Euro-style urban life

From the archive, first published Friday 9th Feb 2001.

BARCELONA, Paris, Dublin - great European cities admired for their civilised way of life.

Heritage watchdogs hopes they can be inspirations for their vision for Winchester.

The City of Winchester Trust wants us to fall in love with city living, a la the French and Spaniards, and end the infatuation with suburbia which has seen a damaging reliance on cars and the swallowing up of the countryside.

The trust's newly-launched and controversial Future Of Winchester - A Strategic Vision calls for the nurturing of a "good city", a place of streets, squares and parks freed from the tyranny of traffic congestion.

With much denser housing and the building of four or five-storey apartments, Winchester would have no need to expand to places such as Barton Farm.

Not only would countryside be saved, car usage decline and pollution reduce but also local shops, pubs and services would receive a huge boost.

The trust wants to see the elimination of through-traffic from the city centre, pedestrian priority in the central core, improved cycle routes outside the city, and reduced parking inside. Historic buildings should be preserved and good modern architecture, such the school of art, encouraged.

The shopping area could be extended by the use of features such as arcades, squares and covered markets.

Trust chairman Robin Merton, speaking at the vision's launch this week, said the prospect of high-density housing was an opportunity, not a threat.

He said: "The requirement to accept more and more new housing means that we cannot just go on as we are. It is leading to more traffic clogging the streets, further noise and air pollution and an increasing threat to our unique setting.

"If increased density is done well, it can provide communities that many would prefer to suburbia. The trust calls this the Good City. The one requirement for living in the residential street is that it must be designed for the pedestrian and cyclist rather than the car."

Mr Merton called on the city council to give stronger leadership to guide future developments. He said: "The future of Friarsgate-Broadway worries us the most. That is just drifting."

But Rodney Sabine, chairman of the city council's planning committee, denied planners were weak, adding: "It is not true. We did a development brief, we have given a clear lead but what we can't do is make developers develop. All we can do is stand on the sidelines and be encouraging."

Mr Sabine also denied there was no urban design expertise at the council but conceded it was having trouble recruiting as many as it would like.

He said the trust's new document was a useful contribution that would help the debate on the city's future.

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