TrustNews Sep 22

Station Approach

John Hearn reports on the City Council's next steps

 

Following the quashing of planning permission in 2019, productive meetings between the Trust and City Councillors took place where we offered our help in producing an urban design framework. The Council agreed this would lead to greater community/stakeholder engagement and agreement but said it did not have the resources, even with our assistance. The project was then paused by the City Council as a result of the Covid pandemic.

 

It has been accepted by all that the pandemic fallout will inevitably result in a different design approach for the area, given the impact on work practices and travel patterns. Also, with the emphasis on sustainable development, underpinned by the adopted Movement Strategy, there will need to be changes to the types and amounts of development, with a focus on more creativity in townscape design, design of public spaces and movement patterns.

 

 

1. The Carfax-Gladstone Street car park the leased parking adjacent and the former register office and to the south of the Hampshire Records Office.

2. The Cattlemarket and Worthy Lane car parks

3. The multi-storey car parks to the east and west of the Station.

4 Car parking along the western side of the railway line.

5. Other sites in the vicinity.

 

Things have obviously been going on behind the scenes as most recently the Cabinet has approved a process to "revise the Station Approach plan working with adjacent landowners and embarking on a comprehensive and active engagement with the community”. The Council has launched a public consultation which is open for comments until 23th October. It consists of a website, winchesterstationapproach.co.uk, which features an interactive map for comments as well as an online survey. The Trust will be responding to the consultation and all members are encouraged to do so as well.

 

The website includes a plan of the study which shows development opportunities on railway carpark land. Unfortunately, important areas of the public realm, have been excluded from the study area (Carfax Junction, Sussex Street, Andover Road, worthy Lane, part of Gladstone Street).

 

The Trust has met the Council to discuss the process ahead and we raised this and other matters.

 

As reported in the June issue of TrustNews, one important development to note is that the HCC Record Office has recently been listed by Historic England. This will be a significant constraint (and opportunity) in the design development of the Carfax site and the adjacent public realm. The Council has a duty to ensure that the setting of the building is respected.