Support
New Local Plan
Representation ID: 3398
Received: 15/03/2019
Respondent: Milton Conservation Society
The Council should develop a wider perspective on place development springing from our heritage. Even the way that these questions are asked is indicative of traditional thinking where conservation is seen as the separated parts of our towns, the bits to be preserved whilst development focuses on new and modern ways forward to the exclusion of our past. This is what has led us to our present town centre, now out-moded and hugely problematic.
New buildings must respect context and fit in rather than seeking to stand out. Of course exceptions at prominent sites can be valid but too often this occurs in planning applications with little care for context. The student housing complex in London Road is our clearest example of this.
Conservation areas are established within and subject to the law and clearly this cannot change for all practical purposes. But this perspective is limited to the built environment so we would like to see a wider perspective develop along the lines of the Historic Urban Landscape approach promoted by UNESCO where both tangible and intangible heritage attributes are valued and used as a springboard for new, modern, complementary and contextual development. This would then tap into the wider special attributes that makes the places of our town special. This is a large subject area we cannot take further here.
That said the Council must have a higher regard for built heritage, too much of which has been lost in our town.
Improve the public realm by better contextual reference to our historic past
The Council should develop a wider perspective on place development springing from our heritage. Even the way that these questions are asked is indicative of traditional thinking where conservation is seen as the separated parts of our towns, the bits to be preserved whilst development focuses on new and modern ways forward to the exclusion of our past. This is what has led us to our present town centre, now out-moded and hugely problematic.
New buildings must respect context and fit in rather than seeking to stand out. Of course exceptions at prominent sites can be valid but too often this occurs in planning applications with little care for context. The student housing complex in London Road is our clearest example of this.
Conservation areas are established within and subject to the law and clearly this cannot change for all practical purposes. But this perspective is limited to the built environment so we would like to see a wider perspective develop along the lines of the Historic Urban Landscape approach promoted by UNESCO where both tangible and intangible heritage attributes are valued and used as a springboard for new, modern, complementary and contextual development. This would then tap into the wider special attributes that makes the places of our town special. This is a large subject area we cannot take further here.
That said the Council must have a higher regard for built heritage, too much of which has been lost in our town.