Chairman's Message - TrustNews Summer 1998
We are pleased to welcome Mrs Rosalind (Rolly) Thomas as the new Secretary to the Trust. She is a retired Civil Servant and lives in Alresford.
Our Treasurer, William Winterton, has regretfully retired from the post. His place has been taken by a Member of the Trust, Captain Ian Grant RN, with effect from 1st April 1998. William Winterton has done much for the Trust during his two and a half years in office and we are very grateful to him for all the time and expertise he has devoted to the Trust's financial affairs. We wish him well in his retirement. At the same time we are very pleased to have the services of Captain Grant in this important post.
After many years as Editor of the Trust's biannual Newsletter, Gill Collymore has retired to devote herself to her music and her many other interests. On your behalf I thank her for all the time, effort and imagination she has given to this important task. She has done so much to make our Newsletter an interesting and informative publication. I am glad to be able to tell you that she remains a member of the Trust's Council so we will retain her wise counsels in our affairs. We wish her well. Her place is taken by Margrit Waldron. We welcome her to this post and we are very grateful to her for volunteering to take on this important task.
We still have no final resolution to the lease of the The Heriage Centre but are hopeful that the matter will be resolved in the near future.
As forecast the year has so far been a busy one and the pressures on our historic City show few signs of abatement.
The County Structure Plan - Housing 2001 to 2011
Although the question of the number of houses to be built in Hampshire is not the only issue unresolved in the Structure Plan, it is certainly the one which could have the biggest impact on Winchester's landscape and environment.
The Deposited Plan called for 44,000 houses to be built in Hampshire. This figure was not accepted by the Panel at the Examination in Public. It preferred 56,000 which results from projecting a trend estimated possibly as early as 1990, and certainly at a South East Regional Planning Conference in 1992. During the last year various lesser figures have been proposed by the County Council. None of these came anywhere near the original figure of 44,000, which had been arrived at after consultation with experts and careful study of all the conflicting factors. It remains an impeccably calculated figure which can be emphatically argued is the correct one and that the figure chosen by the Panel was wrong.
The whole issue of housing numbers has been under scrutiny, not only in Hampshire, but in other counties as well. The protest at the perceived threat by the Government to the countryside has snowballed. As a result the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr John Prescott, has made a statement which has given scope for a reappraisal of total housing numbers and of their distribution nationally and locally.
In the light of this the County Council is now to submit proposals restricting the residential development to a maximum Planned Figure of 42,000 over the period 2001-2011. Hampshire as a county is not rich in "brownfield" development sites so there is inevitably pressure to expand in to the countryside. However if a Planned Figure of this order can be achieved, then some of the pressure on "greenfield" sites will be relieved, and this could well spare us from development to the north of Winchester.
The Trust is now considering its strategy to deal with this potentially serious threat to the setting of Winchester. One thing is quite clear. This is an intensely political issue but it is not one to be treated in a partisan party political manner. All shades of political opinion must be harnessed to oppose the threat. If you are concerned for the preservation of the landscape around Winchester, and for the environmental impact that major development would bring in its train, then please let your concerns be known to your Councillors, both City and County, and to our Member of Parliament. This is very important so please pick up your pen or motivate your "mouse" and let them have your views on this significant issue.
The Bushfield Area
There is much in the local press. Knowing that the report on the Landscape and Townscape of Winchester is not to be published until July it is surprising that some of our Councillors are pressing for the provision of a leisure facility on this site, with all that that implies for the landscape and the setting of the City. Such a facility may well be possible in the Bushfield area but let us wait until the contents of the report are available. An alternative site for this complex could be at Bar End on land now owned by Tesco.
Landscape and Townscape Study
Hampshire County Council in conjunction with Winchester City Council, the Countryside Commission, the Winchester Preservation Trust, the Hampshire Gardens Trust, and the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust have commissioned a firm of consultants to carry out a comprehensive and holistic study of the City in all its aspects to enable:
The Consultants to recommend which areas require a more detailed study to support a bid for Heritage Lottery Funding should Heritage Lottery Fund decide to accept bids for Cathedral Cities and their settings and enable the participating partners to use:
The information obtained for each character area to assist the analysis and evaluation of the impact of a particular development scenario on each character area.
The findings of the study in the testing process for scenarios of future developments as part of the "Future of Winchester Study".
This is a pilot scheme and may well be followed by similar studies in other cathedral cities.
In view of the pressure on Bushfield the part of the report relating to areas south of Winchester is being given priority in the research programme. This will be complete by 8th June and the full report by 3rd August.
Other Issues
Other issues in which the Trust is involved or holding a watching brief are:
- The Future of Winchester Study
- The development of the Post Office site with The Broadway and Friarsgate
- Traffic management throughout the City Lighting in the High Street
- The development of the Theatre Royal
- Cycle routes both national and local
I look forward to seeing you at the Annual General Meeting on Monday 2nd November in the Guildhall.
Illustration of Morn Hill design
by kind permission of the County Architect Department