TrustNews Sep 21

Silver Hill to Central Winchester Regeneration to Saxongate

Richard Baker gives an update and charts the history of this frustrating development project

 

 

For 26 years the Trust has attended numerous Council meetings and made many representations, to influence and secure a development in central Winchester worthy of taking its place in the middle of our historic City.

 

At a meeting of the City Council Cabinet in July, members were asked to endorse a report setting out the Council's business case and development options for the regeneration of the Central Area.

 

The Trust wrote to all members of Cabinet expressing strong concern about the direction being taken on the development and the planning processes being recommended for approval.

 

In the letter, the Trust urged that the Council take two measures to get this project on track and maintain compliance with the guidance set out in the Supplementary Planning Guidance adopted in 2018.

 

The first measure is to have a development process that engages with multiple developers, and not a single developer. The second measure is for the Council to produce a masterplan for the site. Both these measures would enable the Council, both as landowner and planning authority, to maintain strong control over the development.

 

Regretfully, the process that the Council is now choosing to follow, of working with a single developer and not producing a masterplan, is one that the Trust cannot support.

 

Richard Baker