Weekend of focused discussion injects new life into city centre project
Over 700 members of the public attended the Central Winchester Regeneration Community Planning Weekend, 23 – 25 March, to help create an overarching vision for the future of this prominent part of the city.
Throughout the weekend people were asked to share their ideas and concepts on what they considered would produce a viable and sustainable development. Participants included residents, local businesses and land owners, other stakeholders including students from Peter Symonds College, Sparsholt College, University of Southampton and other local colleges.
Council staff were on hand the entire weekend to engage and assist with the more technical questions.
Charles Campion from JTP said:
It was wonderful to meet so many people passionate about Winchester and willing to put so much time and creative energy into considering the future of the Central Winchester Regeneration area. People of all ages attended and gave their own ideas and listened to the views of others in workshops, walkabouts and hands-on planning groups.
The JTP team is now analysing and summarising the outcomes and drawing up concepts for the future of the area which will need further work, testing viability and deliverability against all the technical studies that are being processed in parallel with the engagement. JTP will be reporting back to the community on Tuesday 4 April at 6.45pm in the Guildhall as well as producing a broadsheet which will help us understand the issues and aspirations of the area.
Following the feedback from this weekend’s engagement, the team will continue to work with various focus groups to develop proposals and draw up a draft Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) for the area, to be presented to Cabinet. Once this is agreed the draft document will be subject to a six weeks consultation where further comments can be made before it is adopted hopefully by the end of 2017.
The Central Winchester Regeneration Group (CWRG) will continue to meet in public and dates for forthcoming meetings are published on the Council’s website and further information on the project can be found at centralwinchesterregen. co.uk