An Aerial View of the Southern Area around 1975
This page shows an aerial photo taken sometime around 1975, looking over the Southern Area
towards the North.
The 'bungalow' is here seen just below the centre at the right.
Its garden, ringed in red, fills the bottom right-hand corner of the picture.
Apart from the nurseries, Leechwell Lane can be clearly seen running all the way to the Masonic Hall.
Its walls were breached to form Old Orchard Way, making the 'bypass' that now runs through the Southern Area
all the way from the Plains to Cistern Street.
This photo was kindly provided by Brenda Benham of Maudlin Road.
Not the First, but the Worst
- 1996 - Information and Consultation
- free colour leaflets with plan and sketches
- exhibition open for four days
- questionnaire
- 2002 - Less Information, less Consultation
- free colour leaflets with map, photos and text
- extended consultation
- 2003 - Minimal Information, no Consultation
- no free leaflets
- blurred A4 plans (black and white) for 12 pounds
- afternoon 'surgery' (only after public protest)
What's in the New Plan
- 100 dwellings made up of:
- 19 'social' units
- 41 'intermediate' units (e.g. shared ownership)
- 40 'open market' units
- to get the required 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 mix, the 22 units already built at Heath Court are included
- 230 public car parking spaces
- 7 car parks consolidated into 2
- 40 less spaces than at present (the SHDC figure of 31 is wrong - it ignores the fact that 9 spaces in
the multi-storey car park are reserved for residents of the houses built on top.
- a small public open space bounded by roads
Detailed Masterplan Layout
This slide consisted of the plan already on this website, shown here
Public Open Space in the 2003 Plan
The "park" in the plan is a small space located in one croner of the current "bungalow garden".
It is roughly the same size as the Market Square in front of the Civic Hall.
Here's a plan of it:
Note that:
- the park is bounded on three sides by roads (one of them St. Katherine's Way, the busy 'bypass'). The
fourth side consists of the fences and hedges of back gardens in Maudlin Road.
It's not clear if this is a safe place for young children to play.
- the park contains a 'pond' - what is known as SUDS (Sustainable Urban Drainage System) - the blue patch
filling the right-hand end of the park.
This pond is presumably designed to catch the water that flows from the Leech Wells through the "Bungalow Garden".
The text says it contains "reed beds".
- Although the plan says that the open space has "trees of merit retained", the bulk of the mature
interesting trees in the "bungalow garden" are not in thes area - they are concentrated in the
areas to be occupied by the 22 houses.
Back to the Open Meeting Agenda