Tuesday, 18 June 2013

Save The Parks in Abbotts Barton on Radio Solent this morning

Our Save The Parks campaign had a few minutes of air time on Radio Solent this morning at roughly 7:15am. The show is available to listen to on the BBC Radio website for seven days:

BBC Radio Solent - Julian Clegg 18/06/2013

We are on at about 40 minutes in and are also mentioned in the News 1 hour in afterwards.

Just a few points regarding what Andrew Palmer from Housing Delivery brings up:


He is mentioning that houses will be built on open spaces and some other land:
The council seems set on building houses on the open spaces FIRST, the other sites are listed for later. Why can't the open spaces wait for last so they can still be used? In the report it is mentioned that some of the houses in Abbotts Barton have very small gardens, patio sized (max. 25sqm if at all). The new affordable houses will also not have huge gardens. Does this not make it even more important to keep the green spaces as they are?

He is putting "Abbotts Barton in particular" in the focus of how much green space is available:
We disagree with that way of looking at it, as green space in ALL of Winchester is low and we don't see anything added anywhere. The main park in Abbotts Barton is used by many people from outside our neighbourhood.

He is saying that less than 15% of the main park will be used for housing:
On the rough plans for the appropriation process, the area looks much bigger (more like 30%), so it seems as if they are appropriating more than they might want to build on now, but another row of houses could be added easily at a later stage, shaving away bit by bit from the main park.

He is mentioning a new woodland area that would be made available:
As said before on this site, this is not trading like for like.

Another point he makes is that the Riverpark area is not far away:
Riverpark not the same kind of park, on the weekends there are often sports events going on, so the space there is not readily available all the time. In addition, you can't just go out there for a quick fifteen minutes of play before dinner. The Abbotts Barton park is the heart of the community and appreciated because it is close to where people live.

If you disagree with Andrew Palmer please contact him or a Councillor and let them know why!