The Portsmouth Society - News
| News | The Tricorn - What Future? | |
| Earlier news | "The Tricorn is a Portsmouth eyesore. It failed almost from day one.
It cannot be refurbished and demolition of the building is due to start
in late spring 2004..." This claim is made in a consultation leaflet by Centros Miller. We say - "Rubbish!", and so do a large majority of our Executive Committee, and of those who attended our packed public meeting on November 5th where the principal designer, Rodney Gordon, spoke. A consultation leaflet is available from the City Planning Department and on the Web site www.northernquarter.info. No Plan! On 16 December Celia Clark, Roger James and Mick Morris were invited to a meeting with the developers as part of the consultation over the future of what they call the 'Northern Quarter', previously City Centre North, which includes the Tricorn. Present at the meeting were Lester Hampson of Centros Miller, the developers, Roger Wilson of Chapman Taylor, their architects, Steve Bryson of Halogen, the developers' agents and organisers of the public consultation, together with Paul Newbold and Barry Harmer of the City Planning Department. It contains a very misleading street plan of the Tricorn and Cascades area overlaid with a diagram showing proposed 'permeability' - pedestrian routes through the area. We pointed out three dishonest features: 1. the indication that there are pedestrian routes through the Cascades, although these are closed at 6 pm; 2. the two left hand permeability arrows lead you only to the MoD lorry park; and 3. it shows as closed the one most used north-south pedestrian route which is also a route for vehicles - Landport View - which leads to the pedestrian crossing, Sainsburys, the Gymnastics Centre and the Victory retail park. We had been expecting to see sketches and plans of what was now proposed; but there was nothing to discuss so make your comments known. Design Principles We were told that "the first role of the developer is to listen". Our meeting was one of twenty Centros Miller are holding with various groups including young people. They believe that they must demolish the Tricorn which, in their view, had done quite a bit of damage to Portsmouth. They had seven design principles which included Mixed Uses and Attractiveness - high quality design of buildings and spaces and distinctive identity. The Master Plan, which they kept asking whether we agreed with, was no more than an intention to provide, not just retail, but residential and commercial to 'recreate vitality'; but there wasn't a plan; so we refused to endorse it. As Mick Morris said afterwards it was like finding there were no girls when you'd been invited to judge a beauty competition! We asked what they had been doing in the four years since we last met Centros Miller; but got no sensible answer. We said we were pleased to know that there is to be an attempt to improve the context of St Agatha's; but when challenged as to how they proposed to remedy the original problem that the Tricorn is not integrated with the shopping in Commercial Road, their answer was not convincing. Demolition of the Tricorn would cost about £2.5 million and the properties to the north east of the Tricorn would have to be acquired, Market Way moved northwards up to Sainsburys. The developers were not concerned about the cost of demolition. This would be only 1% of a £200 + million development. We told them we did not accept that the Tricorn had to come down. All the uses they suggest could be put in the existing building, which has an infinitely flexible ground floor which could be accessed from above at any point from the reinforced lorry-bearing first floor, for the former vegetable wholesale market. We need to know how the new development is intended to relate to the other shopping centres. Is it in competition or is it to provide what is lacking in Commercial Road? Commercial Road is said to be losing trade, because of competition from Gunwharf, West Quay and Southsea. We need to see how the developers see its new role. In our letter to Centros Miller after the meeting we said that we thought the City Council and also to an extent the developers are abrogating their responsibility in not coming up with a concrete outline plan. It is you, we said, and the previous leaseholders who have kept this area, including the Tricorn, rundown and unproductive through all these years. You cannot design a new city area by asking people to tick boxes. You have to come up with a plan and then ask the public whether they like it or not.. |