Westgate: the irony

Jock — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 22:53:00 +0000

Have a look at the artist's impression below as reproduced in the Oxford Mail story on tonight's planning debate at Oxford City Council over the proposals to extend the Westgate shopping centre:

See how the road, Queen Street, has people milling around in safety and nice surroundings? There's not a bus in sight, is there? That's because we have been led to believe for the last six years and more that any redevelopment of the Westgate Centre would be contingent on finding a route for eastbound buses through the new centre that would finally get them out of this cluttered and frankly downright dangerous street.

Well guess what. The plan, approved tonight, has welched on that. Buses will continue there after all. What is the point of spending thousands of pounds doing up Bonn Square if you can't stand back and marvel it without a No 7 knocking you down - and I don't mean a lady hawking Boots' makeup.

Whilst the original plan which Prescott refused on call-in and the city got through on appeal to the High Court did have its flaws, there are two distinct problems that to my mind make this application inestimably worse. Failure to get the buses out of Queen Street (which the original did) and expansion across Norfolk Street resulting in the demolition of a community of flats and houses built only a couple of decades ago primarily for disabled residents (which the original plan did not).

This latter is a particularly pernicious piece of corporate greed on the part of the Westgate Partnership and the City Council which stands to gain millions from the development, most of which is on their land. I hope the residents are well advised about their rights in holding out for the best price - it seems to me that they have effectively a ransom on this development.

Yes, we all want to see a John Lewis in Oxford I'm sure, but I wonder how that workers' partnership would view the idea of kicking a bunch of vulnerable people out of their homes? If any understand the benefits of personal ownership of capital assets it should be them.

The City Council should look to its other assets. The jewel in its crown is the Covered Market, and although it will remain a unique feature of Oxford's city centre it is now effectively marginalized on the eastern fringe of the main shopping area, together with other vulnerable sites in areas like Broad Street. One might expect that whole area east of Cornmarket to become merely a tourist curiosity, with trinket shops and eateries.

In turn, those businesses, predominantly small local independent shops, that currently just about cling on there and who will, let's face it, be unable to compete for space in and around the new Westgate, will face an uncertain future as our new primary shopping area becomes even more blanded by brands.

I've not been too much involved with this application - I was on the Planning Committee when the last one happened and voted against that one too for all sorts of reasons - but my gut feeling is that this one is wrong on so many levels. I find myself in the extremely odd and slightly uncomfortable position of hoping that Ruth Kelly won't like it either. I normally hate the idea of central government taking local decisions away from local people. But in this case I think the local people have made a mistake, and one that will change significantly the Oxford millions know and love for many years to come. If such can't be dealt with by a local referendum, then someone else has got to be able to take a view outside the obvious conflict of interest involved in a council granting planning permission for its land in which it stands to make a small fortune.

Sorry chaps. But I had to say it! There's one way you can make up for this, since you're in the game of rearranging your significant property assets - let's set up a Community Land Partnership, pooling the freeholds of the area to the east of Cornmarket and St Aldate's and including the Town Hall and the Covered Market, creating a body that can act as one with the financial muscle to counter the effect of the inevitable westward shift of the city centre.

PS - come to think of it, if you really want to do away with Oxford's most brutal piece of architecture (pace Jeremy Dixon's new blot on the mound which I fear is there for a good while yet) the whole thing should wait until we discover whether Oxford will become a Unitary Authority (God forbid!) and knock County Hall down instead of peoples' homes.

Jock's Place - Westgate: the irony - Comments

Westgate: the irony