The Society made a number of objections at various stages of the Local Plan. We had the opportunity of presenting those that had not been resolved by agreement to the public inquiry which ran at the Guildhall through several months earlier in the year. The following is a selection from our objections and suggestions for new policies with some comments to make them intelligible. Until the inspector publishes his report, we shall not know to what extent we have been successful.

Dockyard Circular Road

We object to the deletion from the plan of "use of the Dockyard Circular Road as public highway" [This was an item in an earlier stage of the plan but later withdrawn]. The use of the Circular Road would greatly relieve the pressure on roads giving access to the city centre.

Pitt Street Gymnastics Centre

We propose that the item "Gymnastics Centre" be omitted from policy HS1 and CD1. We think it should remain the city centre, for three reasons

Expense. It would be an unnecesary expense to remove it and rebuild a new centre at the Mountbatten.

This is a building of architectural merit, an 'art nouveau' building of 1910, built as the Royal Navy School of Physical Training. There are few good buildings of this period remaining in the city. Originally it contained a gymnasium and a swimming pool. The swimming pool has now been converted to an auxiliary gymnasium. The building is in need of repair and enlargement - for which there is plenty of adjoining space

Accessibility. The present centre, being in the City Centre, is easily accessed by bus and train and (soon) by LRT and there is adequate car parking in the neighbourhood especially in the evening when it is most used. The Mountbatten is admittedly on a few bus routes but its cross-city accessibility is poor.

IOW Car Ferry

We believe that the Plan should make provision for the eventual relocation of the Isle of Wight car ferry from the Camber to the Continental Ferry Port, the commercial docks or the Dockyard. We consider that this is a desirable long-term aim, mainly because it would remove from the city's traffic system a considerable number of vehicles.

The congestion they cause has been exacerbated recently by the introduction of the St Clare, a new, much larger, ferry. At times this discharges about 200 vehicles in one unbroken stream. Relocation to the Rudmore area would also make the ferry more accessible for the majority of vehicles which come from outside the city. Their journey would be shorter and they would no longer have to negotiate the many obstacles to traffic flow within the city. [In the short term we are advocating the re-routing of this traffic via Park Road]

Cosham Railway Station

Objection No.197/21 concerns policies CS6 and CS7 and under-use of Cosham railway station. We think these policies are inadequate in view of the importance of the area for public transport. We propose a new policy to be added to CS6 as (vi) as follows:

"The city council will support and encourage the development of rail and connections to other modes of public transport at Cosham station with the aim of making it a major station to rank with the three others in the city and encouraging its use. A multi-storey car park might be needed and the Roebuck Close site (see CS7) would be supported for this purpose. Railway-owned land to the east of the station will be preserved for railway use"

Cosham is the second highest ward for employment in Portsmouth. 11,580 people commute to the ward each day, some two-thirds from outside the city. Developments at North Harbour and the Johnson & Johnson site will increase that number. There is severe traffic congestion at peak times. Yet many inter-urban rail services do not stop at Cosham station, e.g. the hourly South West Trains services between Brighton and Reading and Basingstoke, the 2 or 3 services a day between Brighton and Bristol. Indeed these particular services do not stop at any station within the city boundary. The city council will urge the companies concerned to remedy this situation and support the provision of supporting transport facilities in the vicinity.

Permeability

Because of its history the southern part of the city is filled with barriers. Proposals for breaching these will be supported, even if they are listed or ancient monuments.. They are the Dockyard Wall, Gunwharf wall, Winston Churchill Avenue and its 'toblerone' anti-pedestrian barrier, Anglesea Road; all are added to the irremovable barrier of the railway cutting and embankment. All tend to isolate the city centre, the dockyard, Gunwharf Quays, Southsea and Portsea. Breach of the Dockyard Wall at Bonfire Corner would bring the fine houses of the Dockyard and its church into the city and this would help to mitigate the one-class ghetto character of Portsea and prevent a well-to-do ghetto from developing in Gunwharf Quays. In this inquiry it has already emerged that English Heritage suggested breach of Gunwharf wall in connection with the monorail

Empty upper floors

The Portsmouth Society objection concerning the use of empty upper floors. A plan is needed to prevent permission being given for what has happened, for example with the Isambard Brunel public house on the corner of Guildhall Square south of the Guildhall itself. Here a substantial three-storey building, formerly gas offices and showrooms, has been redeveloped to provide a public house using virtually only the ground floor. This not only wastes valuable space, it also reduces security through the premises being likely to be unoccupied at night, and increases the risk of undetected material damage. If nobody needs to go into the upper floors, nobody will notice that the roof is leaking.

Suggest addition to SP2 : When re-use is proposed of a multi-storey building, the approved plans must include use of the upper storeys
Objection No.197/24 concerning policy for residential conversion of upper floors, e.g. over a shop, policy DC35a.

We suggest the addition of the following sentence at the end of Policy DC35a: "Such residential accommodation on upper floors must be provided with a front entrance on to the street".

Millennium Walkway

As part of the Millennium Harbour Renaissance scheme a walkway was to be provided right round Portsmouth Harbour on both the Portsmouth and Gosport sides. This has not been completed. We believe that a pedestrian link between the Camber and Gunwharf Quays is needed to complete the circuit.

We propose a new policy:

"It is the intention of the city council to ensure that a pedestrian link is provided between the Camber and Gunwharf quays, preferably by way of an opening pedestrian bridge over the outer Camber near the Bridge Tavern. The link will include an opening in the wall between the Isle of Wight Car Ferry car park and Gunwharf Quays".

City Scale Buildings

We consider that the policy is inadequate to prevent buildings of insufficient scale from being erected in centres. There needs to be added to the policy:

"New buildings in sub-regional centres shall be of at least three storeys."

This is necessary to avoid such disasters as Victory Retail Park where a number of single-storey retail sheds have been erected, wasting valuable city-centre land. Other examples are ASDA and Fratton Goods Yard. Clearly the planners don't feel able to resist. That's why we need a policy to back them up. Sainsburys, a single storey store on what was a multi-storey hospital site in the city centre, is another example from an earlier decade

Southsea-Gunwharf transport link

We consider that Southsea shopping centre should be served, as is proposed for Gunwharf, by a dedicated bus service or VLRS monorail. Not to do so would be contrary to the City Council's policy that Gunwharf Quays should not be allowed to compete unfairly with Southsea. If, as we hope, a monorail is built, the substitution of a dedicated bus shuttle bus service for Southsea will in no way compensate for the loss of the monorail.

Accordingly we propose that policy SP7 be amended to include Southsea shopping centre in the list of places to be served either by VRLS monorail or dedicated bus service.

R.J.