Message from the Chairman - TrustNews Summer 1995
Funding for the Heritage Centre
Members may have read in the local newspapers a few weeks ago that the City Council is unable to support the Heritage Centre by paying the Heritage Centre rent for the year starting 1 April 1995. The rent currently stands at £7000 per year.
Historically, in the early 1980's the City Council owned the seriously derelict building, but wished to demolish it in order to widen Upper Brook Street into a major exit route from the City Centre.
Not only did the Trust oppose the widening of the street, but it also considered that these two early Victorian cottages should be preserved. To this end, the Trust initiated a successful action to have the building listed.
Assisted by a major grant from the Hampshire County Council and a lesser grant from the City Council, the Trust itself invested very heavily in the project financially and by providing extensive voluntary professional expertise and physical labour in rehabilitating the building and constructing the outline facilities for a Heritage Centre.
When the Heritage Centre opened in 1983, the agreement with the City Council was that the Trust would be tenants paying a peppercorn rent. This arrangement continued for eight years until 1991, when the rent was assessed at £5000 per year, but this was automatically paid by internal financial adjustments within the City Council.
In 1994, when the rent had been raised to £7000 per year, the Heritage Centre management was asked to complete an application form for a leisure grant equal to the rent. This was done, albeit the details asked for in the application form neither seemed appropriate for the type of grant we were seeking, nor were our type of needs listed anywhere on the grants priority list, even at the lowest level. However, our application was approved, and the necessary financial adjustments to transfer the amount of the rent from the Leisure Grants Fund to the Estates Fund were carried out within the City Council. The same procedure was called for in 1995, using the same application form and with the needs of the Heritage Centre not even appearing on the lowest priority list. This time we heard three days after the rent was due to be paid that we were not in line to receive any grant at all. The running costs of the Heritage Centre had risen overnight by £7000 per year!
The position vis-à-vis the Trust and the Heritage Centre is that the Heritage Centre is an enterprise of the Trust. The Trust pays a rental for occupying a room in the Heritage Centre for its office, and also underwrites what has so far been the modest operating loss incurred by the Heritage Centre.
The Heritage Centre Management Committee sets its own budget, raising funds where it can, in addition to entrance fees and sales in the shop.
In considering where we go from here, we must bear in mind that the primary work of the Trust must go on. This is to preserve the character of the City and ensure that it is a reasonably efficient and pleasant place in which to live. Trust funds, although not inconsiderable, could not run to funding the rent for the Heritage Centre on a continuous basis.
We are, therefore, faced with three options; we can either seek a "longer term support agreement" with the City Council (rather as the Theatre Royal or the Trinity Centre) whereby the City would guarantee us a grant for, say three years, subject to certain conditions being met; or we can ask the City Council if they would be prepared to sell us the building and may be some of the land at the back, subject to our being able to raise a large grant from the Lottery Fund or some other source. The third, and unwelcome, option is to close the Heritage Centre, and run the Trust from a small office capable of storing our archives and photographic library.
Currently, we are waiting for the right time to put in for an agreement with the City Council, and we have also asked the City Council if they would be prepared to sell us the building. If this is agreed, we shall apply for grants from wherever we think appropriate; undoubtedly the front runner would be the Heritage Lottery Fund.
Our preliminary investigations into getting a grant from the Lottery Fund are leading us to believe that we stand a better chance if we do not restrict ourselves to what is, in effect, asking for a grant to enable something that is already up and running to continue in being, but seek to do something innovative. We are therefore not only studying a major reorganisation of the Heritage Centre, but also considering the construction of a building to house Roger Brown's model of Winchester in 1860 on the land at the back of the Heritage Centre.
We like to think that we are a long way from having to close the Heritage Centre - but watch this space!
The Barton Farm Inquiry
Barton Farm
All that can be done to defend the countryside that surrounds certain sectors of Winchester from development has been done, and we now await the Inspector's decision.
The excellent public attendance at the Public Inquiry at Colden Common on 8 June bore witness to public concern over the attempt by Winchester College and Cala Homes to develop the land for housing at Barton Farm on the Andover Road - one of the principal rural inroads towards the centre of our City.
The last-minute publication of a plan to put a Park and Ride car-park north of Barton Farm, and also to drive a road through the centre of the site under the railway towards the end of Courtenay Road came as a surprise to most people, and certainly allowed no time for consideration by the public.
Contrary to the line being taken at the Public Inquiry by the legal counsel for Winchester College, and possibly not refuted strongly enough by the representatives of the City Council, the character of a city is not just the centre of the city and the land that is immediately visible from it, but it is the whole envelope of the built-up area, especially its approaches. Bringing the countryside right in towards the centre of the City from several directions is a critical factor in the setting of Winchester.