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GUNWHARF AND THE TOWER
It's been a busy year! We've been much still
much concerned with both Gunwharf and the
Tower, but not to the same extent as previously.
Work on Gunwharf has been progressing very
fast. Our complaints about it remain - too
much destruction of old buildings, too much
car parking, and design not of the standard
it might have been. But there is not doubt
that it will be a huge asset to the city
by opening up to the public this unique prospect
of the harbour and all its activities, which
for hundreds of years have been hidden from
view. We applaud the opening of a pedestrian
access to Gunwharf from The Hard by way of
an arch under the railway. There was talk
of the City Museum moving into the Vulcan
Building, but repair, conversion and building
the new wing was said to cost £10 million.
So the idea was abandoned and the major historic
building on the site still has no use as
yet, although repair work is going on which
revealed the cellar. This February we were
angry when Berkeleys' application to demolish
Ariadne, the former Ward room/Officers' Mess
of 1923, and replace it with an ugly office
block was approved by the Planning Committee.
It is the only remaining naval building left
on the site, listed until 1995 when the poop
deck was removed by the Navy to HMS Sultan.
As English Heritage pointed out to the committee,
it still remains a notable building. The
conservation area status of the whole site
has in fact counted for very little; significant
archaeology such as Beeston's Bastion has
been lost.
Progress on Gunwharf has been rapid but on
the tower non-existent. We have seen the
proposals for a sort of fun fair come and
go, and we are now back with what is called
the basic design (aesthetically much more
acceptable), currently up for planning permission.
So far though there are applicants to build
it, nobody is offering to operate it., which
has always been the sticking point. In the
summer of 1998 Berkeleys gave up because
they could not see that it could be a paying
proposition. We asked the Millennium Commission
what, if any, Millennium funds Portsmouth
would lose in the event of cancellation of
the tower. The answer was vague: "In
the event of difficulties with the delivery
of a tower, the Commission would need to
take a view in respect of the overall project
. . . It would need to need to consider the
commitments made thus far and the other options
that may be available for delivering the
project in a way that meets the purpose for
which the whole grant was made."
Still in contention is the permission under
the Transport & Works Act to build the
tower in the harbour. As with the similar
application to site the Gunwharf shopping
and leisure buildings over the water, the
Secretary of State decided to decide by means
of the "written submissions procedure".
This led to a ding-dong of argument between
the objectors (which include ourselves and
Major Tony Pheby, previously Officer Commanding
Gunwharf, and possibly Railtrack) and the
applicants who are Berkeleys acting on behalf
of the City Council. This culminated in the
Secretary of State requiring the applicants
to submit to him their representations on
the objections by 20 December 1999. But the
DETR takes the view that the applicants'
representations did not answer the points.
They have been told to try again which will
take several more months!
A lot of the struggle has been to ensure
that so far as possible no ongoing expense
will have to be picked up by council tax
payers, in particular the cost of maintaining
the tower in case of financial failure and
of its ultimate dismantling. In our executive
committee a majority are opposed to the tower,
but in a straw poll of members at the March
meeting opinions against were only a small
majority. We can only wait and see if it
falls under its own weight.
PUBLIC CONSULTATION
Royal Clarence Yard, Gosport
Open Planning Days for the public were held
in June for Royal Clarence Yard which ROYAL
together with St. George Barracks which has
also been bought by Berkeley Homes. Royal
Clarence contains a number of splendid buildings,
including the Granary of 1833, designed by
John Rennie the younger. The open days were
organised for Berkeleys by John Thompson
& Partners, community and urban planners
and architects. They were the firm who redesigned
the Gunwharf waterside housing. This full
and early consultation is just what we lacked
at Gunwharf. Perhaps Berkeleys have learnt
their lesson from Gunwharf and the opposition
they stirred up there. We took part in the
planning days and the presentation of the
resulting 'Vision' at Fort Brockhurst. The
scheme is still opposed by all political
parties because too much housing is proposed
City Plan
The new City Plan has been in preparation
for several months and we and others have
been consulted. We responded with a lengthy
list of many varied recommendations. General
points included: the criterion against which
all developments should be judged is one
of Sustainability, defined as follows: to
be sustainable, new developments should be
mixed use, well designed and in locations
which are highly accessible by public transport.
The second general point was Co-ordination
within the Council: the City Council suffers
from a lack of joined up thinking e.g. planning/transport,
planning/ leisure/culture. We gave a list
of examples for instance the King's Theatre
which cannot be a success without a car park;
yet when adjoining sites became available,
they were allocated to housing, in spite
of the fact that in residential terms the
area is already over-developed. Detailed
points included the need to make the city
more permeable to pedestrians by removing
barriers eg the notorious 'toblerone' obstacle
in Winston Churchill Avenue, the dockyard
wall at Bonfire corner, and the crossing
of Anglesey Road. The city council's historic
buildings need committed funds for regular
maintenance. There is a need for the equivalent
of planning permission or aesthetic control
and public consultation over works affecting
the street scene by the City Engineers on
roundabouts, traffic calming measures, and
the forest of poles that new junctions spawn.
In the public meetings on the Plan the majority
of questions concerned the engineering rather
than the planning service. Regeneration of
older residential areas: the Council should
take advantage of partnership funds from
English Heritage and local residents. There
may be a need for a new policy for the large
areas of two-storey terraced houses which
were given a reprieve by the GIAs thirty
years ago. Demolition and rebuilding to 3/4
storeys in some places is being suggested.
The alternative is to spend more on maintenance
and repair. If we do this we need to start
now before houses start to be declared unfit
for human habitation as happened in the '60s
and '70s. More open space is needed in Portsmouth,
especially St. James's Hospital grounds,
which need to be preserved for their unique
quality and splendid trees, for which we
are hoping to get statutory protection -
so the need to find building land must be
overridden here. Ways of ensuring high quality
in design: we cited as example Poole, Dorset,
where the council are taking a strong line.
DESIGN AWARDS
Judging for our annual Design Awards took
place in September. The award of Best New
Building went to the Portsmouth Motor Park,
the group of five striking new motor showrooms
and workshops lining the Eastern Road on
the old airport site. The project design
was co-ordinated by David Kent Architects
of Bath acting on behalf of the site owners
and developers, Biltons.
Joint Best Restoration Awards went to the
Royal Naval Museum in the Dockyard for the
overall restoration and re-ordering by HGP
Architects of Fareham of the 1763 Storehouse
No.11 and its new galleries, and also to
Steve Langton (a previous winner) and Simon
Smith who have ingeniously reinstated and
converted a dilapidated motor-bike shop,
Burnetts, in St James's Road, Southsea, into
an elegant pair of period houses. The judges
also warmly commended Ottakar's Bookstore
in Commercial Road for their creation of
a marvellously light two-storey space with
escalator and sofas for browsing. We commended
also the renovation by the University of
the handsome Barnard Tower, the concrete
student accommodation block by Gollins, Melvin,
Ward of 1963 on the QEQM site, which had
been marked for demolition. If only the owners
of the Tricorn could see what can be done
to transform shabby 1960s concrete!
Our Best Landscaping Award went to the large
mural map of Portsmouth on the south wall
of the old bank facing the Strand. With help
from the local community , it was initiated,
designed and painted by Mark Lewis and colleagues
of the Art and Soul Traders with sponsorship
from the Arts Council and a number of local
businesses. It has amusing details, appealing
to residents and visitors alike. The map
is explained on a rostrum supported by an
anchor and metal seaweed fronds made by local
blacksmith Ken Dowber. This has been a work
of marvellous co-operation between the artist,
the local community and the backers. It was
an inspirational idea to incorporate below
the large professional work a renewable and
adaptable strip painted by local children.
The mural has given life to a rundown area.
Commended in this category also were the
City Council's own landscaping in Portsea
around the flats at the western end of Queen
Street by David Crudgington and also the
moving memorial garden in front of the Royal
Marines Museum sponsored by Hampshire County
Council and Royal Marines associations. The
judges also enjoyed the mural on the south
wall of the Bridge Tavern on the Camber designed
for Gales brewery by Peter Davidson and sponsored
by Clarks Sign Works of St James's Road.
It recreates Thomas Rowlandson's satirical
coloured engraving (1814) of Portsmouth Point.
Notwithstanding these excellent exceptions,
the judges could not but be depressed by
the low standard of the most of the schemes
they visited. In April Square, the big inner
city redevelopment, the density is much too
low. What would the Urban Task Force have
made of such a waste of land in the centre
of the city? The individual houses and flats
are pleasant, but their scale is inappropriate
and the central park dismal, contributing
little to the enhancement of the area. Three
Housing Associations took on the work of
building, but all three have apparently all
but abdicated responsibility for ongoing
care. The City Council are now left trying
to cope with innumerable social complaints.
The rents seemed to us unduly high. Each
year we are struck by the poor quality of
what Housing Associations offer when compared
with the heyday of council house building.
Several Housing Association schemes were
this year considered not worth judging, including
Richmond House in Richmond Road, Southsea.
There was a muddle of control too in the
design and execution of the ambitious scheme
for Wymering Community Centre and its surrounds.
Disappointingly, the local residents' long
dedication and the extensive consultation
have failed to result in an excellent scheme.
Its unfinished state made it hard to judge
, but the landscaping appeared to have different
unrelated elements including a bridge over
an empty pond. Not for the first time we
get a strong impression of a lack of co-ordination
among the city's services. The private sector
have if anything done worse, with the Whitbread's
hotel, the Travel Lodge (the mauve one) and
pub at Clarence Pier, occupying a commanding
site and yet not giving views of the sea.
Mock Tudor end walls and the ugly concrete
ground floor car park on the ground floor,
glaringly visible at night, all seem to be
part of a standard plan drawn up in a remote
office for just anywhere. The hotel uses
as its restaurant the adjoining Clarence
pub, whose main windows turn away from the
sea and look at the car park. A standard
design made for just anywhere is an insult
to Portsmouth - particularly when we know
that in Plymouth the same company have built
an attractive modern pub designed to enhance
its Sutton Harbour location. The judging
team this year was Sir Colin Stansfield Smith,
professor of design at Portsmouth University
and former County Architect, Peter Faller,
retired professor of architecture at the
University of Stuttgart, and two members
of the Society: Celia Clark chairman and
Jean Thompson treasurer.
CONSERVATION ISSUES
New Road School
We have had at least one success: New Road
School, which the city council proposed to
demolish and its replace with 12 flats with
21 car spaces and a special learning centre
at the rear. But we knew that the architect,
Mick Morris backed by a developer had a scheme
for converting almost the whole building
to houses, each with a car space and garden.
We objected to the demolition, and after
much lobbying and argument, Mr Morris is
converting the front half into six houses
with bedrooms in the roof space. The rea
r is demolished for a new learning centre,
although Mr Morris had offered to convert
the old building as well to provide the space
that Social Services required. The compromise
achieves our main object to preserve the
frontage on to New Road which with its charming
little turret enlivens an otherwise dull
street.
Cottage Grove School
We have not had the same success with New
Road's twin of 1873, in spite of my deputation
to the Planning Committee in March. This,
together with New Road, is one of the two
first elementary schools built in Hampshire
- by the new School Board set up under the
1870 Act. It is to be demolished for the
familiar reason that "it would not be
economic" to repair it. A new building,
which one of the objecting ward councillors
called a "curiosity", is to be
built as a new home for the Sarah Duffen
Centre which at present occupies part of
the school, and the rest of the site is to
be used to expand the school playground.
Park Building
We objected strongly to the mutilation of
the beautiful upper hall which required listed
building consent without effect. We were
surprised that the decision had been taken
by the Planning Officer without being brought
to committee. Until recently the Planning
Officer had delegated powers only for applications
that were not objected to. Last year, without
telling us, they changed the arrangement.
Planning applications are logged on the Members'
Information Bulletin (MIB) quite fully with
a good summary of representations. If no
member asks for a matter to be brought to
committee, then Planning Officer can make
his delegated decision. The only way round
this is to ask for a deputation on any matter
we feel strongly about., which we regularly
do.
Connaught Drill Hall
After several futile attempt we made contact
with the trustee owners to ask them to let
us know what their plans were - to sell it
or to find another use for it under their
control. They have made no decision yet.
We thought of this as a possible home for
the Preserved Buses if they do have to quit
their Broad Street building, though it will
require a bigger entrance. But they too have
had no reply to their enquiries.
PUBLIC POLICY
Regional developments
During the year we have attended meetings
to discuss the profusion of regional organisations
known often only by acronyms: SERPLAN, GOSE,
SEEDA, RDA. GOSE is the Government Office
of the South East at Guildford, as are these
regional bodies and English Heritage. How
we should relate to them was an issue at
the annual meeting in October of Southern
Comfort, the grouping of amenity societies
in the central Southern of England to which
we belong hosted by the Reading Society.
New figures for the supposed requirement
of new dwellings in the South East had just
been announced. Professor Michael Breheny
tackled the factors involved in the assessments
of future housing need, persuasively leading
to the conclusion that the new higher figures
are inevitable and must be accepted. He related
the need for economic activity in particular
jobs, showing how there was a long-standing
trend of economic activity away from conurbations
and the cities to growth areas of small towns
and the country. It was no good building
houses on brownfields in the big cities when
the jobs are going to be in rural areas.
The S.E region taken as a whole is low (21st)
in order of prosperity in Europe, brought
down by the coastal strip, which includes
us, from Southampton round to the Thames
estuary; but the local area of Reading and
the Thames valley is very prosperous and
growing fast. There would come a time when
the environment was being sacrificed for
growth. Particularly he mentioned the absurdity
of allowing Vodaphone's controversial application
for expansion at Newbury on grounds of employment
provision, because there was no employment
need there. There is a conflict between the
objectives of SEEDA and SERPLAN. SEEDA wants
increase in economic activity to bring the
area into the top ten in Europe, while SERPLAN
wants to even out development. We are joining
the South East Forum for Sustainability.
The Civic Trust also has a new regional group.
We in Portsmouth appear to be doing very
well in providing for more brownfield housing.
Every week's list of planning applications
contains shops and offices to be converted
to houses and flats, houses to be converted
to flats and houses, and houses to be inserted
as infill. We have also seen large schemes
of conversion to residential - the John Brown
office block in the city centre and Telephone
House in Elm Grove, as well as the genuine
brownfield sites - the Fratton brush factory
and the factory south of Fratton Bridge.
This month there is an application to turn
Chaucer House next to the Civic Offices into
student flats. But we have been critical
in some cases of the way unused upper floors
over shops for housing have been done: the
new dwellings must have an entrance on to
the street, not tucked round the back. We
may see the return to highrise in the city
centre.
English Heritage grant for Southsea
We criticised the refusal by the Council,
of English Heritage's offer of £90,000
over three years for refurbishment of Marmion
Road and Osborne Road, to be matched by an
equal amount by City Council. The Planning
Committee turned it down because paying the
matched funding would diverted money needed
to be spent elsewhere. Hugh Mason, chairman
of Southsea Parish Council, pointed out that
money spent in Southsea's centre benefited
the whole city as Southsea was a tourist
attraction. The £36m invested by EH
nationally over the past five years of the
conservation area partnership has generated
thousands of jobs and attracted more than
£180m in private and public sector
funding. We wrote to draw this to Council's
attention.
THE SOCIETY
Web site for the Society
To general acclaim John Holland has opened
a web site for the society, to say who we
are, how to join, give the programme of our
events and the current newsletter. He keeps
it up to date. We hope it will encourage
younger members and increase our range. The
City Council and others have responded to
it in lively exchanges. The site's address
is www.portsmouthsociety.org.uk
Millennium Exhibition - Portsmouth 1945-2000
Our exhibition to celebrate Portsmouth's
buildings and the changes in the townscape
since the end of World War II will run in
St Agatha's Church from July 10 to 21st.
We hope you will all come and also help run
it! We won a grant of £4,350 from the
Millennium Festival Awards for All scheme
to carry it out. A small group - not all
members of the Society - have been meetingfor
many months to plan it. It will cover several
themes: employment, transportation, housing,
conservation etc. There will be a special
sound track by the university's Media department
with Portsmouth voices and also the sea and
street sounds.
Monthly talks
Lectures have been varied and interesting:
on the reconstruction of the Ragged School;
the new City Plan by the City Planning Officer
and transport by the Assistant City Engineer;
Judith Smyth on the virtues of city living;
Dr Steven Cope of the University on local
government reorganisation and the options
offered by Central Government, which do not
include the status quo. Last month Dr Ray
Riley entertained us with his fascinating
account - now his eighth Portsmouth Paper
- of the social and geographical effects
of the coming of the railway to Portsmouth
Old Portsmouth flood defences
Old Portsmouth residents had been sent a
consultants' report on vulnerable points
from Clarence Pier to Gunwharf , where three
options had been given. Some were awful,
e.g. bricking in Sally Port. Some action
is clearly needed now e.g. to the foundations
of the Round Tower which are being eroded.
At present flooding even in Broad Street
is very infrequent and short lasting. The
prediction is that is that there will be
a combined rise (tipping of island of Britain
plus global warming) of 6 mm a year which
is one inch in four years - 48 years for
a foot. We agreed to wait ten years to see
if the predictions come true and then if
necessary act - we'll have it on the agenda
in 2009! MAFF are footing the bill that may
be encouraging unnecessary work.
Pitt Street Gymnastics Centre
The Centre is under threat because the plan
for enlarging the City Centre northwards
involves widening Hope Street to dual carriageway.
Either the building would have to go or a
cut would have to be made into the Dockyard
wall. We have looked into the cost of the
latter and at the possibilities of enlarging
the present building. The director of the
Gymnastics Centre would like a new building
with a bigger gymnasium. He needs two parallel
tracks instead of one. Also the present building
has a serious leak when rain blows from the
south and there is some dry rot in some of
the empty rooms which he has no money to
open. We have our doubts about the impartiality
of English Heritage in refusing to list Pitt
Street when ten years ago they recommended
listing. This is being taken up nationally.
Beneficial School
A Hampshire Buildings Preservation Trust
subcommittee are assessing whether the trust
could buy or lease the school, applying for
restoration grants not available to the Council,
to do it up and then let it revert to the
Council. The Association of Preservation
Trusts (APT) is giving a grant to fund a
visit from Malcolm Crowder of the Heritage
of London Trust to come and advise. The Shaw
Trust who are using it now are looking after
it well, painting it and reopening the main
entrance.
Western Transport Corridor
We considered the report of the City Planning
Officer and City Engineer of options for
improving traffic flow and new public transport
possibilities for the western (broadly M275)
approach to the city. They considered numerous
sites for park & ride, and two options
for the ongoing transport into the city:
priority bus and monorail. They recommend
a site at Tipner to the west of the motorway
as the principal P&R site with a subsidiary
at Port Solent. A monorail is being offered
free by the firm Carr West; the officers
are recommending it, if all the claims for
it stand up and difficulties of visual intrusion
are met. The big advantage claimed for monorail
is that it is flexible and takes up no highway
space. It can go over roads and footpaths.
Snags obviously are visual intrusion; but
it can be routed without going close to houses.
The whole scheme depends on being able to
obtain access from the M275 at Tipner. The
report mentions the P&R aspect of railways
and recommends enlarged car parks at Fareham
and Havant stations and new stations at Paulsgrove,
Copnor and possibly Farlington. The executive
committee gave the report a cautious welcome.
Do the finances stack up and can it be done
without serious visual intrusion?
Fratton Goods Yard
Although we approved the scheme for a new
stadium, retail and industrial workshops
in general, we asked for a deputation to
make some points of improvement. The city
should be getting more out of this very central
site: what was proposed was underdevelopment.
There are at least two fairly recent examples
of underdevelopment and waste of space elsewhere
- Ocean Park and Victory Retail Park. We
also urged that the committee should not
give in to the police veto on direct pedestrian
access from the station. It must be possible
to design an access that avoids the crowd
management problem the police fear. We wanted
space made for a small lorry park - we were
told lorries would have to park at the Railway
triangle at Drayton. These suggestions were
ignored at committee.
Current concerns
The proposed redevelopment on the east side
of Broad Street, Old Portsmouth down to the
Point with pastiche Victorian residential
scheme to go to Planning this month is pretty
dull. Broad Street is also threatened by
notice to quit from the City Council to the
popular Preserved Buses depot and also by
the likelihood of Lucas Sailmakers moving
out. English Heritage wrote to object to
the Wightlink proposal for Broad Street,
and now at our suggestion they have written
to the City Planning Officer suggesting the
production of "conservation area character
appraisal as recommended in PPG 15"
and also a meeting which their Historic Areas
Adviser would attend to gather the "views
of local stakeholders on how future development
should be managed". Another concern
is with the waste disposal policy. The planning
committee unanimously rejected the proposal
for the Quatremaine Road incinerator; but
there is an appeal which as things stand,
Hampshire Waste Services, a subsidiary of
a French owned company, are likely to win,
unless the Council employ a lawyer highly
experienced in this field such as Phil Shiner,
to defend their decision. If they lose, and
the planning consent is granted, the Council
will incur massive costs and the policy which
is opposed almost certainly by a majority
of councillors will be foisted on us and
them.
The hard workers
Finally, as usual, I must congratulate and
thank the Executive Committee for their fine
work and support and unfailing good humour.
It's invidious to pick out names, but some
must be mentioned because of the special
tasks they have taken on: John now for the
web site and also for the job he has done
for years - editing the newsletter; and to
Rosemary and John for printing it , Jean
for bundling up the newsletter and distributing
it to the distributors who also deserve our
thanks. Jean also of course for looking after
our money and keeping track of the membership,
and Rosemary for keeping us afloat with the
monthly raffle. Great thanks are due to Betty
for her wise advice on the weekly planning
applications which she vets. Charles Burns
deserves a particular mention. He is a "Civic
Champion", having completed a course
which we nominated him for run by the Civic
Trust with Millennium funds. It was for people
who are concerned in Community Projects.
Charles's own project is the designation
of part of Havelock as a 20 mph zone, as
secretary of the Central Southsea Neighbourhood
Forum. I want to thank also Freddie Green
who has come to us from being chairman of
the Deal Society. He has taken on the job
of organising our future programme of meetings
and outings. Lastly, thanks to Roger for
taking on the hardest task of all, the day
to day initiation of policy and the endless
paperwork.
Finally I thank you , the members, very much
for enabling us to keep going. I hope you
think we are worth it!
Celia Clark, Chairman
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