Chairman's Jottings - TrustNews June 15
The Trust Council is still debating and monitoring many of the same issues that we have discussed for some time now: Silver Hill of course, Barton Farm housing and the Station Approach area. We have also been concerned with Winchester City Council's planning application for a residential/nursing home on the Chesil Street car park site. There have been other issues not the least of which is the LPP2 (that is the local plan, part 2) which is a strategic study for Winchester's likely future development strategy. Patrick Davis and his policy group have been monitoring and contributing to this debate over the last year or so.
The Chesil Street nursing home is an interesting but worrying example of how not to procure a good building. The site is situated in a prominent position just short of the City Centre, so acts as an introduction and gateway building. The expectations for any building on this site should be for the very best result which we can all be proud of. The vibes for this building are not good for a number of reasons:
1. The brief set by the client appears to ask too much of the site space, it appears to be an over dense scheme.
2.The building is intended for the older generation, for some of whom access into Winchester could prove to be difficult.
3. Perhaps most worrying is the way in which the building is being procured which l consider to be very questionable and is likely to lead to an unsatisfactory result. l believe the local authority should be setting a good example. After all a building is likely to last for a long time and be something always to be looked at with pleasure, not causing us to wonder in the future how the planning system allowed it to happen.
Then we have Station Approach which actually embraces much more than just the immediate approach zone. We have been involved in some of the workshops discussing this area. It became apparent very quickly that one of the key problems is how to resolve the traffic congestion, and at peak times how pedestrian movement, which includes large numbers of school students, should be catered for. There does not seem to be any idea on how to resolve this important issue, yet major development in this area is being considered that can only exacerbate the problem.
.There is a very successful planner/traffic engineer, Ben Hamilton-Baillie, who lectures widely on the subject of traffic. Unusually, he makes a dry subject very entertaining, but at the same time provides practical, positive answers, which he has proved by the projects up and down the country in which he has been involved. We have approached Ben to give the A.G.M. Lecture on the 28th September. I can assure everybody that they will go away inspired by some of his ideas as well as being entertained. We certainly need some inspiration on how to resolve traffic problems in Winchester -with a 25% increase in population, traffic problems will only get worse and this beautiful City of ours will suffer from fumes and strangulation.