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'Maritime City - Portsmouth 1945 - 2005'

Suttons Publishers have produced 'Maritime City - Portsmouth 1945 - 2005', the book of our millennium exhibition of photographs and text in St Agatha's church. Ray Riley edited the eight authors' updated text and laid out the illustrations. The book offers a fascinating record of the buildings and streets that have been lost forever by redevelopment, as well as positive aspects of the city today: our major continental ferry port, and HMS Vernon/Gunwharf - transformed into a major waterfront with retail, leisure and residential uses, with the soon to be opened Aspex Gallery in the Vulcan building. It is available at bookshops: WH Smith and Ottakers, price: £12.99. ISBN : 0-7509-4363-7.

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Council Reorganisation

The year has seen the completion of a wide-ranging and very expensive reorganisation of the higher management of the city council. Experienced chief officers have been replaced by a smaller number of overseers without specialist qualifications. The least one might have expected from this was better coordination between the working of different departments; but the reverse has been the case. In too many cases the object of a plan has been lost sight of and unintended consequences have smothered the original purpose.

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"Northern Quarter"

An example is the City Centre North development including the site of the Tricorn plus part of the northern section of Commercial Road, where plans for a new shopping centre have been allowed to be submerged in the accompanying road plans. This very large cleared area is a wonderful opportunity to create a spacious, dignified and well designed new quarter of the city centre. Unfortunately, with these proposals we were offered instead a hefty over over-development that does not give us the things people want. The public consultation expressed wishes for a variety of facilities: a public auditorium for exhibitions and concerts, a market, a pond with fountain, something for teenagers, a gym for children (of course there is one already - Pitt Street Baths - but the plan is to banish it to the Mountbatten Centre), open area: a park or a piazza, large covered market, a bus station, an IKEA store, an ice-skating rink. There was a suggestion to re-route the roads so that the Victory Retail Park, at present isolated, should be a real part of the shopping centre, an area of small trades like Brighton Lanes, but this was ignored. We objected to the application and made a deputation to the Committee. Our main points included the lack of any kind of cultural centre: there is nothing to draw people to the centre once the shops are shut; and the proposed destruction of the attractive park which at present forms the green setting for St Agatha's church - to be replaced by buildings hemming it in. Pitt Street Baths, the former Royal Naval School of Physical Training, now used as the regional centre for gymnastics, is to be demolished for the access road. We showed pictures of the marvellous green wedge that that enhances the approach to the city on the central reservation between the carriageway of Mile End Road and the trees surrounding the Church Street roundabout - all to be cleared, unintended consequences of an ill-thought through plan. Our voices went unheard: the outline application was approved by the Development Control Committee on 19th October 2005. At the same time a detailed transport plan for the area much bigger than the Tricorn site itself was approved. This permanent plan has dire environmental consequences and it was the main target of our objections and our deputation.

Local Transport Plan

The second Transport Plan, required by Government, a muddle of indecision is another example of where the detail has taken over the purpose. On 20 March the City Council agreed the Second Transport Plan. The main point of contention was what to do about the Monorail proposal. The officers wanted to leave it out, mainly because the funding arrangements were not solid enough; but some councillors as well as many of our members saw it as a potential saviour for the traffic problems of the western half of the city for the same reason as the Underground is essential to London.. Both are entirely independent of street traffic, unobstructed by it and undelayed by it, in a way that LRT is not. Two members spoke in favour of it as deputations to the full Council. In the end a compromise was agreed: to place the onus on the Monorail promoters to demonstrate within six months the viability of the proposed funding arrangements. The rest of the Plan is similarly indecisive.

Traffic gridlocks in Portsmouth

The complete absence of any central traffic planning was revealed by the three episodes of serious gridlock in the city, one in November 2004 and two in February 2005, where traffic over much of the city came to complete halt. We asked pointed questions about these, and extensive discussions between the police and the city council resulted in an inch thick report. We hope we can be assured that in the event of another similar incident matters would be dealt with more effectively.

Decaying Public Heritage

We have been much concerned over the year with publicly-owned buildings in dire need of repair. At a time when the country has never been richer, money is not being found to maintain our historic properties. Those at risk include Block Mills in the Dockyard, owned by the Ministry of Defence, Grade I because of its importance in the world history of technology, but also - disgracefully - top of English Heritage's list of buildings at Extreme Risk. Southsea Castle, which was briefly open after Christmas, but it has the seaward platform closed as 'dangerous' and buckets in the keep - both because the stonework joints have not been repaired. We have heard that the castle is to be offloaded to a charitable trust, and that there are plans to move the city museum to the dockyard - but have no details. Wymering Manor has a four year bill outstanding amounting to £197,000, which meant the common room and a large dormitory above have been closed to the Youth Hostel all that time. The Guildhall maintenance, which should be shared with the catering firm which occupies it, but this is not being done. Local government finance is being squeezed by the government, but the council has a 'duty of care' to its historic buildings.

We have several times pressed the Second Sea Lord and English Heritage to take urgent action on repairs to Block Mills, the site of a world first: the first steam powered mass production factory with metal machine tools making the hundreds of thousands of pulley blocks for ships' rigging and gun carriages needed by the army and navy by the beginning of the nineteenth century. The machines developed by the brilliant engineers Marc Brunel, Henry Maudeslay and Simon Goodrich formed a system which ran well for over a hundred and fifty years. Today pools of water stand in the main linking hall where parts of the overhead drive are still in situ. Beams supporting the timber flooring of the north block have rotted away to a pile of wet shreds, and the precious Maudslay machines upstairs have had to be covered with polythene sheet to protect them from leaks. Defence Estates commissioned a survey from a local architect; they talk of some funding becoming available, but we believe this is about future uses, not for urgent repairs. As part of the celebrations of Isambard Kingdom Brunel's birth, Block Mills is to be open to the public over a weekend in early April. Proposals for its future need to be opened up to public debate.

Wymering Manor

Wymering Manor is the oldest house in Portsmouth. It was mentioned in the Domesday Book. It is owned by the City Council, listed Grade II*. Up to now it has been leased to the Youth Hostels Association as a hostel. They gave up their lease on 31 March. The Portsmouth Society, Hampshire Buildings Preservation Trust, Friends of Old Wymering have joined forces to find a viable and appropriate use for the building. Ghost busters (the Manor has its own ghosts!), or parapsycological research and vampire weekends are already popular at the Manor. We hope that Portsmouth City Council can be persuaded not to dispose of such an important part of the history of our City to the highest bidder, but rather to the Hampshire Trust, perhaps in a back to back deal with a local developer.

Beneficial School, Portsea

The Beneficial School, listed Grade II*, is one of the earliest surviving friendly society buildings, built by the Beneficial Society in 1784 as a monitorial school for the poor and needy on the ground floor and an Assembly Room above. Over the years it has been used as a training workshop by the Beneficial Foundation and the Shaw Trust. On November 5 2004 a fire was started by a firework; the Shaw Trust members were locked inside. Shocked at this experience, they moved out; the fire badly damaged the roof. But the owners, Portsmouth City Council, had insured it, so they repaired and redecorated it. Representatives of the Hampshire Buildings Preservation Trust, the Portsmouth Society and the City's Asset Management Service agreed last year that residential conversion was the only way to secure the Beneficial's future - though this would mean filling the huge spaces on the first floor with structure, which would have to be elegantly done. There is room for new-build in Curzon Howe Road and on the Kent Street frontage. Although the site is being marketed, we have not yet heard that it has been sold.

Other historic buildings

The congregation of St. Jude's Southsea are raising funds to move the church upstairs, making space for community uses below. A glass foyer facing Palmerston Road will be complemented by new landscaping in the precinct. The Society is applying to list Knight and Lee department store in Southsea. John Lewis are to build a new shop in the Northern Quarter. Earliest features from Buckingham House, the ancient and fragile building in the High Street may date from 1450. Planning permission for conversion to a hotel with Felton House next door has just been applied for.

Archaeology

We and English Heritage are deeply concerned about the reduction in the level of expert archaeological advice being given to Portsmouth City Council planning department since the departure last year of the City Archaeologist Jenny Stevens. Archaeology is a material condition of the planning process as set out in Planning Policy Guidance Note 16 - Archaeology and Planning. Given the level of development and redevelopment in the city at the moment we are concerned that the duty of the city council towards archaeology and built heritage is not being fully met and that archaeology and historic buildings may be being needlessly destroyed without adequate provision for excavation and recording. There is a lack of archaeological advice at the moment, both in terms of land-based development and intertidal and maritime archaeology in Portsmouth and Langstone harbours. Large and important sites, such as the former Brickwoods Brewery / Heritage car park in Queen Street are not being monitored, and it is uncertain as to whether there was a watching brief or recording condition in place when the remains of the King's Mill at Gunwharf Quays were destroyed in the current redevelopment. In addition to archaeological development control advice, the city Sites and Monuments Record (SMR) is also not currently being adequately maintained, something that is also of concern to the Portsmouth Society and to English Heritage. The SMR is the primary record of the known archaeology and historic buildings in the city and should form the basis for all future research. If information is not entered onto the SMR then important information on the development and heritage of Portsmouth could be lost forever. It is imperative, then, that the SMR is maintained properly, especially as it is likely to become a statutory requirement if the changes in heritage protection currently being discussed at national government level come into force. Temporary part-time archaeological advice is currently being "bought-in" from a Southampton based archaeological contractor. This situation is far from ideal and contravenes accepted professional best-practice that development control advice should not be undertaken by a commercial contractor as this may lead to a conflict of commercial interest. We have asked Steve Baily to address these concerns, and reassure us that the appropriate levels of archaeological advice will soon be reinstated.

Portsmouth University Restoration and Decorative Studies Course

Since 1989 if you wanted to learn gilding, specialist plasterwork, woodcarving, woodgraining, marble finishes, scagliola... there has been a course in Portsmouth where you could do it. Currently based in the Omega Centre in Somerstown, and now an HND or degree in Restoration and Decorative Studies, it is probably unique in the whole country. Past students worked on the restoration of Uppark, Windsor Castle, Cardiff Castle... they taught gilding to the Vietnamese, designed stained glass for Manchester Football Club, conserved and restored St. Agatha's church and its collection, brought Emmanuel Emmanuel's lovely cast iron angel in Canoe Lake back to life, gilded the dress circle of the Theatre Royal. Yet the university proposes to close the course, amalgamating it with 3D Design. The Vice Chancellor says that the closure is justified in terms of low student recruitment and high cost: £2000 to £3000 more per student than others in the Art, Design and Media faculty, though he produces no proof of this. Yet English Heritage and the Construction Industry Training Board have reported a national and regional shortage of heritage building craft skills and highlighted many vacancies for gilders, woodcarvers and fibrous plasterers in the south east. Connections need to be made, but are not being. The News did not help by sitting on the story for months. Good news is that a new MSc. in Building Conservation has started here.

A sustainable future for Fraser Battery?

QinetiQ, a privatised part of the MOD, the new owners of Fraser Battery, had a welcome open weekend in April when local people had a chance to explore this special part of Portsmouth's coastline and consider its future. Its history including fortification, a naval test battery firing missiles out to sea, and research base is still apparent. QinetiQ's scheme is to clear the site - of the two masts, office/laboratory building, sheds, perhaps keeping one gun emplacement or two, and redevelop it as three blocks of flats from seven stories down to four. The Society said that the redevelopment should not obliterate the site's history, but celebrate it, retaining some of these features in future plans for the site, rather than clearing it to a 'blank sheet'. Sustainable features should have been built in to the outline planning application. Fraser Battery offers a unique opportunity for a demonstration project for a sustainable village community. There is also an ideal opportunity for opening up the main entrance to Fort Cumberland. QinetiQ were talking to English Heritage about this, though there are no plans to do so. We asked Dr. Lomas, the new Strategic Director for Planning and Transport, for Fraser Battery to be the first area in Portsmouth for a Local Planning Framework, for which the council is now committed in its new Draft Statement of Community Involvement issued by Planning Services in March 2005. The planning department granted outline permission, and stipulated a limit of 131 apartments, 25% of them social housing. Where will the residents work, shop, go to school? As probably the most remote site in Portsmouth, a standard development - like so many in Portsmouth - would be an utter waste for this wonderful opportunity.

Architecture Week Bus Tour 18 June

The society's contribution to Architecture Week 2005 was an interactive tour of Portsmouth by historic double-decker bus to discuss buildings that have featured in the Portsmouth Society's annual Design Competition, to help public build confidence in assessing quality of design. Not all our decisions are popular. There was open debate as the bus travelled through to Admiral Lord Nelson School to see the spectacular foyer, the controversial (but elegant) waste incinerator which subsequently won our 2005 Best New Building award, and its neighbour, the Materials Recycling Facility by the same French architect. Back to the City Centre via the Charles Dickens Community Centre in Lake Road, the Tricorn site - now a car park, past University buildings including the Students' Union, Frewen Library and School of Architecture. Finally we discussed the award winning flats and houses in Broad Street Old Portsmouth. We were delighted that some city councillors came on the trip. Another tour, to design awards is planned this year.

South East Plan

The Society has been active in the consultation on the draft of the South East Plan, an awkward crescent-shaped area stretching from Milton Keynes in the north through Oxford and Reading down to Southampton and then along the Sussex and Kent coast to the Thames estuary - an area embracing but not including London. The draft is a document half an inch thick containing very few positive proposals. A separate section on the South Hampshire Sub-region says it is 'punching below its weight' economically, an imprecise metaphor whose use we criticised. It implies that South Hampshire's economic output is less than it should be. Is it sensible to aim to bring all subregions up to the regional average, we asked, seeing that the region is the most prosperous in the country? The plan seems to take no cognisance of the role played by Government spending on which, in many cases, local prosperity depends. In our area it is particularly the Ministry of Defence which is the big spender and supporter of local economies - and its role is rapidly diminishing as sites are sold off and redeveloped. The Plan needs to take into account particularly MOD sites in the area which are mostly underused and in some cases redundant: a useful source of brownfield land. But even though they were places of employment, too many have been redeveloped for private housing. The plan should make their reuse for employment a priority. We commented on the transport aspect of the Plan: the essentials are to set up a Local Transport Authority/ Executive on the London model, to arrange bus-train interchange and pre-payment to avoid bus queues, the completion of the Eastleigh railway chord, and alternatives to the congested A32 which are essential to the local economy and environment.

Concrete Threat to Front Gardens

Macro-scale to microscale; front gardens "used to be the preserve of proud gardeners clipping rose bushes, but now they are more likely to be home to a man armed with chamois leather polishing a four-by-four" according to a Camden newspaper. The loss of front gardens to off road parking - where there is room in Portsmouth's narrow streets - continues apace - but should this be allowed to happen? The introduction of controlled parking zones has increased the number of households converting their front gardens into off-street parking spaces, but they overlook two important factors: the pavement belongs to the local authority, and on-street parking is lost as a result. There is nothing to stop this erosion of an important interface between the public and the private realm, which comes under the category of permitted development, even in conservation areas. Should Portsmouth bring in guidance - or controls such as Article 4 Directions? Front gardens can be green oases - for passers-by as well as residents. Walking along pavements becomes dodgy if we have to look out for cars crossing across our path. Are our vehicles now such important possessions that we must lose our forecourts - as well as putting our houses' foundations at risk by concreting over more soil so the rain cannot run into the earth?

Portsmouth Society Design Awards 2005

This year we gave five awards and four commendations - a record! VT Shipbuilding's enormous ship assembly sheds impressed us by their sheer scale and the dramatic processes going on inside. Although the Society had been opposed to the building of the incinerator in Quartermaine Road, we none the less decided to give it a Best New Building award for its elegant design and materials by the same French architect, Jean-Robert Mazaud, designer of its award winning neighbour, the Materials Recycling Facility. The other new building winner was the new beautiful and tranquil classroom block at Waterside School, Tipner Lane, built by Norman Wright and designed by Daniel Brunt of the City Architects department, also responsible for last year's winner: the Charles Dickens Community Centre. Unfortunately he has now left the department. The judges, were Tom Dyckhoff, architectural correspondent of The Times, Paul Grover, chief executive of the Solent Centre for Architecture and Design, Celia Clark and Roger James, were delighted that the city council leads the way with excellent designs, especially in providing for disabled and disadvantaged children. The navy's Fleet Headquarters, the Henry Leach Building designed after our intervention last year by Winchester firm, architecture plb, was commended in the Best New Building category. It has two faces: grey corrugated steel facing the dockyard and terracotta facing the harbour. A huge orange funnel containing the stairs and lifts dramatises the interior. It is a welcome addition to the city's fine architecture. The judges were also interested to see Highbury College Northarbour Centre on Southampton Road where 12 schools of construction have been fitted inside an external shell. They enjoyed The Willows Special needs Nursery School, Battenburg Avenue also by City architects: Charles Creed, Tracey Parker and Stefan Jakobek, with its special colour coding for little children to find their way around the building and enjoyable sound room. Included in the buildings judged were two buildings in the grounds of St. James's Hospital. We were unfavourably impressed by the John Pounds Health Centre, part of the large scale rebuilding of the community centre in Portsea. The designers had failed to learn the right lessons from the city's first generation of health centres.

In the Best Landscaping category, there were also two winners: the dramatic Inside/Outside Playground, Marsden Road Paulsgrove for 5 to 13 year olds designed by Clark Barton and Andrew Malbon, Team Leader at Portsmouth City Architects, with its wonderfully inviting play equipment chosen by Wendy Brookfield, Manager of the Play Service. Grants from Sport England and other sources financed a really innovative playspace, which has its building buried like a ship with two bright funnel/skylights poking through the green roof, with lovely curved spaces inside and niches for gossiping. All the judges wanted to have a go on the tall slides! We also visited Arundel Street landscaping, commended by parent body, the Civic Trust last year, and the Moat Bridge to Spur Redoubt in Old Portsmouth. The other Best Landscaping winner was the beautiful mature Porter's Garden in the Dockyard Heritage Area, created by volunteers for Portsmouth Naval Base Property Trust. The Friends commissioned the three stone seats reflecting the profiles of the three preserved ships. They were awarded a grant from the Onyx Trust under the Landfill Tax Credit scheme which paid for the transport of the granite blocks and the sculptor, Roger Stephens's fees.

The unrivalled winner of the Best Restoration award was the New Theatre Royal, Guildhall Walk: clever internal reordering has given it a new life, enabling the staging of an attractive programme. Architects Burrell Boley Fisher added a new bar in the stalls, levelled the floor, put in a much wider and higher stage with new entrances via the boxes, and brought the Upper Circle back into use for the first time for many years. There are still substantial improvements to come, but the Society is delighted to see the director Mark Courtice and his staff build up new audiences. The theatre buzzes with life in a way it has not done for many years. Unusually, there were also three Best Restoration Commendations: the 1850s Iron Foundry in HM Naval Base converted into two floors of offices by FSL Facilities Ltd. and contractor Ralls Group for BAE Systems. Local builders Steve Langton and Simon Smith won a Commendation for the high quality of their work in restoring - and in places, rebuilding No. 41 Kent Road, Southsea (a Thomas Ellis Owen house). The proprietors of the Florence House Hotel, Steve and Vicky Sutton, at 2 Malvern Road Southsea were also commended for their creation of a elegant boutique hotel in what had been a shabby bed and breakfast. We also looked at Portsmouth Grammar School's new library and Ken Woolas laboratory, designed by Hampshire County Architects' Department.

New buildings in Old Portsmouth

Portsmouth Point and the bus depot site in Broad Street have a history of rejected planning applications, for two apparently opposed reasons. We like modern design, and the residents are said to prefer pastiche. We are discussing how to introduce residents of Old Portsmouth who don't like the Panter Hudspith scheme to modern design by a small exhibition of excellence in new waterfronts with the Solent Centre for Architecture and Design.

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Endpiece quotation

From Lynne Hodsdon's History of the Portsmouth Society, University of Portsmouth

"Having always maintained its independence from the local power groups the Society is best described as a "ginger-group". It stimulates discussion through the investigation of wider implications and alternative strategies. It can prevent the planning process being a dialogue between planners and developers. It seeks to change things for the better and get the best out of any changes. It never stops bothering about the decisions being taken now which will affect lives now and in the future."

Words of thanks

I would particularly like to thank Gill Norman for her long service on the executive committee. Its members continue to enjoy lively debates, and its expertise is unrivalled. A special vote of thanks is due to Roger James, our tireless secretary, to John Holland who makes the website and newssheet centres of excellence, and to Jean Thompson, our treasurer who looks after our tiny nest egg with diligence!

Celia Clark