A look at the scrubland at Hillier Way - consultation upcoming!

A happy new year to everybody!

Last week at the local councillor's surgery I heard that the city council was planning to hold another consultation event regarding the scrubland at Hillier Road. According to info I received from the Scouts since then, this event will be on Saturday 25 February. The council should soon send a leaflet to residents with the consultation details, just as it did with other events in the area.

Over the last weeks, the city council has been busy with clearing the area as it was completely overgrown with brambles and almost inaccessible.

This morning I went there and had a look, here are some photos (click on them to enlarge):

I came in via the car park at Hillier Road and looked towards the
air cadet's building. This area is the land which could house the Scouts.

I made my way onto one of the elevated areas
(which seem to form a border around the terrain nearer the 'hole in the wall')
to get a better look at the cleared area behind the car park.

Here again is the area between the car park and the air cadet hut.

I turned around and moved on beyond the elevated border
and found a spade and some pliers.

I made my way through the area behind the border and arrived
at the other end near the 'hole in the wall' in Abbotts Barton and
turned back to take this photo.

Somebody dug some steps into the border a while ago.
Here as seen from the entrance near the 'hole in the wall'.

The consultation presentation should bring some clarity about what the city council wants to do in terms of landscaping and also how much land exactly could be going to the Scouts and how much should be available to the public.

What has been going on in 2016?

Hello, it's been a while since this blog has been used and it's time for a check-in.

First of all, the proposed changes to how the land is used in Abbotts Barton (and in Winchester in general) are part of the Local Plan Part 2 as submitted to the government inspector earlier this year. The inspector created a report which now needs to be adopted and therefore is under consultation. You can leave comments at the online WCC consultation on the proposed modifications of Local Plan Part 2 - which closes "no later than noon on 12 December 2016"! Comments can also be sent by email to ldf@winchester.gov.uk. This has all been communicated via the Parish Connect Newsletters and there is also a Local Plan eNewsletter that you can subscribe to.

As was planned by the City Council, Houses are currently being built at Hillier Road which will provide 13 new dwellings. The photo shows the info displayed on site. More information can be found on the New Council Housing - Abbotts Barton and On Site Schemes pages and on the Application Summary page on the WCC website.

This loss of open land to the community has prompted WCC to look again at the scrubland behind the car park at the bottom of Hillier Road (also know as the Cadet Site), opposite the football club. It seemed originally that nobody was interested in doing anything with this land after the Council declined to use this area for new houses (see the Planning Report on the Scrubland at Hillier Way, May 2013 on the Council website). However, this year there were negotiations between the Council, the Scouts and the Abbotts Barton Commuity Group as to how it should be used going forward. The idea is that the Scouts get a portion of it that they can fence off (for safe-guarding reasons) and erect a building on for a local Scout group. The rest would then be opened up for the general public, with a part being looked after by Hampshire Wildlife Trust and the WCC Landscaping Team to become an area for walking and enjoying nature, and another to be an open grassy area (see also the Abbotts Barton Community Group August 2016 Update). There were some further public consultations promised but later cancelled.

As for the Dyson Drive green, the Village Green Application has not been decided on yet. It is still 'under investigation' according to this Hampshire County Council table from August 2016:

Most importantly, no new plans to build on the main Chaundler Road parkland (apart from at the bottom of Charles Close) have surfaced. The main park is actually well used these days, probably better than it ever was before the City Council shocked the community with its house building plans: just this week students were there for almost every day during the daytime to practice land surveying; on the weekends and lighter evenings there are often exercisers and football players; and in the summer monthly community picnics were taking place.

That's seems to be it for 2016. Have a good transition into 2017 whatever your plans are and thank you for your support!

Local Plan 2 exhibition for Winchester town

This afternoon I went to the exhibition about the Local Plan 2 and had a quick look around. If you can't make it there, all the exhibition boards (and a comment form) can be found on the City Council's website. Once there, click on "Draft Local Plan Exhibition Boards". The PDF document contains more than just the Winchester town boards, so after the initial general ones you can find the ones particular to Winchester town almost all the way at the end.

After listening to a conversation about the town boundary (blue line) and the fact that building rules are quite different for the area considered as countryside and how the City Council wants to protect it, I asked why the City Council is planning to build outside the town boundary, pointing to the area in the park at the end of Charles Close (see red circle on map) and was told that must be an exception to the rules. There was no more information available. After closer inspection of the map in the PDF file just now, zooming in a lot, it actually looks like the town boundary would just about allow a few houses at the end of Charles Close but it's a tight fit. Still this doesn't explain why the Council has stepped away from the Council Leader's statement made last year. When I asked about that I was told that this would be a question for the housing people. After that I gave up and decided to have another very good look at the planning documents online and then write down my comments for the Council. Consultation end time is 5 December 12 midday.

News about council house development plans for Abbotts Barton

Have you seen the latest post about the Local Development Framework part 2 briefing on the Abbotts Barton Community Group website? Please read: Abbotts Barton housing development plans almost back to square one!

It seems the Council Leader's announcement from 11 September 2013 is worth nothing after only one year: "Councillor Wood stated that when more funds became available from 2016 onwards, schemes in Westman Road, Weeke; Wilberforce Close and Somers Close, Stanmore; and Hillier Way and two garage sites at Chaundlers Road and Hussey Close, Abbotts Barton would be developed. He stated that there were no plans to develop Dyson Drive or Charles Close in Abbotts Barton in the foreseeable future."

It is good news that the main stretch along Charles Close seems to have been removed from new development plans as the community made it very clear that it would not like houses there at all. And WCC promised in today's press release that "plans also feature improved open space, recreation and community facilities, possibly including a new community building on waste land at the bottom of Hillier Way."

The land surrounding the Symonds Court buildings at Hillier Way is still the priority number one for the Council to build on.

However, instead of the two garage sites there is talk again about building on Dyson Drive green (despite a yet to be decided village green application) and (at least only) at the very end of Charles Close. Colbourne Court has been dismissed due to problems with ownership, and the garage sites have been described as too difficult to deal with. While all of us can have different opinions on whether there should be houses on any of these areas, it is undeniable that there seems to be something like a U-turn here!

There will be a consultation stage again - we are hoping that Abbotts Barton's residents will attend in even bigger numbers this time and use this opportunity again to have their say!

The Leisure Centre project - have you responded to the council?

Time is running out to respond to the council on the Leisure Centre project consultation, the deadline is midnight on Monday 2 December.

Did you go to the open meeting organised by the Save the Rec group last Monday? If so, you will know that people who attended agreed that the best answer would be to tell the council that none of the presented options is acceptable, due to lack of information presented with them.

Whatever your opinion is, please let the council know:

Leisure Centre project online with link to online survey

Here are some recent reports:

Hampshire Chronicle: Winchester meeting hears leisure centre options withheld from public consultation
Winchester Today: Winchester RPLC plans “like GCSE project”
WINOL (video): Hundreds gather for 'Save the Rec' meeting
Abbotts Barton Community Group blog: The council's Leisure Centre consultation and the Save the Rec meeting

And of course the Save the Rec website.

What can YOU do to save the parks?

It is nice to have a group of people who run a campaign to save a park. It is also great that we got more than 500 signatures on our petition. We've been on the radio and in the papers. We have been to council meetings and had speakers on our behalf there.

However, Winchester City Council is not interested in what we are saying and some questions have never received answers - as apparently to them it seems like a campaign by just a few people.

So, this is where everybody who has an opinion on losing the parks in Abbotts Barton comes in, that includes YOU! We simply cannot keep going without more people having their say individually!

The good news is, that it is actually quite easy to have your say!

You don't need to call anybody or speak at a council meeting, you don't need to be on the radio or in the papers. All it takes is a short letter or an email to some or all of the people we have listed on our Action! tab. There is no need to worry about your writing skills or whether it needs to be very formal. All you need to do is to write something that lets the councillors at Winchester City Council know what you think about their plans. If you could include that you 'object' to some or all of their plans, they have to take it into consideration. To help you along we have compiled a list of items that you may use and change as you see fit. Use as many as you like and if you find other good reasons please add them to your message too!

You could also let US know what other reasons for objection you have given to the Council, and we would also be very grateful to receive a copy of your letter if you are happy with letting us have it. Our contact details can be found via the Contact page.

Here is an example letter:

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am writing to object to the building of houses on parts of the main park in Abbotts Barton and the land at Dyson Drive as outlined on your website
http://www.winchester.gov.uk/housing/new-affordable-housing/abbotts-barton/

The reason(s) for my objection is/are
[insert your reason(s) here]

Regards,
[Your name and full address]

You might not like (in no particular order):

• that the councillors have decided to start building on the empty green spaces ('greenfield sites') at Dyson Drive and Charles Close/Chaundler Road better known as THE PARK, instead of investigating further into the available 'brownfield sites' (like the garage areas). The green spaces were recommended for appropriation at the last Housing Delivery Committee meeting of 22 May.
  (The land at Hillier Way is also part of that plan but this group does not object to that site for new houses. Of course you can do that as an individual!)
  If money should run out on this project, we might never see any houses and/or new parking and storage facilities on the garage sites as promised - but we will have lost a big chunk of parkland


• that the plans for appropriation include about a third of the main park which would allow for more buildings at a later time. (We have been told that the row of houses planned along Charles Close would be all that's going to be built - so under no circumstances would we like this area to be extended, which could be done easily once the land has been appropriated.)


• that there are no tree preservation orders on the big (and small) trees in the park. This means they can be removed if councillors decided to build more houses there in the future.


• that the councillors are reducing the amount of play area available for the whole of Winchester and not just Abbotts Barton by building on our parks without really giving anything back that makes up for the loss. Once it is gone, it will be gone forever and Winchester is already low on the amount of space it should provide for sports and play according to its Open Space Strategy. On top of everything else this Strategy is just undergoing a change that sees numbers for land to be held available for sports and play even more reduced - see WCC meeting notes from 26 June).


• that the councillors want to build on the main park and in exchange offer the land around the cadet hut as a new green area. As pointed out before by the Save The Parks Group this is not trading like for like as the park is an ideal area for unstructured and safe play that can easily be overseen, whereas the 'cadet site' is not suitable for activities like this (and was given up in the past once before because anti-social behaviour problems). The latest maps by WCC have shown plans for an extension to the existing fenced in play area, but this is not really needed when you have the big park to play.


• that there are not many play spaces for 'older children' to start with in the north of Winchester, reducing the size of our well overlooked park could contribute to more anti-social behaviour as it drives young people away.


• that it was expressed in a council meeting that the big park is mainly a dog walking area - this is certainly not the case! It is used by many different people for many different purposes (e.g. ball and other games, sun bathing, picnics, sledging, community events, children's birthday parties, animal watching, etc.). A lot of these activities would and could not be done in the land behind the Cadet hut.


• that with no road or other natural border around any new houses on the park, people will have to keep some distance from the new buildings when playing, so this means we will effectively lose a third of the big park if the councillors go ahead with their plans of building houses along Charles Close.


• that the map 'dotting' process at the consultation event was not a proper democratic means of getting an opinion as some people were using a lot more dots than they were supposed to do and nobody was supervising this. On top of that the yellow dots were later interpreted as people showing support for certain sites - but at the event we were told the yellow dots stood for 'not as bad' as the other areas. So really only a dot free area would have been a supported area.
  In addition to that the councillors had the land around the cadet hut included in the consultation map despite later saying in a council meeting that they were not expecting to be able to build there because of the status of the land and the location outside of the estate. This could have been found out before going through the consultation exercise and gave the residents the wrong feeling of having a choice.


• that the councillors are reducing the amount of parkland despite many houses in Abbotts Barton not having adequate gardens. The gardens are small because there was so much parkland available at the time when they were built! Especially at Charles Close some houses have only tiny patio sized gardens and the flats have no gardens at all. The parks were designed as an integral part of the overall original estate's housing scheme to provide sufficient outdoor amenity close by for those 47 dwellings as well as serving valuable play amenity for the rest of the estate which also have smaller than usual gardens.
  We don't know it yet, but any new council houses built might not have a lot of garden space either, so the open spaces will be needed more than ever!


• that the planned houses on the park along Charles Close are in a difficult location to build something that goes with the surroundings. In urban planning terms building on the side of Charles Close can never be an acceptable intervention into the existing street and parkscape scenes - destroying timeless rules of acceptable urban morphology - proposing houses sideways on to the road and park is completely unacceptable.


• that the current plan for Dyson Drive fills up half of the space with houses, leaving the rest as 'play space' - we all know full well that this area will not be used much for playing once there are houses so close nearby, the 'no ball games' signs will surely come soon after. Thinking this through logically, it would actually make more sense to fill this space up with houses and not use any space on the big park instead as that leaves more proper play space altogether.
  (The Save The Parks Group would like this space AND the big park not to be built on at all but again: you can take any view on this as an individual.)


• that that the councillors seem to ignore that the RT. 1/ RT. 2 Status (Important Open Amenity Area / Recreation Area) was bestowed on Dyson Green for a valid reason which has not altered in time and is surely now even more valid with all the new housing going up (e.g. Abbotts Walk and the new development across Worthy Road at the former MOD site) since that original designation.
  (The RT. 1/ RT. 2 status can be seen on the policy maps available via the Local Plan Part 1, adopted by Winchester City Council in March 2013! For your convenience: Policy map key / Northeast Winchester policy map.) On this same map, the whole park area in Abbotts Barton is shown as 'countryside'.


• that the settings and approaches to the city are at stake. The main park forms part of the river Itchen’s green corridor into Winchester when entering by foot from the North on the Kings Way footpath. The river Itchen is a Special Area of Conservation and is on the border of the South Downs National Park.


• that the number of council houses to be built on the park is quite negligible anyway. The councillors should rethink their strategy to find better suited places where they can build more new houses/flats than in Abbotts Barton. Winchester City Council could also possibly re-develop existing buildings (e.g. Avalon House) and find other brownfield areas like the piece of land at Bar End that is currently in use as a council parking area.

There will be a Cabinet meeting coming Wednesday (17 July) and one of the business items are the minutes of the Cabinet (Housing Delivery) Meeting held 22 May (note: at this point we are not sure if this meeting will have any influence on when the appropriation process will start as it seems to focus on other items from the notes). It would be great if you could write to the councillor(s) of your choice before that date - but if you don't manage to do that, please write anyway! It is important that your voice gets heard!

It is also important that as many people as possible hear about the plans, please let all your neighbours and friends know.

Whatever you do and if it's only a short letter/message to one or many councillors, thank you for your efforts!

Are 'consultations' what the term promises?

Following the local news, it seems Winchester City Council and Winchester residents are quite disconnected; here are just a few example articles from Hampshire Chronicle from the last months (for more see the Media tab):

Possible delay in evaluation of consultations feedback

In today's Focus from the Liberal Democrat Party was a short article mentioning the consultations about the Council Housing development plans in Abbotts Barton, saying that the City Council housing bosses are now looking at the suggestions made. New plans were to be presented by the end of February, but apparently it looks like more work is necessary to incorporate the feedback. There could be a delay until March.

If you haven't done so yet please sign our petition to save the parks in Abbotts Barton - and don't forget to share either! Thank you!