Had a very tiring day yesterday 8/5/2001 at Poundbury ! Eight hours of driving !!!
The tour was arranged by Peterborough Council and members of the DEG were asked
if they wished to join in.
Poundbury is a well known example
(in the planning and development world) of a new settlement currently under
construction near to Dorchester in Dorset. It is actually an 'urban
extension' of Dorchester, so it is not strictly a new settlement, but the
issues are broadly similar.
The development is on Prince Charles' land, and
he was heavily involved in the original concept, and it is well known that
he is interested in architecture and design. Poundbury is praised and
vilified in equal amounts, but has some valid points to make about many
issues. These include design of houses in a vernacular (local) style, road
layouts, car parking, community issues, social housing, street lighting,
landscaping etc. It has been criticed by some in that it does not look
forward but tries to recreate a pastiche in the 21st century.
Interesting development, really just the central zone area at the moment, high density houses
a few (useless) shops and a cafe. They are hoping to attract a small supermarket.
In my opinion the design would not be suitable for Cambourne - although it Works
quite well where it is.
The architecture uses local and sometimes recycled stone materials from the area and
drawing on the rich Dorset heritage.
You cannot have yellow lines on shingle.
Not enough green for me and I would be concerned about parking problems on
market days (for instance) due to inconsiderate parking next to house fronts which mostly
have no front gardens.
No front gardens worries me particularly, interaction in Cambourne is encouraged by
people often working and meeting around the front gardens.
Development looked quite aged already (in fact dirty), and I don't like the artificial ageing of roofs etc
by mixing a few weathered tiles in. Most Cambourne residents would ask for the roof to be replaced !
I would also be concerned about the rendering used, no painting of the rendering was originally
allowed so it is probably difficult and expensive to maintain.
They have a much better control over developers and their behaviour, as the developers do not own the land.
Each builder has to bid for plots.
Community hall is about to come on line (development started in 1993 !!!!).
Water/weather staining on buildings appeared to be a big problem.
Communal parking areas appeared to work but I wonder if they have problems
with kids game playing in these open areas, damaging cars etc.
Although there were not many kids that I saw.
Apperently many 5 bedroom homes typically only have two occupents.
Very poor children's playground compared with Cambourne although they did
have fixed goalposts in the kickabout area, without any problem of wearing
areas visable.
Each household pays 90 pounds per year management fee.
Social housing is peppered around literally cheek by jowel with Private, the
identification appears to be only by a lack of a garage.
I can never see the
reason for that, particularly as people no longer use garages for cars (apart from our house)!
High valuation of these social houses is supposed to prevent
residents buying and the housing associations losing stock, hmmmm.
Saw evidence of similar site traffic problems as Cambourne, heavy plant etc, although not going directly on roads
with
occupied housing as in Cambourne.
Traffic has defined haul roads although we were able to walk amongst these heavy lorries.
No phone box as far as I could see, communal sattelite dishes via cables to each home (no NTL in Dorset).
A lot of the gravelled alleyways were adopted or partly adopted and I gather would not be possible in this area.
Examples of garages fronting the homes, directly on the roads again not possible here.
Lighting was mainly attached to the corners of buildings and houses with cables running
through ducts in the walls, they desricribed the lighting as "subdued".
The REALLY bad news from the Daily Mirror 9/5/2001
"
NO-ONE WANTS TO RUN PRINCE'S PUB
THE pub in Prince Charles's new dream village of Poundbury hasn't opened yet because no-one is interested in running it.
About 450 people have already moved into the development but so far all the big breweries have rejected the opportunity to take on the licence. The pub remains an empty shell.
Philip Storey, of development firm Morrish, said: "No one wants it. The brewers who came to look at it said it was too big and would cost too much."
Rod Power, of the Residents' Association, said: "It would be nice to have a pub with good food and a pleasant atmosphere."
But Mr Storey admitted: "It looks like we will have to fit the pub out ourselves and try to get our own manager in."
Poundbury, near Dorchester, Dorset, is a pounds 22million, 20-year social experiment, with a projected population of 6,000.
Built on land owned by the Duchy of Cornwall, it has a mix of private and social housing. Some properties are for sale at pounds 200,000, others are for rent at pounds 50 a week. "
Not a web site to be found - just one old news item
click here
HAS A VERY STRONG RESIDENTS ASSOCIATION APPARENTLY.
Update
I have now been in touch with the Rob Power of Poundbury Residents Association, hope to establish
points of shared interest.
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