Local Plan Inquiry - TrustNews April 1986
In the April Newsletter last year we re¬ported the Trust's comments on the Winchester Area Local Plan. In November the Trust made three submissions to the public Inquiry into the Plan, which were necessarily in the form of "objection" rather than comment, even though we did not see ourselves as real objectors to the Plan. Thus we objected to the office restraint policy more because we doubted its effectiveness than because we disagreed with the intention; we objected to plans for Peninsular Barracks more because we thought more strategic studies should have been carried out than because we believed what was planned was wrong; and we objected to the general and transport strategy, not because we disagreed with the restraint policy, but because we felt that the Plan should go beyond it and commit itself to experimental environmental improvements.
Office Development and Employment Restraint
The Plan incorporates a policy of general employment restraint and, specifically, by what the Trust has regarded as dubious argument, office restraint. Employment restraint, it is argued, is necessary because increased employment generates housing pressures and traffic pressures.
For some years the Trust has consistently argued that it is foolish for Planners to believe they can understand a complex socio-economic system to the extent that they can assume simple relationships exist between different attributes of the system, especially when there is no need for them to do so. Traffic problems, for example, are better tackled where they occur, than by restricting some activity that is thought to generate them. Thus if the Planning Authority were to hold the number of parking places in Winchester fixed, any new activity could not generate more traffic. If it needed to generate traffic, then either the activity will not be viable or it will survive by reducing the traffic generation of competing activity. The activities that survive are those most consistent with the environmental objective of traffic restraint.
Planners seem to have a firm belief in certain formulae relating a given size of activity to a number of car parking places required, without regard to the fact that such formulae are developed in an unrestrained environment. Nobody really seems to know how elastic those formulae may be in a highly restrained situation. In the last Newsletter we drew attention to an example of the rigid formula being used to an absurd end, when it was suggested that the removal of car parking places would generate more traffic because those places would be developed to support traffic attracting activities!
The Trust expressed the view at the Inquiry that offices earn Winchester's bread and butter and that they are, in many cases, benign in regard to traffic generation and the quality of the built environment, relative to other activities (particularly shopping). It did not, therefore, seem reasonable to the Trust for the City to propose a blanket ban on all office development, and more importantly it did not seem likely that such a policy could be long defended.
The Trust does, however, have serious worries about certain aspects of office development in Winchester, particularly in regard to scale of development, density of infill and, possibly most important, the growth of large areas of single land use (i.e. spreading office deserts, such as is seen in the Westgate area). At the Inquiry however, the Trust represented these as being clearly identifiable environmental problems which could be attacked where they occurred, and a zoning scheme was proposed for planning controls. The public consultation process has given the Planners a mandate for policy to be based on environmental criteria, but not for a policy which appears to be based on general employment restraint.
Peninsular Barracks
A submission was made on the Peninsular Barracks Brief, which in the event was not allowed as a document for discussion at the Inquiry, even though it was published with the Plan. In any case, in hindsight, our submission feels somewhat unsatisfactory because it suffers from imprecision. This reflects a general idea that the importance of the Barracks site may be overlooked, rather than a fear of specific problems with the proposals.
It may not be helpful to say it, but the sudden release of 16 acres of land with vacant possession into the middle of an historic city, is an event so remarkable that it seems surprising that the authorities, the Trust and the local population have made so little fuss about it. Rather belatedly then (in fact the City said it was really too late) we suggested that a strategic analysis be made of the significance of the site, particularly relating it to proposals for the Central Car Park site and to a cost/benefit study of tourism in Winchester. We also suggested that the possibilities of an exceptional use (an international centre for example) should at least be examined (the Trust is not advocating such a use) and that the City might consider running a major competition, inviting proposals for possible developments of the site.
Experimentation
Hidden away in one of the City's Response Notes to the Inquiry is a commitment "to reduce central area traffic to environmentally acceptable levels! Nowhere in the Plan, however, is there any specific proposals directed towards this objective.
The Trust has asked that the Plan contain a commitment to experiment towards reducing traffic in the centre of Winchester by progressively removing central parking provision, improving public transport, and extending the domain of pedestrian domination of road space. The Trust also asked that the Council should undertake to develop the Central Car Park in an incremental manner, in conjunction with the experiment in traffic reduction. Another multi-storey facility should not be contemplated for the centre of Winchester.
The City took the view that there was an economic risk in this kind of experimentation, a view that might be understandable if it wasn't for the fact that the City itself proposes a development of the Central Car Park, which removes all the car parking for the duration of the development (some years), only to return it at the end in a multi-storey facility. The City repeatedly asserted the belief that progressive removal of parking at the rate of a few spaces a year carried an economic risk, but that the removal of hundreds of parking places at once constituted no risk because they would be returned a few years later. We have to say that what seems to be an extraordinary inconsistency in City policy really must be explained before plans for the Central Car Park go any further.
Time for a Change
Quite apart from the issue of central parking, we should now ask, in the wake of the Plan Inquiry, how the atmosphere and the quality of life in the centre of the City can be improved. We believe that there has grown up an imbalance in the perception of the role of the motor car in an historic city like Winchester. Motorists generally behave badly towards pedestrians, as illustrated for example by the growing tendency to drive along pavements. The Local Authorities also show an imbalanced attitude, so that, for example, while years of research are put into establishing motorists' journey desires and needs, no work has ever been directed towards establishing pedestrians' journey desires. Also, we can point to such long-standing neglect of the pedestrian as the failure to provide a pedestrian phase at the High Street/Jewry Street/Southgate Street junction.
In addition to seeking some rectification of these obvious anomalies, the Trust is now asking for some more experimental commitment towards changing the balance of perception. In particular, the Trust seeks to obtain acceptance of what is beginning to happen naturally, i.e. the tendency for pedestrians to assert themselves in streets close to the existing Precinct. In the High Street, east of the Precinct to Colebrook Street and west of the Precinct to Jewry Street, pedestrians are beginning to share the road space with vehicles. The City Council should investigate means of formally asserting the road-sharing principle here, and also look into what subtle alterations can be made to the street scene to reinforce the impression that the pedestrian is dominant. Canterbury has been experimenting. with this sort of thing, and has managed to alter the paving so that the streets still look like roadway and sidewalk (i.e. they still look like streets) and yet they have a pedestrian quality which prevents the motorist from believing it to be his domain.
Obviously this can only succeed where traffic levels are low, but experience gained now will be invaluable if, as the Trust hopes, the City will work towards general traffic reduction in the centre. Perhaps most important, such a scheme would probably alter the perceptions of motorists and pedestrians alike as to the proper role of the motor car in an historic city.