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Vulcan Building, Gunwharf

We have also been very much concerned with the Vulcan Building, formerly the Grand Storehouse of 1811-1814, which as I reported last year has been excellently repaired and restored by Berkeleys under the direction of Michael Underwood of the Hedley Greentree Partnership. It has amazing open spaces on the upper two floors which, ever since Roger and I first explored it with the loan of friendly security man's torch, we have wanted to be used for some public purpose such as a museum or art gallery. The idea of moving the City Museum there was taken seriously, but apparently the money did not stack up and the idea was dropped. Late in 2001 Berkeleys applied for planning permission for conversion to offices and, regrettably, this has been granted. We have never ceased in our efforts to find a public use, Professor Tim Putnam of the University of Portsmouth proposed to the Campaign for the Arts in Portsmouth — which we initiated - a centre for the cultural and creative industries.

We wrote to Mr Pidgley pointing out to him the advantage to Gunwharf Quays as a whole of having an entirely different and cultural attraction from the shopping and eating and drinking places. His reply was that his shareholders expected a return on their money, and that if we liked to buy it or rent it we could. We have also written to Sir Nicholas Serota (a Tate of the South?) Mr Al Fayed (a Portsmouth Harrods?), Mr Quayle (the Q of B&Q who established a commercial art gallery, the Beatrice Royale, at Eastleigh), Charles Saatchi, Madame Tussauds, the V&A Museum (both of which are said to be short of space in their London premises) and the Guggenheixn Foundation. We have had rejection or silence from all of these except for the V&A whose Management Board will consider 'our 'interesting proposal'. We are now talking to the Portsmouth and South East Area Partnership (through their new Cultural Initiative group set up at our suggestion), the Hampshire Buildings Preservation Trust and Regeneration through Heritage (one of whose trustees is Mr. Pidgely), about putting together a business plan for a combined cultural and creative industries centre.

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Large Schemes in the City

Large schemes currently under way or with permission are the 700 bed university hostel on the White Swan site in the city centre, which is going up in scale with the completion of the hostel tower block in Winston Churchill Avenue. The largest building ever constructed in Portsmouth, for Vospers — marking the return of shipbuilding - is likely to arise over several docks in No. 3 Basin in the dockyard.

But the decision to recommend the dispiriting design for Canalside to the Development Control Committee despite the CABE exercise intended to raise the standard of design is but one of the disputes we have recently had with the Planning Department.

Another concerned the University's plans for a new Business School to replace the buildings of the Milton campus. The new business school is to be a very large dark grey building rising to seven storeys high on the site immediately to the south of the Portland Building the home of the School of Architecture among other departments. We asked the advice of Sir Colin Stansfield Smith and found that he and also Lord Palumbo, the Chancellor the University, had strong reservations about it. Sir Colin, although professor emeritus of design and gold medallist of the RIBA, had not been asked his opinion by the university. Roger and I were invited by Dr Bateman, the pro-vice chancellor, to attend a meeting beheld with Portsea residents at which he explained very fairly the pros and cons of the design and listened to their comments, some of which did not concern the building itself but its effects on the traffic circulation in the neighbourhood.

The impression was given that changes were still possible. We objected mainly to aesthetic matters imagining that other matters about which others, notably the residents, were better informed would emerge during the committee discussion. We were amazed and annoyed to find that the building had been given permission by the City Planning Officer under his delegated powers without coming to committee. This increasingly common practice is justified by Mr Newbold as being in keeping with Government requirements to speed up the planning process spelt out in the planning Green Paper.

The design had been modified, we were told, to take into account the various objections, though we were not informed in what ways. In answer to our protests Mr Newbold has told us that, as part of its desire to 'streamline' and speed up the planning process that it is the Government's policy that as many planning decisions as possible should be taken by officers without coming to committee. In this particular case the result is that a building which will to some extend overshadow the splendid Portland Building has been allowed and the chance of getting a reasonable traffic route and getting rid of the unpopular 'tank traps' is lost for ever. If buildings of this size and importance costing millions of pounds are not important enough to come to committee, we would hike to know what is important enough. The Members' Information System where all planning applications are set out for councillors does not identify which are important.

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Design Awards

After a gap of a year we resumed in September our Annual Design Awards. It was sad that our judges did not find any new building worthy of the Best New Building award; but they did award a Commendation certificate to the Fire Fighting School on Whale Island. Instead they gave two joint Best Restoration Awards: to the Old Customs House pub, formerly the Vernon Building, one of the few buildings on Gunwharf to survive the redevelopment; and to St John's Roman Catholic Cathedral for many restorative works of the highest quality.

Although there were many features of the Millennium Promenade that they disliked, they gave the Best Landscaping Award to the first part of the promenade, specifically to that part that includes the Saluting Platform, just south of the Square Tower. As well as Rosemary Flewitt and myself from the Society there were two other judges: Paul Ramshaw, the newly appointed Urban Design Officer in the Planning Department and Keith Feltham, a Portsmouth architect and member of the Society. Detail on the merits of the other buildings judged appeared in the February 2002 issue of the Society's Newsletter. The Lord Mayor had fun pulling a pint in the pub at the unveiling!

Architecture Week Seminar

In June we held a successful seminar What is Good Design? in the Menuhin Room, attended by a hundred people and seamlessly organised by Rosemary Flewitt. The speakers were Martin Bacon, the new chief executive of the Civic Trust, the architect David Levitt on good recent housing, Simon Hudspith architect of the new residential scheme to replace the Lucas chandlery in Broad Street, and Michael Ellison, former president of the Landscape Institute and professor at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College, London. In the afternoon we provided, courtesy. of the Preserved Transport Group who run the old buses in Broad Street, the alternatives of a tour of the Dockyard or of some of Portsmouth's more recent architectural landmarks.

Martin Bacon considered it such a success that he straight away urged that we should repeat the exercise this year, but making sure that this time the decision-makers should attend. We have already held a preliminary steering meeting. The date fixed is 20 June, again in the Menuhin Room with two at least of the same speakers This time the emphasis will be on the design of housing, the barriers preventing the achievement of good design and how to overcome them. John Butler of Portsmouth Housing Association will be one of the speakers; after lunch there will be workshops on actual sites.

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St James' Hospital Grounds

At the time of last year's report we had just had the tremendous news that the campaign which we had instituted on the St James Hospital grounds, vigorously promoted by Dr Caroline Scott, had been successful. The Council had unanimously acceded to the report of the public inquiry inspector, Mr Vivian Chapman, that most of the area of the St James grounds that we had asked for should be declared a Town Green. We had only just got over celebrating this news as a famous victory when we learnt that the Secretary of State for Health had announced his intention of taking the City Council to the High Court for making this declaration. The hearing of this action will takes in the High Court on 15 and 16 April.

The case is against the City Council on the grounds that Mr Chapman s recommendation was wrong in law. Roger James and Caroline Scott are cited as co-defendants on account of their being the authors of the application to the City Council. Mike Hancock has written powerful letters trying to shame both the Secretary for Health and the Secretary of the DTLR for apparently putting the sale of real estate for housing above the therapeutic regime for hospital patients and the amenities of his constituents. He has had an answer from a minister in the DTLR saying it's nothing to do with them, but no answer so far from the Health Secretary. Mike has now asked a series of Parliamentary Questions to try and embarrass the Government into withdrawing the action. We salute Southsea Town Council for getting Southsea Common listed as a Grade II historic landscape.

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Museums

We have been concerned, particularly Bob Adderley and myself, over the Council's intentions with regard to the Museum Service. As a result of what is called Best Value (no irony apparently intended) there is a plan to concentrate all museum activities on the Museum Road site. What was the City Records Office and before that the NAAFI is to be demolished and on its site there is to be a multi-million pound building in effect to enlarge the existing City Museum and provide space for travelling exhibitions. We have something of an affection for the old building. Demolition is being justified on grounds we are only too familiar with of a crack which is parting one piece of the building from the other over the East Bastion, but is not threatening the stability of either. The combined new building will accommodate the many museum possessions which cannot at present be exhibited, many of them stored in the stables building at Hilsea, which will then be disposed of .

The sale of the Hilsea site will provide some of the capital required, but for most of it the Council will have to rely on the lottery of a lottery bid. Cumberland House Museum is to close and its exhibits will go also to Museum Road. What happens to Cumberland House itself is at present undecided. Bob and I made deputations to the Policy and Resources Committee. Bob went on to speak to the full Council against the part of this wide-ranging scheme which involved the Museum service giving up its responsibility for the Eastney Pumping Station, the D-Day Museum and Southsea Castle. Subsequently the two latter were reprieved with the Arts, Libraries and Museums service retaining responsibility for them. They admit that the council will have to continue to maintain them, whichever pocket the money comes from.

Last December we attended a lively session at the launch of the council's Cultural Strategy process, more than a year after we began a consultation about the strengths and weaknesses in the city's cultural life. Consultants have been appointed in social housing areas of the city, but despite a meeting with the Heads of Leisure and Arts and Museums, we have not heard that artists or those who enjoy various cultural activities are to be involved in the strategy process, so we do not know how people in the city will own the policy when it is compiled.

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Road to Rail for Freight

We have taken the initiative recently in trying to facilitate the transfer of freight from road to rail, particularly some of the huge amount of freight that comes by road to the Ferry Port. One of our strengths and most useful functions, we feel, is the ability to put heads together and let one hand know what the other is doing. Our initiative arose out of Charles Burn's idea that advantage could be taken of the fact that a stretch of light rail through the city centre had already agreed as part of the LRT from the Hard to the Town railway station. There was no physical difficulty in upgrading this to heavy rail to enable a freight service to the Dockyard from the low level Town Station along Stanhope Road and into the Unicorn Gate - perhaps one or two trains at dead of night with road traffic temporarily stopped by the Unicorn junction traffic lights. - and through the Dockyard to the Ferry Port.

We found that the Ferry Port authorities were keenly considering the matter of the transfer from road to rail and were proposing a scheme whereby freight would be transferred from trains either at what remains of Fratton Goods Yard or from a new siding to be built alongside the main line at Hilsea on the old gas works site and then taken by road to the Ferry Port. They liked Charles's idea but said that the Dockyard authorities would never allow it. We then went to see Commodore Boisier, the Dockyard Superintendent, who said he could see no objection on the grounds of security; he was merely doubtful as to whether there was space in the Dockyard. He could see the advantage to the Dockyard if it too and the Vospers shipbuilding activity could be supplied directly by rail.

The City Planning Officer welcomed the idea as the best new idea of 2002. He reckoned that it would be fought by the planners (did he mean the developers?) of City Centre North and told us of a scheme he had been discussing with Commodore Boisier for road traffic for the heritage area of the Dockyard to be routed through the Dockyard, entering by the East Gate. We are not surprised to find that Paul Newbold has since our visit evidently been advised by the City Engineer among others and the promoters of the LRT that it could not be done. Charles has the authority of Rail Future (formerly the Railway Development Society) and says it has been done in Poole. He has plans for taking the idea forward.

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Mobile Phone Masts

In the early part of the year we objected several times to the siting of radio base stations for mobile phones; but we later learnt that the Government had ruled that these could now only be objected to on account of appearance and grounds other than safety, as the Stewart Report that these stations were not a health hazard had been accepted. Bob Adderley attended on our behalf a seminar in December organised by Alan Higgins, the City Environmental Health and Trading Standards Officer. Bob had previously advocated that there should be an annual meeting to agree a strategy for the location of further masts. There had been cases where different companies' masts were being proposed only a hundred yards away from one another. Bob's suggestion had been ignored but there was a clear consensus in favour of it at this meeting

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Connaught Drill Hall

In last year's report I mentioned that the Connaught Drill Hall was a cause of concern. It was threatened with demolition and replacement with twin towers of student accommodation. At the time of the report we had applied for listing. This was successful: our action has in fact saved the building. The Portsmouth Partnership's plan for community use, backed by SEEDA, failed because another bidder offered a higher price. An application is now in for conversion to a casino/night club. We voiced doubts about the internal works proposed. It seems a good idea to bring night life to this area of the city centre, which is rather deserted at night and it will allow a sight from inside of the splendid roof, though late night revellers will have to take care, if Charles' trains are passing by!

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Other developments

Whether Mick Morris's design for converting New Road School into houses comes to fruition is currently on a knife edge. The rear wings have already been replaced by a dull training centre. The ABC cinema is currently being demolished with SRB money. We have not yet seen the City Centre Plan, to which the CARE exercise contributed. We hope that the commitment to improve moving about on foot will endure. We have not seen the very large redevelopment plans for City Centre North, which will include demolition of the Tricorn, and possibly Pitt Street Baths either. Although they would not list them, we believe English Heritage said that a replacement should match their quality.

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PlaceCheck

On a Saturday morning in October we carried out a Placecheck exercise outside Portsmouth and Southsea station. The suggestion for doing this came from the Civic Trust. They were encouraging societies all over the country to do this. Eight members of the society met with Paul Ramshaw, the city's urban designer to answer a list of questions set by the Civic Trust: what do you like about this area, what is wrong with it, how could it be improved and so on. The main recommendations we made were:

- amend traffic controls to give one phase to pedestrians,
- making junction area paved to facilitate walking in all directions including diagonal,
- a large circular pedestrian crossing
- make better provision for pedestrians and cyclists
- breach the north end of the wall between the station and the road to access widened pedestrian crossing
- enhance the paved area by Zurich's car park with seating and greenery
- enhance the entrance to the Park
- slow down all traffic and remove all barriers
- improve signage
and of course radical overhaul of the traffic signals which for pedestrians and drivers alike always seem to be at red. We intend to use this technique and extent it to other areas in the Design seminar in June.

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A new direction for the Portsmouth Society?

Martin Bacon, chief executive of the Civic Trust has made suggestions about how we might increase our activity, raise our profile and attract new members. I set them out here for members' discussion. Two and a half to three years ago, the Rotherham Civic Society produced a fifteen minute video Our Living Heritage which won an award from the Civic Trust. It was made by a professional film-maker with £5,000 from the lottery Awards for All, which paid for all the costs except VAT of £270. It was about the civic society, and showed shots in the town. They made it for recruiting, and a large number of copies have been sold at £5.50, for example to people with relatives overseas. The film maker Peter Andrews had made a video on the Walker cannon which are on HMS Victory, and has a great interest in local history.

The society showed it on their exhibition stand at the Rotherham Show weekend. family history events and Local History Week in the Library and Arts centre. It's now to be updated, but not too much, taking a shot of a member who'd died out and adding new views of the changed town centre. It was not part of the society's response to the cultural strategy making process, though the society did respond, through Stan Crowther who is their representative on the cultural policy forum (01709 364559). They engaged a professional script writer from Sheffield who has made successful videos in the cine club, based on an outline by a small group of members including Stan Crowther, the chairman and former MP for Rotherham. He spoke the voice over in his Yorkshire accent. The society was formed in 1968 and before that consisted largely of founders who were mostly paper members, some in their 80s (!) The video led to a 76% increase in members, from 60. The society also got £300 from Whitbread in the Community for a new leaflet, designed by the WEA for free. The following year, they got £4000 from the lottery for display stands and a laptop computer. If we want to go down this road, the sculptor John Thompson in Art Space makes videos, eg one about the finishing of Portsmouth Cathedral. It would be nice to have display stands and a laptop - for those interminable minutes! I have sent for the Awards for All application pack, and Sheila Cameron is sending a copy of the leaflet.

The Blandford Forum and District Society launched an architectural competition for the design of a new feature to replace the town's long-lost market cross. Could we do this for the Point - perhaps with help from the School of Architecture?

Martin Bacon also suggested that I speak to Kevin Grady, paid director of the Leeds Civic Trust. He has 50 to 60 committed volunteers out of 500+ members. They have lectures, 4 or 5 committees including a planning committee. They were left an endowment of shares which brings in £13,000 a year. Their income is £50,000 a year; the rest is generated in a variety of ways - up to £10,000 from publications such as the history of Leeds, heritage trails, Leeds Then and Now, a booklet about their 70 plaques; which reflect the Leeds Civic Trust's interests, plus generous sponsorship, so that many of their activities cost the trust only 25% of the actual cost. They have a publications group of 6, who find authors or write themselves. They have their books in shops, sold on a commercial basis. They have 70 corporate members paying £300 each, which brings in £25,000 in fees. They run events, which bring in an income £8,000. They have lunches at the Queen's Hotel which generates £5000. Kevin Grady works 4 days a week, plus two secretaries - graduates with IT skills - five mornings a week. They needed to have an office for the paid staff - a significant step to have their own building. They raised £130,000 for the building six/seven years ago. They spent £20,000 in raising the money. Kevin Grady has been director for 14 years, and raised the society's activities from a very low level of activity. He galvanised the organisation into activity, was paid a moderately low salary, starting at 2 and a half days a week — and has progressed to now being paid a reasonable salary for 4 days.

One of the key things is keeping close to business, which funds half the donations, if they think you're doing a good job. You need to build in confidence. An example is £10,000 from the Leeds Permanent. Money comes from being proactive. As above, they have got an investment legacy. The key was the trust employing Kevin, which meant they incurred financial losses for 2-3 years until increased activity brought in more income. When he started, they had no newsletter, one social event a year, the planning committee met every two months, as necessary... They started with a one room office on the edge of town, then two rooms in Joshua Tetley's brewery. If we want an office, we may find a firm willing to give one. They were given on the basis of a business plan, which was looking for business support. Tetley's advised them in various ways and gave them £5000 to rent an office - given rent free as help in kind.

They now have two Victorian cottages, and half the furniture they were given too. They got to know business through the Blue Plaque scheme which is sponsored. They also run lunches - for example, 7 partners/commercial managers in Leeds companies, which also offers the benefit of networking. They talk about the future of the city. The Trust wouldn't accept any money from the City Council. They have meetings with the Director of Planning and councillors, but retain their independence. They have a business plan they draw up each year, with a five year development programme for the trust, with targets for every activity eg getting a building, staff support. Leeds Civic Trust recently advised the Manchester Civic Society (which doesn't have premises) on how to get corporate members. If we want to go down this road, we need to attract legacies - via our charitable status? We were advised to put up our subs. to £10. What do you think? The members' talk forward in December gave us many ideas to take up.

We have felt for some time that we need to work more closely with the Portsmouth and South East Area Partnership with a strong base in local business. It has controlled the large SRB funds from which various areas such as Somerstown have benefited. At our request, they have set up a Cultural Initiatives Group, whose objective is to act as an independent forum promoting cultural initiatives, and purpose to consider new projects on behalf of partners, the Portsmouth Society and the Partnership. It offers three levels of engagement: initiating or direct involvement in the delivery of project, supporting others in the delivery of their programmes, and lobbying or policy statements. At the first meeting on 14 March, we proposed the Vulcan Building on Gunwharf as a cultural centre, which we hope will be a joint project with the Partnership and others such as SEEDA, and asked for support for Charles Burn's idea about a rail link through the dockyard to the ferry port.

The Civic Trust is at last getting a regional organisation together: Civic Trust South East (CTSE), now in its second year. Brian Horsley is the Treasurer. He says that it was promoted by the Civic Trust in order to respond effectively to government proposals at the regional level, so operational areas correspond to the Government Office regions. Membership of the committee is limited to two representatives from each of the nine counties, and it reviews government documents, attending seminars and meetings with officers and presenting the views of civic societies in general. Because of the region's diversity, a consensus may be difficult to achieve in all instances - for example on the South Downs National Park - which the Portsmouth Society with Friends of the Earth proposed to extend southwards towards our area, and the South Coast Multi-modal Study.

There was a recent GOSE forum on the anticipated Green Paper on new planning legislation. CTSE is represented on the South East Highways Environment Committee which reviews highway initiatives throughout the region. They are in discussions with the South East Forum for Sustainability and RAISE, two organisations through which community representatives are selected to be represented in the regional assembly. They hope to be represented on SEERA in due course. They have begun to assemble lists of experts in constituent civic societies to comment on documents and attend meetings.

If we want to volunteer, we can contact Merilyn Spier (merilyn.spier@which.net). Their next event is on 17 April at the Civic Trust in London, when the speaker will be Graham Steaggles of EH South East. We need to discuss this at the next EC. I believe Hampshire should have more than one representative, because it is so large.

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Thanks

As always, we owe an enormous amount to many people: to Roger James, our indefatigable secretary, who works for some parts of seven days a week, most of them for us! Betty Owen says she enjoys checking the planning applications, and John Holland makes our web site as well as our newsheet sparkle. Each member of the Executive Committee contributes invaluable expertise and time — nobody can say we do not do our homework before advocating a course of action. Most of all, I would like to thank you, the members for your continued support, and most of all for your attendance each month, giving us feedback and good ideas. Long may we continue!

Celia Clark, April 2002