The Portsmouth Society - News
| News | Replanning the Tricorn site | |
| Earlier news | We have been concerned at the lack of any plans for the redevelopment of the Tricorn site and we have written on the subject to Mike Hancock, MP for Portsmouth South. The letter is reproduced here : "The executive committee of the Society have asked me to write to you to instruct the planning department to ask for and to persuade Centros Miller to commission a master plan, in order to begin the process of public participation on what is to be built on the Tricorn site. As you have said, it is so important for the future of the city centre, that now is the time for open and transparent debate. In the four or five years that Centros Miller have owned it, we have waited and waited for their proposals to be made public, but although we know that there have been designs, they have never been publicly discussed. All we have had so far is that leaflet put out in November 2003." "We would like to suggest that now is the appropriate time for detailed public participation into a master plan, followed by a detailed design brief for the Tricorn site - before parties take up entrenched positions, before so much money and time has been committed to a particular scheme - for example before a huge new West-Quay-like or Kingston-like John Lewis has been designed to be plonked on to the site - so that all that is then left to the public is to say Yes or No - and No is too expensive and wasteful to allow improvements. We will write to Centros Miller making the same suggestion. We look forward to your support on this." "There are clear precedents, some of them local, for such a public consultation at this stage before there are detailed proposals for the site. In every case the quality of the subsequent scheme was enhanced by incorporating the public's suggestions, and entrenched opposition was avoided – which is why developers frequently pay for them. The replanning of Portsea, including the John Pounds Centre has benefited greatly from Planning for Real exercises. At Royal Clarence Yard Berkeley Homes paid John Thompson and Partners to organise a community planning event which guided the developers' plans for the site. At Caterham Barracks, at the instigation of a councillor, Linden Homes did the same. At Ashford Barracks a longer – and ultimately more rewarding process, Inquiry by Design - was organised by the Prince's Institute. Paul Grover, director of the new Solent Centre for Architecture and Design (02380 234830) may well be able to organise a Tricorn workshop in which the many interested parties can take part. His previous experience includes many such consultations. John Slater and I are advisors to the centre." "When we make these suggestions, we have in mind the recent success of the Winchester Trust over the central Bus Station, which has something in common with the Tricorn site. As you know, there is a pretty awful new shopping centre – the Brooks Centre – in the middle of Winchester, almost universally disliked, and now there is another large redevelopment site near it, the bus station. The Winchester Trust have persuaded the developer to fund a master plan - for which Allies and Morrison were selected from a suggested list. This examined the context and urban grain in great detail, and made recommendations on what should be built. The Winchester Trust are keen to recreate the grain and scale of the city centre as it used to be, before there was the craze for huge central shopping centres. " "This was in fact just what Paul Newbold was hoping to do in the Northern Quarter of Portsmouth. He said he wanted to avoid megastructures - like the Tricorn and West Quay, and instead have something more human scale. Is this still city council policy?" |