TrustNews Dec 21

Planning for Winchester's future

John Beveridge reports on one of the Council's recent Local Plan workshops.

Winchester City Council held three workshops in the autumn to help inform them what should be included in the revision of the Local Plan, a draft of which will be published in the second half of 2022. They were all managed by the De sign South East consultancy. The meeting l attended on behalf of the Trust focused on Winchester Town, and included those representing businesses, the community and professionals involved with the development and management of property, all of whom were interested in in?uencing the way Winchester meets society's future needs.

We were divided into small groups and asked to look at several issues: where are there opportunities for development within the city's boundaries; how best to improve travel into and around Winchester; whether there are enough open spaces and what improvements could be made. All suggestions were written down and entered on the maps.

Besides the well known development sites owned by the City Council, a few other smaller ones were suggested. When comments were made, it was interesting to hear that several people supported the development of the surface car parks in the centre, with nobody opposing this. This view was reflected when it came to addressing the problems of movement, when it was generally agreed that a big reduction in cars in the centre was needed, with better bus services replacing car travel and improved conditions for bicycles and pedestrians.

When we looked at open spaces, it was felt that Winchester overall has good green spaces but that there are opportunities to improve some existing harder landscaped areas such as in front of the law courts. Other public spaces could be improved if the amount of motor traffic is reduced, such as the area at the southern end of Jewry Street, in front of Barclays bank.

In due course a report will be published bythe consultants setting out their ?ndings from the meetings.