Councillors must care about our city (From Hampshire Chronicle)

Councillors must care about our city

4:01pm Wednesday 1st July 2009

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Sir — I was interested in your front-page article on the threat to Winchester’s architectural heritage and on Michael Le Brocq’s comments on the failure of politicians and planners to listen to their electorate.

I was on Winchester City Council when the plans for the Brooks scheme were approved. The council started well: it threw the design open to competition and engaged the public in a consultation process whereby the three short-listed proposals were presented with excellent, detailed models and illustrations.

As we left the exhibition, we were invited to vote for our preferred developer. The result was an overwhelming majority for Scheme A. Scheme C came third. The council voted overwhelmingly for Scheme C. Why? Two reasons: first, Scheme C’s developer offered the best deal in terms of finance and community benefits (although not all its promises were delivered: where is the social housing originally planned?) Secondly, the advice we received from the professionals — architects, planners, “qualified” people — was that Scheme C was “the design for the ’Nineties, creative and exciting”.

Scheme A, on the other hand, was condescendingly called “derivative”. In other words, it looked like it had been done before. There was a comfortable resemblance between its traditional contours, the materials to be used and the Winchester we know and love and which brought many of us to live here in the first place.

Our professionals failed to recognise that almost all the buildings the public love and go miles to visit are derivative and were when built. So “creative and exciting” took precedence over “loved and beautiful”.

We need, more than ever, councillors who care about our city and have the courage to stand up and be counted, not only in defence of what we have, but in insisting that new developments live up to the standards set by those who, over a thousand years, have made Winchester memorable to visit and a delight to live in.

Ron Owen, Cheriton Road, Winchester.

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