Kingsdown Conservation Group

Local resident Hugh Adams explains what he has been doing to ensure that the BRI sticks to the conditions of its planning permission:

Many of you will remember the considerable furore caused locally by the UBHT’s application for the erection of a “temporary transportable building” (something which it transpired was none of these things!) for use as a pharmaceutical manufacturing unit, near the junction of Marlborough Hill Place and Dove Street. Although this was refused by the council’s full Planning Committee (Jan. 2004), an appeal to the Planning Inspectorate (31st August 2004)allowed it, with several conditions. These included the provision of adequate screening and that it be removed by 2009. I feel neighbours should be alert to the fact that if the council’s Planning Enforcement section does not take action to enforce removal then, like a number of other ‘temporary’ erections, it will remain in default and after a few years can no longer be challenged.

It will come as no surprise that the Planning Department’s part in the story has been characteristically dire throughout. So much so that I complained about its inertia in the face of non-compliance to the Council’s Complaints Manager but then had to complain about his inertia and loss of correspondence, tardiness etc. Eventually I complained to the Local Government Ombudsman (I really should have won a “Meldrew” for all this!), who did in fact find against the council for mis-management and maladministration. Net effect: nil.

The industrial ducting grossly exceeds what was in the original drawings; the screening of chicken wire is a joke but the enforcement bods decided that neither was sufficiently deviant to warrant their taking any enforcement action.As it is the hospital is creating a light industrial estate by stealth at what it perceives as the “back of its estate” but which unfortunately is at the front of ours.

Having written extensively on the important role of the arts in healthcare and very positively about the role of visual arts in the new Children’s Hospital, I feel totally cynical about this health trusts commitment to a well-tempered environment.Bristol City  Council’s too, for all its vaunting its commitment to public art and pleasant communities, it  is impotent and hopeless in the face of the effective development of a badly graffitied slum stretching between Stokes Croft and St. Michael’s Hill.

What message does it give to visitors and what does it project about healthcare that it is conducted in buildings possessing all the allure of seriously run-down factories?

If neighbours feel able to write asking what is being done to ensure removal of this building, it will at least give them the idea that they can’t yet again try to slip something by us.

The original Planning Application reference is: 03/00846/F/C

Montague Green. Saturday 28th Feb 11 am
The prepared bed along the end wall of the Green can now be planted. We have 25 metres of young saplings or whips, comprising of 6 species of native hedging. It is not a big task, and shouldn’t take long, but if anyone is interested in wildlife generally in our area and would like to meet other like minded people, this is a good opportunity.
see you there, Helen

Our annual Kingsdown Conservation Group AGM will be held on Thursday 5th March at The Ark, St Matthews’ Road. Doors open at 7.30pm with the AGM starting at 8 and followed by a very interesting talk by a local historian, Madge Dresser. Madge is author of several books about Bristol; her latest, ‘Bristol, ethnic minorities and the city 1000-2001′ will be the basis of her talk and presentation and is sure to be most stimulating. We hope to have a short film afterwards to accompany her talk.
Afterwards there will be time to talk to committee members and fellow neighbours about current issues over a glass of wine.

Kingsdown Conservation Group’s response to the proposed development of Phase 1 of Bristol University’s Masterplan – the Biological Sciences and Maths buildings – ref. 08/05160/F

KCG supports the University’s ambition to build high quality buildings and to improve the quarter that it shares with the City.  KCG supports the proposed redevelopment of the former Children’s Hospital site.  Sadly the proposed buildings are too big for their site.  The purpose of this response is to improve the buildings’ appearance in the St. Michael’s Hill conservation area.
This is how the Biology building looked in the University’s Masterplan

Its disproportionate scale is harmful to the conservation environment of St Michaels Hill and the Tyndall Avenue corner.  In the Masterplan the Schedule of Areas said that the St. Michael’s Hill elevation would be 4 floors tall.  That’s what the University told the Evening Post on the 21st June 2006.  Now, in the latest planning application, the building steps up from 4 floors to 6  at the Tyndall Avenue corner.  The Masterplan said that Bio’s net useable floor area would be 4,060 square metres.  The planning application says that its internal floor span will be 9,268 sq. m.  The figures for Maths have increased from 2,400 sq m in the Masterplan to 4,380 sq m in the planning application. The planning application fails to describe the floorspace in such a way that makes direct comparison with the Masterplan possible, but it appears to be doubled.

This is how the Biology building was shown in the Planning application
The University has not given a reasoned justification why it now wants to exceed the size of the buildings agreed in the Masterplan.  If Bristol’s masterplan process is not to be flouted, the University must respect the representations that it made in its own Masterplan.

It’s not only KCG that doesn’t like the University’s plans.  Here’s what Bristol’s Urban Design Forum said:

• “The treatment of the St. Michaels Hill elevation is unresolved and inadequate.
• The floating façade with its heavily glazed ground floor sits uncomfortably in the context of the character and grain of the other buildings on the hill.
• A more grounded architecture of solid and void employed would relate better to the scale and grain of the nearby buildings.
  
• This elevation should be simplified into a stepped façade, broken into bays with a vertical emphasis and proportions that respect the eighteenth and nineteenth century context of the conservation area.
• The architecture should be quieter here and more respectful at this boundary of the precinct.”

A computer generated view of the Maths building in the centre, Bio top middle with St. Michael’s Hill.  The outline of a building on the right is of a building that is not yet designed.  The new buildings will practically block the strategic view of the Physics Tower from Kingsdown Parade.
You can view the planning application and write your comments to the North Bristol Planning Team, Brunel House, St. George’s Road Bristol BS1 5UY.  Alternatively, you can view the application on line at tinyurl http://tinyurl.com/c5p6jy and file your response on line.
If you too don’t like the University’s plans send the Planners your response before the 20th February, which is the closing date of the public consultation.

We have now had over 20,000 ‘views’ of photos on the the Kingsdown website.

Here is the most popular one, of Basque refugee children in Kingsdown with the Lord Mayor in 1937, which has been looked at nearly 300 times.

You can also see the 50 most ‘interesting’ (as decided by an anonymous computer, using a secret algorithm) here

Local organic supplier Wrington Greens will be selling vegetables, juices and chutneys every Wednesday until further notice, from 5:30 to 6:30pm at the junction of Clevedon Terrace and St Matthew’s road (where the pirate Christmas tree was). For more info, ring 01934 863636 or see wringtongreens.co.uk.

Here is little Saira clebrating her first birthday today on Montague Green with her friend the snowman.

It’s good to be able to thank the hospital authorities for quick action after we complained about the ugly hoardings that appeared on Kingsdown Parade last week. Here are the contractors removing them the next day.