Letter from Mr. A.R.Bryant - 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 Mr. A.R. Bryant
Sir,
Mr Stansfield Smith is right to condemn the one-sided, specialist approach in the sixties to Winchester's problems. That kind of approach landed us with such brutal buildings as the multi-storey car-parks in Sussex Street and Friarsgate. Having said that, I was disappointed that Mr Stansfield Smith did not develop his ideas on traffic management - surely our biggest problem, and a prime example of the specialist approach. Solve that problem and much else would fall into place. Admittedly, he does make a tentative reference to the "environmental improvements" that might follow more restrictions on traffic entry. But what restrictions, and how long do we wait for the detailed studies? And what bearing have these restrictions on the new Durngate Bridge? For the last forty years we have confused the functions of the streets in a town with roads in the country. This confusion has led traffic planners to treat city streets as mere routes - mere continuations of roads. They are not and the difference is important. The traffic uses of a city street are subsidiary to and opposed to other uses - shopping, meeting people, strolling about, chatting and so on. Have your readers ever seen anyone stop for a chat in, say, North Walls or St George's Street? Every-one of our streets is different and that subtlety of balance is one of the delights of Winchester. In their anxiety to "get the traffic through", our road planners have ignored that balance. Any building, village or town is nothing more than an obstacle to be removed, or mocked by being by-passed. As an example of the latter, think of the insensitive treatment of Winchester's Westgate.
This difference - this special quality of our streets-needs to be emphasised and re-emphasised. As a general rule - and I repeat the "general" - no street should ever be widened, straightened or have its corners rounded. That little propostion will do for a beginning of the argument, which might be more productive if the responsibility for city streets was handed over to the City Council, because the County Council has served us ill. Having local interests at heart the City Councillors might be more sensitive, though I would not care to bet on it. The love-affair with underground car-parks is no cause for optimism.
Yours faithfully,
A.R. BRYANT
Winchester.