An Interview with Steven Bee, Chief Planning Officer for Winchester - TrustNews Summer 1998
Steven Bee started as Winchester's Chief Planning Officer at the beginning of March but though he has hardly got his feet under the table, agreed to speak with Margrit Waldron and Ray Attfield about his approach to planning the future of the City.
His previous job was in private consultancy as technical director of Llewelyn Davies, and in this capacity headed the team which prepared the Friarsgate Study, an investigation into development possibilities for the central area initiated by his predecessor Simon Birch, and now under review before being presented to committee in the Summer. Working on this study has given Steven a very good introduction to Winchester's problems and needs. Before Llewelyn Davies he spent 10 years at the London Borough of Lewisham so the world of local authority planning will be familiar, but his move to Winchester comes with what he sees as the benefits of a refreshing spell in private practice and being a newcomer to the area. As he put it, an outsider with fewer prejudices and considerable optimism stands a better chance of pulling the team together to act in a more focused and positive way.
The fact that his appointment will ultimately embrace Building Control, Engineers and Estates as well as Planning and the fact that he opted to use the title, Chief Planning Officer suggests that in his view planning will be more pro-active and set the direction rather than have to follow the accidental pressures of development. And seeing planning as a process of looking forward, of thinking ahead, should reduce the number of situations where, in the past, the City has been caught on the wrong foot with too little time to consider problems only revealed by a planning application. This view could be discounted as the optimism of the 'new boy', but other indications suggest that there is a will to create a difference through co-operation, the adoption of different priorities and the use of different methods.
Our conversation was loosely framed by some key questions.
The first question, what do you see as the key issues for the future of the City of Winchester? prompted an answer which went straight to the big issue, sustainability, and then to the big question, what is Winchester? Before developing these points, Steven referred to the conservationist policy of the last two Hampshire Strategy Plans which had, by minimising change, placed the City in a very strong position from which to negotiate its future. Winchester, unlike many cities, is in the privileged position of being able to consider alternative futures. It was equally clear that in order to decide what future was appropriate and possible the City had to reconsider its relationship within South Hampshire. The City Council has just adopted the Winchester District local plan and authorised the next review which has to deal with pressures from government down which were pushing the City towards expansion. How should this be interpreted? It has to happen to some extent and in one form or another but should it be by expanding in size or by intensifying development within existing boundaries? This question requires an answer but can only really be presented as a change of direction or emphasis. With housing statistics for example, a change in the method of predicting future needs gives a different answer.
As an example of how different emphasis can guide policy, Steven cited the value of particularity and difference between places but "the fact is that viable shopping centres do, for the time being, require the key players to generate 40 a volume of activity sufficient to support the smaller independents. How Winchester functions as a shopping centre, and how we can help it gain strength in diversity will be an important part of our work." It is possible to develop an economic and sustainable city around very localised characteristics providing these are viable in the wider context.
These issues will all be considered in the Future of Winchester Study now being prepared in three stages. Topics such as health, housing will generate issues for public discussion, and from that different possible scenarios will be set out. Steven explained that to realise the different qualities within the city, the process of examination had to be 'plan lead', area by area, using planning briefs where appropriate to clarify and amplify policy. The question of how to produce a view of what the city should be, as distinct from an evaluation of what it is now, exposed the limitation of character assessment methods and lead to the next question on our list:
What references should be used to guide the form of change and future development of the City?
The response to this was still optimistic though more constrained by awareness of the limitations of planning powers to determine anything more than land use. Steven did suggest that 'supplementary planning guidance' could be more effectively used to set out specific expectations, area by area, and that 'policy guidance' can be an effective tool to determine use eg. the limitation placed on office development, though it might be argued that economics is an even stronger factor. Perceived 'problems' such as the number and size of pubs and the many and complex issues surrounding traffic and transport will be a severe test of both the methods used in policy making and the effectiveness of 'guidance' as a control. None of this however sheds much light on what values are used to determine policy in the first place.
The reference used by Government for sustainable development originates in Opportunities For Change consultation paper, which sets out some very laudable criteria of mixed use and balanced living which Steven regarded as "too motherhood and apple pie" and therefore open to question as to its usefulness in determining real policy for cities. He would accept that we have to learn from analysis of our own history and from what other cities have done well, or badly. The qualities we have now are where we must begin but without as such cannot guide our hand in forming the future.
Winchester Bus Station
The third question focused on public space in the streets. Even in Winchester it is a battle for rights over the use of public space. The conflict of interest, here as in many cities, is between an efficient traffic system which determines almost everything that happens in the streets, and streets without traffic, that is pedestrianised. Though "many in the County and especially in he City are very keen to reduce traffic and give the pedestrians a better deal," there is still little understanding of he different qualities and character of streets which should be, first and foremost, places rather than routes. An approach which takes a formal view of the whole set of design issues together, facades, paving, lighting, furniture, is still absent. This different understanding is reinforced by the fact that the budget is controlled largely by the County Council Highways Department, to lesser extent by the City Engineers, and only slightly by Planning.
One key space which Steven hopes will benefit from this new approach is The Broadway, important to the Friarsgate study the subject of our fourth question.
The interregnum between the departure of Simon Birch and the appointment of Steven Bee, put the study on the back burner but it is now being revised and updated for presentation to committee after which it will be presented to the public. The Llewelyn Davies recommendations were applauded by Council Members but scepticism remains regarding financial viability. There is still a problem getting major landholders involved and much depends on devising a more rational strategy for bus movements and finding a more appropriate location for a bus station. Serious thought is being given to making Friarsgate work better and to providing a new bus station and allow the Broadway to become the important public space it should be. Some readers will remember proposals along these lines being produced at the study workshops in the summer of 1996.
The scheme recently submitted for the Post Office site was assessed against the general strategy of the consultants report and though not in conflict with the general form and use of the site it might prejudice the financial viability of a comprehensive approach. However because of the uncertainty about achieving a clear plan for the whole area there was no basis for either delay or refusal of this scheme.
Our final question tried to get under the surface of the issue of how to accommodate the inevitable requirement for an expansion of the population of the City and how this related to the formation of a view of what the City should be in the future.
Obviously this was far too complex an issue to expect much more than another set of questions but Steven Bee referred back to the point which came top of his list at the start of our conversation, namely what can be sustained into the future, how to assess this and make the distinction from what we have now.
The Landscape Assessment Study currently being carried out by the City County and others, can be regarded as one of a number of Topic Studies which will set out current values. Other Topics will be added such as the studies of traffic and transport, of public places, and policy studies concerning the retail and commercial structure of the City. Steven added one value into this mix which I have not heard used as a matter of public policy before, that undue privilege should not be given to any group or interest. While it is easy to read too much into this I would like to think that it does herald the beginning of a new and hopeful vision based on the ideals of planning for the common good of the City and its citizens.
Much needs to be done to complete the major task of forming a vision of the future now defined as The Future of Winchester Study. Something has been started which will at least offer a basis of what we have but leaves very much unanswered the question of what is desirable.
Steven Bee has taken over the planning hot seat of a wonderful city with great potential. We wish him well and success to his ambitions, for all our sakes.