Kingsdown Conservation Group

Neighbourhood Watch co-ordinator Graham Syrett reports: “Some good news for the end of the Old Year! A man is “helping police with their enquiries” regarding the recent spate of street robberies - whilst helping them he is also “out of circulation” for other reasons.

There have been no further local street robberies since the meeting in St Matthews Church Hall over two weeks ago - which is when the above chap started “helping” the police.”

Thanks for that, Graham

Kingsdown Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Statement

On 29th November the City Council’s Planning Department held a public meeting at the Ark in Cotham Road South to discuss the content of the Kingsdown Conservation Area Appraisal and Management statement. Please download the draft statement from the City Council’s website because it is important that we have the best statement that is possible. Send any suggestions or comments to City Centre Projects & Urban Design Team Brunel House St George’s Road Bristol BS1 5UY - E-mail: conservation@bristol.gov.uk
Kingsdown Conservation Group

Bristol University – Phase 1 development
Did you visit the Senate House in Tyndall Park to look at the display of the University’s proposal new Biological Sciences Department to be built above the old Children’s Hospital to the corner of Tyndall Avenue? KCG supports the University’s ambition to build high quality buildings and to improve the quarter that it shares with the City. However, we were shocked by the proposal is to build a 5 storey building - equal to a 6 story building when the roof to house the services is included. At the old Children’s Hospital end, the new building would stand on a basement plinth to give it the height of a 7 storey building. The University wants to build a 7 floor Maths Department, plus a projecting atrium roof, new behind the St. Michael’s Hill building.

The draft Kingsdown Appraisal statement says that “The preservation of Kingsdown’s views is vital in protecting the area’s character and special interest. New developments within the City Centre, the Hospital, and University pose a significant threat to Kingsdown’s views.” How right it is. Look at the photographs in Alfred Harris’s window to see how the buildings would affect Kingsdown’s view of the Wills Physics Tower.

Earlier this year the City Council adopted the University’s Masterplan as its formal planning policy. The Masterplan said that the new building would have a “strong vertical composition to respond to the context of neighbouring architecture.” It would be built from materials that “show an understanding and respect of the local vernacular and be sympathetic to their surroundings.” The Masterplan illustrated a building of 4 floors built in 3 blocks that step down the hill. The proposed building looks like any commercial office block anywhere complete with external blinds or louvres. The buildings are more than twice the size of those illustrated in the Masterplan. In the words of the Masterplan, the University’s new building will “mend the street”. What we would get would be another brutalist building to join St. Michael’s Hospital and the Social Sciences Library – which the University proposes to demolish. Why, we ask, have a Masterplan and ignore it?

Kingsdown Conservation Group has sent its views to the University and to the Planning Department. Please to the same.

Next Meeting of the committee – is on Tuesday the 23rd January 2008.

If anyone has a matter of concern about Kingsdown to raise, please email secretary@kingsdown.org.uk

If you’re on the social networking site Facebook, you might like to know about the ‘Save Historic Bristol’ group. If you’re not on Facebook, then you might still like to know that the group aims to ‘raise awareness of historically and or socially important buildings in Bristol and to preserve and hopefully reuse them for future generations’.

Buildings currently highlighted on the group include St Michael on the Mount Without and Cogent House, both on St Michael’s Hill.

Group creator Jeff Sparkes says they’re also looking at setting up a web-site.

See more by clicking on the photo

The Evening Post have asked us not to send this to others until after the holidays (because they plan to run a story) - anyone have ideas about where to send it then? Thanks.

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20th December 2007
For immediate release
Contact: John Frenkel, 0117 924 0853

St Michael’s Hill plans are ‘ugly sister’, says local group.

Kingsdown Conservation Group say the University’s latest proposals would produce an Ugly Sister for the brutalist concrete Maternity hospital. Along with the Civic Society and several other local amenity groups, they are calling for revised plans.

Spokesperson John Frenkel said “The University proposes a building double the size of what was agreed by the City Council. The plans even ignore the University’s own design guidance about buildings which would ‘reinforce the character of the area…. help mend the streetscape …. be a positive response to the historic context.’”

“St Michael’s Hill is one of the delights of Bristol, and we were shocked by these proposals. They would spoil the historic environment with an ugly building that is far too big and completely out of place. We just don’t understand the University. They spent a year working with local residents and produced a Masterplan, which the Council adopted. Why bother to have a Masterplan and then try to ignore it?”

In November, the University publicly displayed the Phase 1 proposals, which directly conflict with the Masterplan in many ways. For example, the St Michael’s Hill building would be much too large and its design is unsympathetic. In place of the Masterplan’s four-storey building that steps down the hill in three blocks, they now propose a large horizontal office block, seven storeys high at one end. It could be any office block anywhere.

The University is trying to cram in far too much. Kingsdown Conservation Group calls for a revised design that sticks to the University’s own Masterplan.

ENDS

Notes for editors:

1. The Bristol City Council Supplementary Planning Document 11 “Univeristy of Bristol Strategic Masterplan” is at

http://www.bristol.gov.uk/ccm/content/Environment-Planning/Planning/planning-policy-documents/new-policy-docs/SPD-11-university-of-bristol-strategic-masterplan.en
2. The Kingsdown Conservation Group’s response to the proposals is here: http://kingsdown.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/KCG response to Uni Phase1.doc
3. The University’s proposals have not yet been submitted as a Planning Application. They were on public display at the Senate House in November.

Marlborough Hill
This has been viewed 98 times though we don’t know exactly why it’s so popular. Any thoughts?

By the way, you can just click on it to go straight to the flickr website with all our other pictures.

The Kingsdown Jester

The latest addition to the local scene…

Bristol University Phase 1 proposals - St Michael’s Hill
The Committee doesn’t think much of this, and has said so in its reponse to the University (see below for details)