TrustNews Jun 20
Chairman's Jottings
A few thoughts as a result of the Lockdown
I am sure everybody is well aware by now that the lockdown is being compared by the media with the last great drama, World War 2.
The corona virus lockdown I suppose does have certain parallels, one of them being that immediately after the war, everybody was keen to see how the future for our towns and cities was going to be mapped out. To start the process, the Town and Country Planning Act was brought into being in 1947, and this Act has affected land use one way or another to this day. Today there are questions being asked about our future thinking concerning life after lockdown.
In 1947 the population had had enough of austerity and rationing, and in many urban areas the sight of bombed out buildings, squalor, and the general detritus of war time.
In the case of Winchester which had little damage, it too was caught up in the euphoria of the idea of 'a brave new world'. So-called slums were targeted for demolition: Canon Street was on the hit list and Winchester did lose much of the historic Brooks area, which made way for a town centre carpark, Kings Walk etc. A distinguished Town Planner was appointed to consider how Winchester should evolve, and developed a plan which included the pulling down of buildings on one side of both the High Street and Jewry Street to widen the roads to accommodate what he foresaw as a dramatic increase in traffic, which in turn, in his opinion would increase the commercial viability of the City.
It is not surprising that dramatic fresh thinking was on the agenda in the 1940s and 50s - it was a drab period which needed an injection of hope and a positive future.
Luckily there were a number of local people who recognised that such proposals for Winchester were many steps too far.
Today we are confronted with the most dramatic shut down of our way of life since 1947, which perhaps gives an opportunity for us to have a look at our current way of life and maybe recognise that we do have problems that require some fresh thinking which would improve all our wellbeing and be more sustainable.
The obvious problem is global warming. We know there are many things we can do about this, but we don't do them, because it is often inconvenient to our freedom and our way of life.
We have human inequality issues which should be addressed, but we don't because this is likely to affect the economics down to a personal level. An easy example of this is so-called affordable homes. They are not that affordable to a large section of our society and housing developers fight to void providing them, as they affect the financial bottom line, which in turn affects shareholders. Another financial problem is the very high land prices that developers have to account for. Homelessness and poor-quality urban living are all issues highlighted by the coronavirus.
All these issues are resolvable and within our collective power to do so. We require inspired planning, inspired politicians, inspired architects, inspired educationalists and scientists to lead the way forward to avoid any further degradation of the human condition and our beautiful planet.
If time at home has got you thinking about life after the lockdown or you would like to comment on Keith's thoughts, please email us at secretary@cltyofwinchestertrust.co.uk. Responses will be published in the next issue of TrustNews.