Winchester Friends of the Earth
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It’s the area of Winchester city centre also known as Broadway Friarsgate.
It includes the bus station, Wool Staplers warehouse, the medical buildings on Friarsgate and Tanner Street, Kings Walk, The Post Office, Friarsgate multi storey car park and properties fronting Silver Hill, including the Sainsbury’s supermarket.
The area has been earmarked for regeneration for several years. The proposal is to revitalise the heart of the city with a scheme that includes retail and office space, housing, a new bus station and medical centre.
The council asked for the development to be an exemplar of sustainable principles, but the developer’s planning application largely ignores this.
We have launched our Cut the Carbon campaign aimed at encouraging the council to act on climate change by requiring renewable technologies to be included in all future building, starting with Silver Hill.
We have obtained written support from Mark Oaten, our sitting MP, and the prospective candidates for both the Liberal Democrat and Conservative parties.
We have lobbied the council planning department, councillors and the developer and presented our case when the application for outline planning permission was considered.
We have been invited by the developers to join a working party to help them consider what renewable energy solutions can be incorporated into the scheme.
We want the site to achieve a minimum target of 20% renewable energy production.
This is in line with what many other local authorities are already beginning to stipulate and is some way off the government’s ambition for zero carbon homes.
It is also what we believe is necessary to prevent future residents of the area being burdened with unreasonably high bills as the cost of fossil fuels continues to rise.
The developer has said they are open to ideas and will work hard to achieve any targets set in the planning conditions in regard to the use of renewable energy sources.
We will continue pressuring the council so that they impose conditions at the detailed planning stage and then monitor those conditions to make sure they are implemented.
We intend to use our participation in the working party to assist the developers in researching all the options thoroughly and identify examples of good practice.to publish details of the sustainable technologies they intend to employ from around the UK.
We want this development to show Winchester’s commitment to a low carbon future.
If you would like to help us achieve this, then please contact Mike 0797 061 2475 or Chris 01962 849063 or FOE-Winchester@hotmail.co.uk
