With the festivities and celebrations of May behind us, I’m looking to the future this month, focusing on what happening on the town planning front.
Town centre development issues are stirring again, emerging from the long post-Covid languor. The six months of my Chairship have been quite a learning curve, as I pick up the political pulse of the town and its townspeople’s aspirations for its future – in the face of the downward trajectory in so many others across the UK.
Opportunities exist, however, to take some proactive steps: the recent backlash from residents to HDCs draft Masterplan seemed largely the result of its generic modelling, which didn’t acknowledge the importance to townspeople of its historic layout, its buildings, its community, its difference. It did, however, contain positive, proactive suggestions which still need to be aired – though such a town forum has yet to be set up.
The Town Council’s Neighbourhood Planning group recently reconvened in order to record the communities’ aspirations for the town and to lay out the specific, regulatory requirements and constraints potential developers will have to observe in delivering them. I now have an honorary place on the group, am familiarising myself with past visions of the town, and I look forward to supporting, and contributing to, the debate.
The Society’s Planning Advisory Group members are also involved in various ways: over the summer they will be working up a presentation to start the conversation: a study of Bridge Street, to demonstrate the planning challenges inherent in pedestrianising an area together with a very tentative proposal for reworking the street; and they are monitoring developments at 26-28 The Broadway, the church hall on the corner of Ramsay Rd & The Waits, the landing stage debacle at The How, The Thicket Bridlepath designation, Rheola, The Robin Hood, Gifford Park, and more.
I am assured also that the new conservation schedule we are collating from residents’ suggestions about which features in their parish should be preserved, will be included in the final Neighbourhood Plan, so keep your suggestions coming.
Our next public talk on Friday 16th June is the last before before we break up for the summer. In the past we have not run talks through the summer because the church is too light but we will be trying out some different technology which we hope will give us freedom to do so in the summer as well.. Our speaker will be Simon Ward, a Society member who will share with us some insights into the stunning architecture of the Gothic Revival in the 18th and 19th Centuries. As we have our very own Pugin treasure in St Ives, I can’t wait to know more – and I hope you will be also come and join us.
Christine
We look forward to seeing you at one of our events.
Civic Society of St Ives