TrustNews Sep 20

Realising a Practical Vision for Winchester High Street

These proposals started as a personal initiative and Stephen Harte did not seek the Trust's view other than looking for responses to his original article. However, Trust members Richard Baker and Arthur Morgan have now contributed to this response.

 

If one seeks to establish the role of the Trust at this important time, it is clear that the Trust is not the "planning and delivery body", for that is the role of the city and county councils and builders and developers in the solutions they provide. The role of the Trust is to access the extraordinary professional expertise in the City and generate a dialogue and strategy that the councils embrace and take forward and to support them in their deliberations, plans and developments. "How can we help" is the motto. These ideas are put forward to promote a strategy, framework plan and investment programme by the two councils ideally collaboratively which will secure community support.

We argue that the cultural/ historic value of the City should be prioritised by reuniting the High Street with the pedestrian, so as to give the City a coherent structure - a 'linear piazza' should be created as a strong spine through the centre of the historic walled City - as an impetus to evolve a range of changes and improvements.

We thank those Trust members who responded in writing and verbally. There is wide concern to overcome the serious traffic congestion which blights Winchester. The 'linear piazza' idea for the High Street was liked as it would give a real public space to Winchester, as in some of the great European cities.

 

The Atkins 'Winchester Movement Strategy' gives a different emphasis. It does not define the historic/cultural and physical importance of the City centre, so achieving a reunited High Street is not explored. As we see this as a 'necessity' we concentrate here on how this can be achieved.

 

Traffic Solutions

 

Most comments were concerned with traffic management including making Sussex Street two-way, pedestrianising Upper High Street, questioning how a shared pedestrian/vehicular crossing would work at the Jewry Street-Southgate Street junction and alternative ways of vehicular circulation through the City centre.

 

There have been years for experts to analyse and find a way to reshape the traffic system so as to create more pedestrianised areas and so maximise the pleasure of the city. There has been some success but a more radical revaluation is needed. Traffic is having an increasingly degrading effect on the City centre. The main problem is through-traffic. Priority must be given to public transport, cycles and pedestrians even though that will result in cars taking longer routes to circumvent the City centre with short cuts discouraged.

 

There can be initial experimentation to test out new arrangements and change can be gradual and phased.

1. Making Sussex Street two way would get major traffic out of the Upper High Street and reduce traffic at the top end of the High Street. That would establish Upper High Street as the primary link from the station to the City via the Westgate which is the historic gateway to the High Street. The effect would be to anticipate the 'linear piazza', beyond the Westgate, running the length of the City centre. The effect would be to connect the city's cultural and leisure facilities. A visually strong entrance to the barracks and the military museums is also needed to attract visitors from off the High Street.

    

2. A first phase, which would transform the upper part of the High Street would be to extend the pavement to the road edge on the south side, taking in the current parking areas. The paved lower High Street would then have much stronger continuity with an enlarged paved area to the upper section. A strategy is needed to restrict traders' deliveries to out of hours. Parking areas for delivery vehicles would ideally be accessed with automatic retractable bollards. Initially, however, the system could be trialled quickly and inexpensively with, for example, banners inserted in ground pockets to denote the road edge. Planned temporary closures and redirection of traffic, alternatives could be trialled first, at weekends. A fully pedestrianised top part of the High Street may take longer to achieve.

    

3. The paved area could eventually be continuous across the Southgate Street/Jewry Street junction which would become a shared pedestrian vehicle area with appropriate surface finishes. To fully pedestrianise the top end of the High Street would require detailed traffic analysis to work through the consequences and affordability. Pedestrianising the area in front of Barclays bank would create a public shared space.

    

4. As a second phase, if St George's Street traffic turned right into Jewry Street and only essential traffic turned left this would reduce the traffic using the Southgate Street - Jewry Street junction. The lower end of St George's Street could be one way as far as Parchment Street. Traffic heading west would go by City Road and Sussex Street to Romsey Road. To pedestrianise St George's Street would be a bigger challenge. A refinement is for traffic lights at the St George's Street/Jewry Street, Southgate Street/Jewry Street and North Walls/City Road/Jewry Street junctions to manage a two-way system alternating as one-way from Southgate Street along Jewry Street.

    

5. At the east end, extending the pedestrianised High Street to King Alfred's Statue would raise the question of where buses and coaches would drop off passengers and where taxis would be located. If a two-way system was established on the bus station side of King Alfred’s Statue this would provide an increased area for pedestrians alongside Abbey Gardens with a square in front of the Guildhall which would permit some vehicular crossing of the Square and some access to the bus station. Bus and taxi arrangements would need adapting. Improving the pedestrian approach to the City Bridge and the Chesil Street car park and along the river would make sense for the future, improving the route to the leisure centre and Park and Ride.

    

 

Practicalities

 

There is a need to consider different ways of funding, so as to make the City centre more attractive for visitors, as well as residents, and for a strategy to manage visitor numbers. Making a more beautiful and relevant pedestrianised City Centre requires excellence in design and in particular landscaping, which will stimulate increasing footfall, rental values and turnover. In the mix will be specialist retail, restaurants, cafes, offices, residential, cultural, health and educational facilities.

 

Generally, there is the feeling that this is the time to review and manage the future of our City. Covid has focused our minds on the need for change and to respond to new ways of shopping, working and leisure in the City centre. We can learn from how other countries have achieved traffic free historic centres for visitors. There is great potential to improve the City centre.

 

Perhaps some of the resistance to changing the ways we access and move around this historic city is because there are not convincing narratives to show how the consequences of change can be managed effectively. There clearly are solutions available and these have in part been addressed with the Atkins 'Winchester Movement Strategy' recommendations regarding park and rides, cycling and walking and vehicular traffic circulation, changes to the bus system. As for buses, could Park and Ride be combined more effectively with regular buses? Could staggered and flexible ways of working reduce traffic concentration at peak times, with servicing of premises outside of peak hours? Consideration needs to be given to access for emergency services, to the use of materials to mark pedestrian priority and to more imaginative ways of creating barriers.

 

Specific problems to be addressed:

1. How a parent can take and collect children to schools in different parts of the city and then go to their workplace.

    

2. How someone living locally, whose health/physical condition limits them from getting around, can access the city centre.

    

3. How the visitor on their first visit, or the regular visitor coming for work or for entertainment, can access the City centre from the station and also by car or bus.

    

4. How maintenance of premises and access for emergency vehicles in the pedestrian areas can be provided for.

    

5. How cyclists can get to different parts of the City on designated cycle ways.

 

 

Conclusion

 

Of primary importance is the achieving of a 'linear piazza' through the centre of the City. Traffic management is a key part of the whole picture but not the only concern. There will be different views about what should happen at different speeds and different emphasis. After a time of adjustment we may predict some traffic will disappear as travel behaviour changes. We share a passion for Winchester's future and believe it can be a European exemplar for the best design and management of an historic city centre.

 

These proposals are put forward as the foundation for future changes in movement and space. They are intended to influence what the public sector and private sector might do. Cllr Martin Tod's proposals are good examples of how to achieve a wider solution but our contention is that it needs something fundamental to start with. The High Street as spine and artery for the rest of the historic core is what we believe is required. This principle can feed easily into the emerging Vision exercise. It can take the principal and other measures forward in expectation of the emerging Review Local Plan. The current transport study must provide solutions that change the balance between pedestrian and traffic requirements. There is a strong commercial case for the High Street concept. In other cities there has been an increase in footfall, in business and in rental returns from increased pedestrianisation and public realm improvement, giving a much improved return on public and private investment. It would be good if we could distinguish Winchester City Centre from others, e.g. focusing on sculptures, or a more diverse programme of street events.

 

There is therapeutic value for those living here to share a common inspiring vision. We have proposed solutions rather than just questions and criticism. We believe with patience and energy from different views and emphasis that improvements can be introduced. If we respond imaginatively to the future we can enhance what we value. Schemes can be tested by temporary measures and change can be planned incrementally with some key simple interventions to begin with such as are proposed here.

 

Stephen Harte