Letter from Nick McPherson - TrustNews May 1990
The Editor is very pleased with the response to Colin Stansfield Smith's article (February 1990) and one of the letters received is published below:
From Nick McPherson
Sir,
I am writing in response to Colin Stansfield Smith's excellent and thought provoking article "A Personal View on Winchester". As an architect who was trained in the mid sixties, I can fully appreciate his analysis of where we stand in Winchester in 1990.
I have known the city most of my life and can remember those days in the fifties when the High Street was traffic choked and when the Westgate was straddling the main A3090 west out of town and was being dreadfully eroded.
Since that time some things have improved. The High Street has been pedestrianized and the prospect of a circular urban motorway within the town itself has been avoided. But despite these improvements, most of the city's planning achievements have been negative in the sense of stopping the worst effects of fifties' and sixties' development.
However, the circulatory traffic system is still there, and I agree with Mr Stansfield Smith that worse is bound to come unless drastic alternatives are proposed. I am afraid that I cannot share his optimism about the long¬term environmental future of Winchester. When I recently revisited my home town, Newbury, I was appalled by the destruction and physical violations which have been inflicted on a small market town. Such aggressive exploitation is only too easy when there is no long-term urban regeneration philosophy as advocated by Mr Stansfield Smith.
I would strongly support such a strategy, but feel that enlightened patronage under a more sympathetic government is required before this policy can be implemented. I remember a series of articles in the Architect's Journal of the sixties which proposed an urban planning policy of "Counterdrift" aimed to restrict and control the sprawling growth of London's suburbia. Part of this strategy involved the construction of new towns such' as Milton Keynes and Hook, and the revitalization of others like Andover and Basingstoke. A further element in the counterdrift proposals concerned the construction of "Solent City" - a linear megapolis of Japanese inspiration. This was to run from Portsmouth to Bournemouth along the line of the present M27 and was to pivot on Southampton with Winchester at its northern edge. Despite the controls of Regional and Local Planning Authorities in the form of various structure and local plans, this phenomenon does seem to have occurred, but in a peculiarly English and unco-ordinated suburban way. As such it does give cause for concern, especially when the simplistic economic determination of the present government is taken into account.
There is a need to channel the very positive growth requirements of the past few years into an urban regeneration strategy as described by Mr Stansfied Smith, but as I write I note that mortgage interest rates are set to rise and that we seem to be heading for another economic recession which will make such long-term proposals rather academic.
Yours faithfully,
NICK McPHERSON
Winchester.