The kick-off meeting for the Highclere and Penwood Village Design Statement took place at Highclere Village Hall on Saturday 14th October. Some 30 villagers from Highclere, Highclere Street and Penwood shared views on the character of the village. This page gives an over view of the event. To be kept informed of progress on the Village Design Statement or to make your views known, please contact one of the coordinators near you or one of the project team.
The Village Design Statement was put into its wider context of National Acts, the Hampshire County Structure Plan and the Basingstoke & Deane District Structure Plan. All set the framework for planning and development. A Village Design Statement is a community-driven approach and says how those who live and work in the community would like to see the development of tier community. Once approved it becomes statutory planning guidance that must be considered by planners when reviewing planning applications. See Briefing Paper No. 1.
Six groups tackled one or more of the three tasks set out in the Briefing Sheet Exercise No. 1:
Welcoming the Newcomer. Two walking routes for a newcomer were prepared. They took in most of the main features in the village including the church, the Glebe, Tubbs Lane, Pantings Lane and the Mount.
Village Zones. Seven distinctive zones were identified for HIghclere, including Mount Common, South Tubbs Lane, Andover Road area and Burghfield. In a later exercise the Penwood team identified five distinctive zones in their locality.
Features and Landmarks. Early identified features included buildings such as leafy lanes, views, trees and woodland, and a diversity of interesting buildings. These initial findings were explored in more detail later.
This formed the major part of the day and was divided into three parts (four if you include lunch!!):
See also Exercise No. 2 Briefing.
There was a high degree of consensus among the different groups. here is a summary of the main features under the different headings.
Another general comment was that most of the village approaches were attractive e.g. the arch of trees coming into the village on the A343 from Newbury, the approach into Penwood from Tot Hill.
This aspect had fewer comments than most, since there is a high degree of overlap with topics covered in the other two sections. Particular comments were made about:
Resident like the diversity of building styles. There are many attractive cottages and houses, farms and barns, and a few highly appreciated thatched buildings. Comments fell into two broad categories, nice features in general and mention of specific buildings that were liked.
Nice features frequently observed and indicative of local character:
Many buildings were behind high hedge or with open fronts. Walls are a less common feature. There was some negative comments about some new developments, mostly related to scale and the density. However, several recently built houses were praised for the way that they blended in harmoniously with their immediate surroundings, showing that with a bit of care and attention, the village character that all present valued could be retained..
Some specifically mentioned buildings:
Note - this is only a partial list, but indicates buildings that were mentioned several times.
While waiting for the arrival of the newly taken photographs, there was a 30 minute discussion on topics not covered. Some was on attitudes to very modern building's, using the award winning bungalow dubbed ' Tesco's' in Ashmansworth as an example. The general opinion was that such building were fine - in the right setting.
Several comments were made about the village as a community - "socially inclusive", "friendliness", "privacy yet community". Points were made about the availability of local style bricks. Generally it was considered that suitable bricks, including engineering brick and multi-red bricks, were available. Builders and developers just needed to make a little extra effort in selecting their materials.
Since most of the day focussed on what was valued, this was the only session where issues of most concern and other suggestions could be voiced. These included:
The next immediate step is for a more detailed write-up of the findings of the workshop. This will be completed by early to mid-November and will form a good chunk of the initial material on which to develop a working draft. See the latest timetable for updates and subsequent plans.
Prepared by David Skyrme 15 October 2000.