SOME people will never be satisfied, but any reasonable person will acknowledge that the city council has bent over backwards to consult the public over the Central Winchester Regeneration; yes, that’s right, Silver Hill 2.

There have been meetings, roadshows, meetings and more roadshows. Nobody can claim that they have not had the chance to have their say.

This interaction is not to devise what will directly go on the area between Friarsgate and The Broadway. It is to mould the planning framework, the guidelines that developers will be expected to work within. Effectively we have returned to the stage in the first Silver Hill scheme of around 2003-04.

But before Winchester sinks into a collective coma, the signs are bright for the future. Changes have been made. It will be mixed-use with shops, homes, offices; The Antiques Market and Woolstaplers Hall will be retained; more than one architects firm will design the scheme to ensure variety; it will be developed ‘bit by bit’; heritage and culture will be important; the underground streams will be opened up.

This have been tested on economic grounds to ensure that they are viable.

A key factor is going to be getting parking out of the main area. The supposed need for space for cars was one of the main factors in making the scuppered scheme so tall.

But those with long memories will say that the original planning brief for Silver Hill 1 was also widely welcomed. Sorry to sound a note of caution. As the German general Helmuth von Moltke once said: ‘No plan survives contact with the enemy.’