertake the introductions.
CHANGES AT THE TRUST
I would like to announce that David Marklew is retiring from the editorship of the Trust News. He has undertaken an excellent job over a number of years for which he deserves all our thanks. Matthew Huntley has agreed to take on the editorship for which we are most grateful. We also have a new secretarial arrangement at the Heritage Centre. Mollie Francis will be continuing to hold the fort on Monday mornings and Janet Wiles will be in the office on Wednesday mornings and also taking minutes of our meetings. l would like to welcome Janet, who has recently joined us and give a big ‘thank you’ to Mollie for keeping us all in order since Vicky left.