SIR: What a rum saga is unfolding at River Park, over Cllr Learney’s desire to hand the site to the University of Southampton.

There is a neat, almost total, coincidence: the petition for a lido at River Park, as presented to WCC on January 12 had 3,156 signatures. An international petition in 2008 to object to the closure of the Textile Conservation Centre at Winchester School of Art by the University of Southampton had 3,275 signatures. Southampton University ignored that, just as WCC has ignored the lido petition, and finally the Centre was rescued by Glasgow University. That snippet of information comes from the website of the International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works.

READ MORE HERE: Civic chiefs rescind proposal to transfer River Park Leisure Centre in Winchester

A response on the webpage notes that before the TTC was founded after the Second World War, tapestry conservation was a task offered to widows of museum staff instead of a pension. A writer from the Danish Society for Textile History asks, is this the level the UK wishes to return to?

Textile conservation may be a topic that doesn’t interest vast numbers of people, but so is modern art, or indeed the high-level scientific studies undertaken at Southampton University. But it’s worth mentioning here because a centre of national or international importance is one of the offers made by Southampton to secure the River Park site. And yet the one they genuinely had, they destroyed.

SEE ALSO: 'Hands off River Park' in Winchester call to university

In his letter in this paper on January 6, John Lauwerys says he finds it "surprising that anyone would discourage Winchester from welcoming a proposal from a world-class, research-led university”. He doesn’t say that he was the Secretary and Registrar of that university. He seems to confuse the university with a philanthropic institution, and says they are not commercial bodies. It’s hard to believe he hasn’t noticed what has happened in the university world since the introduction of fees, and cut-throat competition. I hope by now he’s found out that not everyone is as dazzled by a Russell Group university as WCC apparently is.

Judith Martin,

Romsey Road,

Winchester

 

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