|
|
From the Newsletter- July 2004 |
In the last newsletter Dorothy Brown raised the issue of whether the Local Plan is a recipe for inner city cramming.
Here architect Dave Sutton 's personal hard hitting view suggests the same town cramming is cutting off areas south of the river from the City Centre.
ARE THERE ANY LIMITS TO TOWN CENTRE CRAMMING?
Bristol City Centre lies in a basin allowing the character to be derived from the topography with landmarks from Brandon Hill and the University Tower providing identity and sense of place. Views west along the floating harbour to Ashton Park are framed by the Clifton terraces again echoing the topography.
But is this topography in danger of being drowned by the scale of current new development?
The "Basin" Topography
The harm to this "basin" from the traditional 3, 4 or 5 storey Georgian terrace being increased to 6 or 8 storeys was one of the main concerns about the Crest development at Canon's Marsh.
Tall Buildings 'Policy Advice Note' Cops Out
So how is this "domestic & human scale" addressed in the recent draft Policy Advice Note (PAN) on tall buildings? In a weak and contradictory way. The note fails to address the difficulties of retaining, for example, St Mary Redcliffe as a landmark if the height of development (sorry, "other landmarks") creeps up. Just look at how the listed Temple Meads station is being drowned by the scale of Temple Quay. All the examples of tall buildings in the publicity questionnaire were modern ignoring the Georgian heritage of the city. The document typically fails to place the "city
centre" into the context of the whole basin focusing only on the northern part. It identifies "primary" and "secondary" landmarks which, for example, illustrate the Council's own failure of its height (sorry "urban design") policy on the Lloyds development but do at least now recognize that this obscures the important views of the cathedral.
Instead of a proper urban design strategy to reinforce the comprehension of the city identifying where new landmarks would help and where development needs to be limited in height, the Policy Advice Note leaves developers free to go as high as they want.
Instead of including Redcliffe, Totterdown, Windmill Hill and Dundry - which define the south of this central basin - these views are progressively being lost by tall new developments south of the "City Centre". Housing in Cumberland Road creeps up to 6/ 7 storeys to the east preparing the way for Wapping Wharf. The recent Wapping Wharf plans "squash" the development down to 6 storeys, but with returns on the buildings now creating difficult privacy issues.
But the 'PAN' suggests that anything up to 8 storeys is not even a tall building in the city centre! (and 5 storeys is not tall in the "suburbs"!!). The tall buildings policy needs to apply to all of the central basin area if the topography is to be retained and respected.
Bedminster Slab as a Landmark??
The traditional focus is on our listed heritage and conservation areas. But south of the river we have the crass new development slab by Bedminster Bridge which totally fails to relate to the York Road terraces which were so carefully retained and restored .
The other end of this Bedminster slab has seen the pennant kerbing and cobbles of Boot Lane in the Bedminster Conservation Area destroyed - with 'PAN' guidance typically ignored.
Increasingly the views from south of the river are not over the City Centre but are curtailed by the latest over intensive development.
In Windmill Hill we have two flats proposed for an advert hoarding site. In Gwilliam St approval is sought to convert a small two storey terrace house to 5 flats (2 of which would have a dark internal living room)! On Cotswold Rd an approval for 8 terrace houses was then doubled (and granted permission by Councillors who failed to declare their own interests as landlords of Housing in Multiple Occupation).
Developers are becoming smarter at town cramming but are we not creating the slums of the future? In Bedminster as well as Clifton (Meridian Vale) the planning department has given up on privacy distances (that used to be 22metres between habitable rooms and 15 metres to non-habitable) after losing a few appeals. But the Tall Buildings 'PAN' does not even include an assessment of privacy or impact on the local amenity as an assessment criteria.
What Needs to be Done?
We need a new Head of Planning who doesn't always roll over for developers and Councillors who are prepared to work to get the right policies in place.
-detailed policies on height and privacy distances. Open ended general guidance which is not site specific is simply a waste of everyone's time.
-a proper Urban Design Assessment for the City Centre which improves its legibility and comprehension. We need to respect the topography & address the challenges (more footbridges over the Cut?)
-to make all 'PAN' guidance and full planning applications available on-line.
-.. and a nice drop in housing prices to expose some of the greed. It is indeed somewhat ironic that despite the need for new housing being driven by the regional need for social or affordable housing developers in Bristol typically get away with 10% or less. We need to get to at least 40% affordable on ALL schemes of 20 or more.
There is as yet little sign that the politicians are prepared to take a more robust stance with developers. So we are left to fight numerous individual appeals (MacArthur's Warehouse et al). Will the Councillors have the guts to throw out the "anything goes" approach in the 1st draft 'PAN' on Tall Buildings?
We shall see.
Dave Sutton
Back to 'Cuttings' page