Cov Soc Special Newsletter - Oct 2012

Next meeting: Colin Knight, Assistant Director in Planning, Transportation and Highways at Coventry City Council briefs us on

Phase 2 developments in the City Centre Note new venue: The Shop Front Theatre, City Arcade, Coventry, right next to parking on Queen Victoria Road

Monday, November 12 starting at 7.30pm Refreshments Visitors welcome

October special

The COVENTRY SOCIETY:

•campaigns for a quality Coventry raising awareness of what quality means.

•campaigns for improvements in design of open spaces, buildings, In the autumn of 2010 we staged a symposium in partnership with Coventry street furniture University highlighting the need to urgently restore and re‐use some of the city’s •holds monthly meetings on topics more important heritage buildings. Two years on we can report good progress.

We are often asked ‘how can a society like CovSoc make a real difference? Aren’t you relevant to the quality of our city wasting your time? On one hand the Society has no ‘official’ standing in the planning •organises events to find out what process, yet we firmly believe that we can act as facilitators, bringing together local is going on in Coventry and its people, official bodies and not least developers themselves, in the earnest hope that environs something of worth will result.

•produces an informative monthly The latest ’success’ is the restoration of 31 Allesley Old Road, an historic master watchmaker’s residence and top shop that had not only fallen into rack and ruin over newsletter several years but appeared to have become a lost cause. Residents living close by •has a website at had tired of looking at the ugly hoardings that surrounded the site on the corner of www.coventrysociety.org.uk Lord Street. Yet the boards were far from secure allowing arsonists on more than one •monitors planning applications occasion to set fire to the building.

•maintains a watching brief on The Society instigated a site visit last year with key members of the Council but we didn’t let it rest there. We had regular conversations with Council officers, pressing Coventry’s heritage and works for an order to be served on the actively to find new uses for old owner of the premises. The action buildings paid off and the result is there to see.

•co‐operates with community We now understand the historic top groups, city council, architects and shop that was once attached behind the house will also be reconstructed developers to promote quality in with materials saved after the built environment demolition. We look forward to seeing the completed restoration find a new use in due course.

So what else has CovSoc facilitated?

Restoration: a recent picture of 31 Allesley Last month we were pleased to Old Road fronted by a new brick wall report that Copsewood Grange and sweeping round into Lord Street its Lodge will now be rebuilt. We had kept in touch with the developer of New Century Park where the mansion stands and again through our persistence and campaigning to save another important element of the city’s history, the Council agreed to a change in its planning policy for the site giving elbow room to bring forward a housing plan that would also secure the future of the Grange.

Last year we also instigated the formation of the Charterhouse Trust to save this listed building for the people of Coventry.

Alongside our efforts we can also report that a local restaurateur finally completed the rehabilitation of the old County Court building, opening it as a classy enterprise, The Establishment. The other good news has been the interest shown by Coventry Transport Museum in the re‐use of the Old Grammar School in Hales Street. We are following that announcement with interest.

There is plenty more to facilitate on the Heritage front—the Whitley Pumping Station (a plan by Severn‐Trent to covert to apartments several years ago and left on the shelf); a new use for the former Toy Museum, historically the gatehouse to Whitefriars, the nationally important Monastery itself and Drapers’ Hall.

Have YOUR SAY •

Become a member of the Coventry Society.

• Join us at our monthly meetings, usually held on the second Monday of each month. Guest speakers address relevant topics of interest.

• Put your views to our meetings, contribute to our monthly newsletter or our website.

• Become involved in our campaigns and projects.

Help us campaign for a QUALITY COVENTRY

THE removal of traffic lights at certain But since February this year, when the from one end of the road to the other, and junctions in Coventry city centre sparked a new scheme was officially unveiled, from one side of the street to the other, lively debate in recent months over some Exhibition Road has been re‐born and relatively untroubled by motor vehicles key issues in urban design – central to reinvigorated, courtesy of an extraordinary which are obliged to negotiate the space with more care than usual, precisely which is an argument about the best way transformation. to achieve a sensible balance of power Gone are the traditional pavements, kerbs, because the road lacks the more common between pedestrians and traffic. barriers and street clutter. In their place is assumption of an automatic right of way.

The whole effect is enhanced by A crucial concept in this debate is the a single surface “shared space”, with a strange notion of “shared space”, a radical stunning chequered granite design, which impressive street light columns down the and apparently foolhardy idea which runs from South Kensington tube station centre of the road, occasional street seems, at first sight, to turn common to Hyde Park, covering the entire width of benches, and an outdoor exhibition of sculpture. sense onto its head. the road from building to building.

The scheme was designed by the But while we in Coventry continue to Motorists have been slowed down to architects Dixon Jones and has already ponder the rights and wrongs of this brave won several awards, but the real pioneer new experiment, town planners in the of the “shared space” concept was the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea have taken this idea considerably further Dutch traffic engineer Hans Monderman with the total redesign of London’s and the Danish urban planner Jan Gehl, Exhibition Road, a busy main artery which who have helped to make the concept relatively common in Holland and runs right through the centre of the Scandinavia. capital’s cultural heartland, with Like the traffic junctions in Coventry, the magnificent buildings on either side such redesign of Exhibition Road has not been as the Victoria and Albert Museum, the without its critics and it is acknowledged Natural History Museum, Imperial College and the Science Museum. to be an experiment. But the apparent This road, leading up to the Royal Albert 20mph and the distinction between success of the scheme does seem to Hall at its northern end and once the main roadway and walkway is achieved by visual indicate that “shared space” has much to route to the Great Exhibition ‐ held at and tactile lines which subtly delineate offer and that Coventry, in a small but those areas for pedestrians, who enjoy the significant way, may be at the forefront of Hyde Park in 1851 – has in recent years lion’s share of the space, and those for a fascinating development in contempo‐ become an unpleasant and congested rary urban design. thoroughfare, often choked with lines of traffic. coaches and usually tricky for pedestrians The result is a splendid pedestrian‐friendly John Marshall to negotiate. streetscape which allows visitors to stroll

December 10 Ben Flippance of idPartnership in Spon Street speaking on the redesign of Wokingham Town Centre—an historic market town that needs to be retrofitted sensitively with contemporary retail and housing, but building on the historic vernacular of the market town.

January 14 The National Memorial Arboretum, a significant focus for Remembrance with its stunning memorial and symbolic trees.

One of the biggest intrusions into the Green Belt for years has been proposed to the south of Coventry Airport. The business park, a £250million project known as Coventry Gateway, will require considerable modifications to the road system and have a heavy impact on residents in Baginton, Bubbenhall and Stoneleigh.

As we know, Coventry Local Development Plan, recently submitted to an inquiry, shows that the city has more than enough industrial land, yet here we have this extraordinary application.

Any views?

Please brief yourself on the proposals by taking a look at: http://planning.coventry.gov.uk/portal/servlets/ApplicationSearchServlet?

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