Development Control Committee - TrustNews February 1988
From time to time, as we examine the weekly list of planning applications, our Committee notices definite trends in development. Such trends can become a major preoccupation as we try to decide whether or not they are desirable; whether or not they are avoidable.
In recent years we have seen the proliferation of offices in the Central Conservation Area with its increasing demand for car parking spaces; and more recently still the growth of sheltered accommodation, both public and private.
One of our chief concerns today is the constant pressure on the remaining green spaces within the City. Against this, it is a continual struggle to retain such breathing spaces; small gardens with their trees and view of the sky bringing shafts of sunlight into the streets and preserving much of the character of Winchester.
On the larger scale, we find demands to develop our few remaining open spaces, perhaps when school playing fields are no longer required. Recent applications have been for close housing development on the YMCA ground off Stockbridge Road - since withdrawn - and at Queen's Mead School and King's School, both on the Romsey Road.
An equally alarming part of this trend is the recent attempts to develop, contrary to our approved Local Plan, countryside at the edge of Winchester, giving rise to fears that we may no longer live in a city in the country, but finally in the midst of urban sprawl. An attempt to build in the countryside at Sarum Farm has been rejected by the Secretary of State for the Environment following an Appeal Inquiry at which the Trust supported the City Council's original refusal of planning permission. Significantly, after losing this appeal, Trafalgar House publicly accused the Planning Department of a "negative attitude". Another application to develop Manor Farm at Pitt is opposed by a considerable weight of local objection. The developers, Leading Leisure, have already stated publicly that, in case of refusal it intends to appeal to the Secretary of State - thus showing extraordinary insens¬itivity to local opinion.