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Newcastle-under-Lyme Civic Society

Monthly Archives: May 2009

Newsletter May 2009 – Slimming Down

24 Sunday May 2009

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Borough Council, Community, Newsletters, Planning

Contributed by Dr A. Drakakis-Smith

The size of the Planning Committee of the Newcastle Borough Council and compulsory training for Councillors who serve on it are to be discussed in a forthcoming meeting of the Planning Committee with a view to improving operational effectiveness and the scope for the further delegation of decisions.  Although in August 2007 the Committee was reduced from 34 to 24 members, Newcastle’s Planning Committee remains one of the largest in the County.  The average of all Staffordshire’s districts is around 19.
The discussion paper suggests that the average membership in attendance at any one meeting is around 19 with only 16 members attending 80 per cent of meetings, and  only 2 members attending all meetings.
The main argument set out for a smaller Committee was that it would be cheaper to train members and it would be easier to manage.  It would also sort out those members who were actively interested in and knowledgeable about planning issues from those who were not.  This might produce more competition for places on the Committee and thus a higher calibre of Councillor more fitted to tackle what has become an increasingly complex area of local authority administration.  It would also mean that more decisions would be delegated – presumably to paid Officers – which might not be a good thing. 
It was felt that the benefits of a large Committee were that it would be more representative, it would be more difficult to influence and control by small cliques, and a larger group would be more suitable for discussing planning policy issues.  It seems that the attendance at Policy Meetings has been ‘very low’ which indicates that ‘the connection between control and policy is not being made as strongly as it should be’.  As it stands Newcastle’s Planning Committee is the only one in Staffordshire to use the same Committee for development control and for policy matters.
Whatever Members decide, perhaps size does not matter.  What does is that every Member who sits on the Planning Committee is well trained and prepared beforehand so that any debate on planning matters and issues can be useful, and any decisions made are based on information and not intuition or the size of a 106 Agreement with a developer.  Although Newcastle currently has one of the largest Planning Committees  in the County, in terms of performance it ranks 6 out of 9 – which seems to indicate that that it is perhaps not quantity but quality of Members elected and Officers paid that really counts.  After all, this service is not free.  We pay for it.

Newsletter May 2009 – THE BURGESSES OF NEWCASTLE-UNDER-LYME

24 Sunday May 2009

Posted by Newcastle-under-Lyme Civic Society in Getting involved, Newsletter

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Borough Council, Citizenship, Community, English Heritage, Newsletters

Abstracts from an article by James Goodall, Past Chairman Burgess Trustees.

The Burgesses of the “loyal and ancient borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme in the County of Stafford” form a very important part of the long history of the town, and its inhabitants should be proud of this history, which begins in the 12th century.
. When the castle was first built, a small settlement came into being around it. Originally the land would have been well wooded but as the settlement grew in size, the wood from the trees was used for house building, furniture and fuel. Thus the cleared land became “common” land which was known as “burgage” land and from this derived the name “burgess”. In 1200 A.D .there were 160 burgage holdings which would suggest that there were 160 Burgesses at that time. The word “burgage” means literally “a strip of land”.
“A Burgess was by definition a person who occupied a burgage plot. He was granted special privileges especially in relation to trading within the town’s boundaries and also in earlier times in relation to the feudal system
Burgesses Today
There are today some 250 Burgesses on the roll.
The right to be a Burgess is by patrimony, i.e. from father to son.
The minimum age for enrolment is twenty-one years.

Newsletter May 2009 – Updates

24 Sunday May 2009

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Gallowstree Lane, Georgia Pacific

Contributed by Dr A. Drakakis-Smith

Gallowstree Lane

Even before work on the lights and drains at Silverdale Road junction have been completed, work is beginning on a major reconfiguration of the roundabout and roads at the A525 junction with Gallowstree Lane and Cemetery Road.  Already trees and old hedges have been felled on the roundabout, in Gallowstree Lane and Cemetery Road to make way for road widening, much to the dismay of many residents.  This is preparation for a third lane in Gallowstree Lane and a third lane coming down hill from Keele into Cemetery Road.  These detailed plans were available at Keele University in March and after the felling of trees on the roundabout had taken place –  outline planning permission having been given some years ago when the development scheme for Keele had been approved – hence, we are told, the reasons for the lack of consultation at this stage.  However, this should not preclude the accessibility and availability of these plans to view at the Guildhall or on the Staffordshire County or Newcastle Borough Council web sites.  Some residents were concerned that crossing points for pedestrians were quite a way from the points where they might logically want to cross these roads.  Let us hope that the comments made at the exhibition have been taken to heart and will be enacted on the plan.
The development at Keele is large scale with 74 acres or thereabouts already prepared for hi-tech and consultancy industries.  The roads have been laid and the street lighting and bus stops have been in place for some time.  We have been told that two plots have been reserved, both by national government as part of their relocation programme, for two government offices, although no-one could say which these would be.

Georgia Pacific Site

The developer, whose plans were recently approved for the Georgia Pacific site in the near heart of Newcastle, is making another application to the Council.  This will be to waive the £63,374 contribution to the Newcastle Transport and Development Strategy (NTADS) which was promised seemingly as part of the permission granted.  The case will be heard at a forthcoming meeting of the Planning Committee when further details of the financial position of the company will be revealed.

The Stone Wall (episode 999)

An agreement has been reached, finally, and a promise made by Persimmon Homes to rebuild the stone bridge parapet which was demolished 18 months ago,
along the A525 at Thistleberry Parkway and outside its housing development.  Unfortunately the metal barrier will not be removed but a wall will be built in front of it.  Materials, height and depth have yet to be agreed but a meeting has been promised within the next week to finalise matters so that work can proceed.  Residents are anxious that the replacement wall be as similar as possible to that which was removed particularly in terms of height and width.  Unfortunately, the stone was removed from the site so the chance of replicating the stone, exactly, are regrettably slim.

Newsletter May 2009 – Transport in Newcastle – Three Canals

24 Sunday May 2009

Posted by Newcastle-under-Lyme Civic Society in Conservation, Newsletter

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Canals, Conservation, heritage, Newsletters

Contributed by Jim Worgan

Part Two- The Newcastle under Lyme Canal (Lower Canal) 1795

A Company was formed in 1794 to promote the construction of a canal from the grand junction canal (Trent & Mersey) in Stoke to the ancient market town of Newcastle under Lyme following the initial success of Sir Nigel Gresleys canal from  Apedale (1775). The canal was to be four miles long with no locks and a towing path which ran by the canal for its own length. When the bill was presented to parliament in February 1795 several objections were made principally by pottery manufacturers in Stoke. The bill was approved on 2nd June 1795 and they had succeeded in getting the junction with the Trent and Mersey in the centre of Stoke. They were also excused payment of tolls on the canal for the transport of coal to, and goods from their factories. (by virtue of the Gresley canal act of 1775 any coal transported from Apedale could not be sold for less than 8 shillings a ton in Newcastle). The proposed canal left the Trent & Mersey on the northern side of Leek road in Stoke, passed under Copeland Street and Campbell Place in a tunnel and onwards to Trent Vale(along side the present London road) before turning north, crossing the Clayton road and then ran on the west of the A34 to terminate at Pool dam.
The company appears to have been in financial difficulty from the start and problems in raising the required capital lead to a large loan from Newcastle corporation. In addition the canal was cut back from Pool dam and terminated at a wharf in Brook Lane close to the present Homebase store.
The main interest of the canal was the transport of coal, limestone, building materials and furnace cinders at a rate of 4 shillings per ton. The most important was limestone which arrived via the Cauldon and Trent and Mersey canals. It was used as a flux in the smelting process at Silverdale and Apedale iron works. Limestone was also burned in kilns at the Brooke Street basin and although they were in use in 1847 they were demolished in 1861.
In 1831 George Stevenson (of railway fame) drew up a report for the construction of an inclined railway connecting the lower canal at Brooke Street with the Newcastle under Lyme junction canal (Upper Canal) at Stubbs gate (see part 3) but this came to nothing.
The canal was not profitable and shareholders did not receive a dividend until 1840. It remained an independent company, but in 1863 it was leased to the North Staffordshire Railway who undertook to keep the canal in “good repair”. In 1921 an act was obtained which allowed the canal to be filled in and abandoned between Trent Vale and Newcastle and by the outbreak of the second world war it had been filled in and abandoned back to Aqueduct Street in Stoke. The last remnant of the canal in Stoke, used as mooring by Stoke Boat Club, was obliterated by the construction of the D road in 1976.
Initial hopes were high but the canal never reached its potential. Today the only traces of the canal are “the Boat and Horses public house” and a water filled stretch opposite the city general hospital to the west of the A34.  In West End, Stoke, a granite obelisk still stands to the memory of Timothy Trow,  a tram conductor age 21 who lost his life by drowning in an heroic attempt to save a child who fell into the canal on April 13th 1894. I believe that the child survived

Newsletter May 2009 – Community Engagement – Leading to Marriage or Divorce ?

24 Sunday May 2009

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Borough Council, Community, Membership, Newsletters

Contributed by Dr. Angela Drakakis-Smith

Community engagement are new buzz words in administrative circles, particularly at national government level where there appears to be a strong belief that if the ‘community’ is ‘engaged’ things will get done better and cheaper – even for free.  Thus voluntary groups are being encouraged to perform ‘services’ which statutory agencies might normally undertake.  Whilst national government is adamant that communities can and will decide which services they want and how they want them, putting this into useful practice at the local level is proving a stumbling block – particularly where this is a euphemism for cutting back on services provided.  Street cleaning is a good example:  in some areas a street sweep every 17 weeks is not enough and some neighbourhoods could be swamped with litter and dog faeces before the sweeping cart arrives!  The Local List is another.
The crux of the matter appears to be how local councils will interpret the will of national government and what local policy will be and how it will be implemented to tie in with the will of local people.  Recently, and as part of this process, a Community Engagement Strategy was circulated (although far from widely) for ‘consultation’.  However this document was fuzzy as to what the term ‘community engagement’ meant.  And even the term ‘consultation’ was far from clear.  For those drawing up the document, it appeared to be about surveys and rubber stamping decisions already decided and not really about genuine, meaningful, dialogue/debate, which is what engagement is about, which residents would like and indeed, even appreciate.  Residents want to know what is going on, particularly in their neighbourhoods.  If paid and elected officers cannot explain this satisfactorily and get some kind of general consent preferably before the event, then perhaps they shouldn’t be doing what they are doing.  This is also called ‘accountability’.  However, try to engage some officers in useful debate and you might find yourself labelled conflictual, difficult, a nuisance and struck of their Christmas card list!  Ask questions or disagree with what they are doing and you might be considered confrontational, a ‘perpetual whinger’ with a one way ticket to Coventry!!  This immediately places ‘community engagement on a shaky foundation and undermines democracy which requires a rational debate on issues of importance and relevance.  A case in point are Local Area Groups (LAGs) which you many not have heard of – but that doesn’t matter as already their name is changing.  Whatever they may be called rest assured there is one being set up in your area as we speak with ready made Terms of Reference and ‘Governing’ bodies who will decide how any money is spent and which services 
will be provided to you, and it seems without so much as a nod to the community generally.  Ask about them and you may not receive a reply.  Spooky!
So where is all this going?  Perhaps the short answer is nowhere.  As fast as one policy document is printed and before it can be implemented another comes winging down from central government.  This appears to have been going on for the past two decades.  It also means that no-one has actually to do anything other than circulate paper and whilst the paper is circulating nothing much actually needs to happen.  Much is projected into a future which may never be realised and these days people have such short memories.  It’s not unlike the banking and monetary system – unreal.  So you have to hand it to the Department of Spiffing Wheezes – they really are doing a great job!!  However, before anything can change, the 19th century ethos has to make way for a more open and more accountable and more discursive process.  At the moment local administrations talk the talk, but they don’t appear yet to have discovered how to do the walk.  Maybe that will come – hopefully, in our lifetime.

Newsletter May 2009 – HERITAGE OPEN DAYS 10th – 13th Sept. 2009

24 Sunday May 2009

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Community, heritage, Newsletters

Contributed by Diana Bevan

This is your opportunity to enjoy Newcastle-under-Lyme’s architecture, history and culture!
Several buildings will be open to the public on one or more days and some interesting events will be taking place, in the town and the surrounding area.
In Newcastle, St. George’s Church, Holy Trinity Church, The Unitarian Meeting House and the Congregational Chapel will all be opening their doors to the public.
Historians in Silverdale and Kidsgrove are making plans  and the Chapel of Rest and Lodge at Newcastle Cemetery will be open to view.
Clayton Hall, St. Giles Church Newcastle and a group at Audley are hoping to join in as well.
Preparations are being finalised by enthusiastic volunteers at each venue.  More details will be available nearer the time at Newcastle library and at the Museum, as well as on the Civic Society website:- [newcastleunderlymecivicsociety.wordpress.com ]

 
DISPLAYS

We will be having displays of Newcastle in photographs, old and new, with details of our programme of events, as follows:-

Museum    13th – 19th June  and   28th August – 12th September

Newcastle Library       22nd June – 4th July and  17th – 27th August

Newsletter May 2009- John Prendergast – Obituary

24 Sunday May 2009

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Membership, Newsletters

John Prendergast who died on Easter Sunday was born, educated and lived in the Borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme all of his life.
After the retirement of his father he ran a successful local building company making many commercial and private contracts through North Staffordshire and beyond.
When he joined the Civic Society he was able to give his superb technical advice relating to building matters and this was also demonstrated in his capacity of the Society’s representative on the Conservation and Advisory Working Party held monthly in the Civic Offices.
John was a keen rugby player in his youth and remained involved with the sport for the rest of his life.  He liked nothing better than to share a pint of beer with his friends and humorously reminisce about his experiences on the rugby field and in the building industry.
When John was diagnosed with his serious illness he faced it both positively and bravely.
We shall all miss his wonderful generosity of spirit and send our sincere condolences and prayers to his wife Libby and family.
May he rest in peace.

Leo Patrick Chatterton.

Newsletter May 2009 – Nips and Tucks

24 Sunday May 2009

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Borough Council, Conservation, Development, Guildhall, heritage, Newsletters

Contributed by Dr. Angela Drakakis-Smith

The Guildhall refurbishment, as far as we can see, has been a good thing.  The building is one of the now few elegant structures in the town centre and it is fitting that this now forms the town’s centre piece.  The fact that it has been transformed into a public building with free access, is a bonus.  It would., however, be regrettable if this building was used to siphon away scrutiny and accountability from the council offices where the main business of administration of the Borough used to occur.
Access to the Guildhall means that other buildings in the town centre can be seen from a new perspective.  The second floor gives visual access to the upper storeys of the buildings opposite – some of them very old.  Nearly all of them require some form of urgent refurbishment from a lick of paint to new window frames and roof repairs if they are to survive in the original.
Some restoration work has begun in the Iron Market.  The former Victoria Wine Merchants is undergoing a long-overdue face lift which has the effect of improving this part of town already.  The former chemist shop (Wain’s) has also received grant aid to restore its front sash windows.  and grant aid is being sought for the refurbishment of the Queen Victoria statue.  The empty shops in the town should be seen as an opportunity for revamping ground level frontages and upper storeys.  However the long neglect and lack of focus for other buildings will mean that the restoration of the town could take quite a while.  But at least the process has begun!
The setting up of a Local List is thus vital and even imperative for those buildings not protected by Conservation Area status and given the poor state of some of the buildings within the town Centre Conservation Area and outside it.

Newsletter May 2009 – Planning And Development In Newcastle Town Centre

08 Friday May 2009

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Borough Council, Conservation, Development, Developments, Newsletters, Paul Farrelly. M.P., Planning

 

Contributed by Paul Farrelly, M.P  for Newcastle-under-Lyme

 

When I was first elected in 2001, I was very much a ‘planning virgin’. Little was I to know how much of my time, over the last eight years, would be consumed by planning issues.
Immediately, there was putting a stop to methane-drilling, which would have blighted much of Newcastle’s wonderful Green Belt. Then came the controversial Wolstanton Link Road. Ugly distribution sheds rear their heads, too, with depressing regularity.
But it is battles – sometimes outright trench warfare – over development in our historic Town Centre, which have taken the most effort and concentration.
As a Member of Parliament, I probably take a closer interest in the minutiae of planning than most – and certainly more than is healthy for my sanity sometimes.
The reasons are several fold. I was born and bred in Newcastle and remember its history, the ups and downs in the sixties and seventies particularly. My wife’s an architect, with a great eye for design and a part-degree in town planning. I am also the founding patron of Urban Vision, North Staffordshire’s architecture and design centre, which fights to improve our built environment locally.
The biggest reason, sadly though, is an almost complete lack of faith in our Borough Council’s planning and development control functions. And I can date quite precisely when I lost confidence, fixed bayonets and vowed ‘enough is enough’.
It was in 2005, during a battle over developments at Zanzibar and Titleys warehouse. I’d already seen poor advice, which had led to two eyesores: namely, No.1 London Road and Brunswick Court, buildings totally unsympathetic to their surroundings.
Now at Zanzibar, this other crucial gateway into town, officers were minded to permit further over-development of questionable design quality. There was a distracting fanfare, trumpeting a leafy café plaza, funded by the developers, to smooth the passage. Then officers rolled over, as so often, dropping a requirement for active frontage, where clubbers once queued at the Crystal or Tiffany’s, as it used to be.
Not only did this hair-tearing cave-in break all the rules of good urban design, it made absolute nonsense of plans for the public realm. Without space for a café or restaurant, how on earth could you have a ‘café plaza’?
assume, logically, a recommendation must go one way or the other, another head-shaker happens.

Those developments have not taken off. But I’ve learned to my regret since never to take anything for granted with our planning people. Just when you think that nothing could trump the last daft decision, something does. Just when you I’ve seen, for instance, how Lymedale – conceived of necessity to provide jobs after the closure of Holditch colliery – has become a ‘one trick pony’ sprawl of ugly sheds. That’s planners, not politicians for you. It was certainly not the original intention. But ask, expectantly, where’s the landscaping to hide the blot on Newcastle’s townscape, and the answer comes: ‘Aah, yes, with hindsight….but we’ve run out of land now.’.
We’ve seen the failure, too, of the Town Centre Area Action Plan (AAP), which would have given a robust development framework for Newcastle. Nearby Biddulph got one through, but one of the biggest district councils in the country could not.
The most serious recent example of the bloody-minded, contrarian attitude at work is the budget hotel and discount food store coming to the old Georgia Pacific paper mill.
One part of the department namely, producing a Supplementary Planning Document to replace the defunct AAP, laid out a wholly different use for the site. Expensive consultants agreed. Urban Vision opposed the application: it was more ‘out of town’ and inappropriate for the edge of an historic town centre.
But ‘development control’ (a cruel oxymoron) ticked their boxes, pronounced all design to be subjective, pulled the rug from under their other colleagues and produced a eye-popping ‘yes’ recommendation.
With this sort of sabotage, we might as well all go home – or insist that what Newcastle needs is new blood and fresh leadership in this crucial department.
Apart from the Guildhall, we’ve seen little change for the better of late. The Town Centre Public Realm project seems almost stillborn. For years now, the Council’s been deaf to common sense calls to promote specialist shopping around Bridge Street (instead, the new parking regime is killing trade and shopkeepers are up in arms).
Now times are harder, the challenge is even greater. Buildings are for generations, not just for Christmas. Sacrificing quality for expediency simply will not do. Those siren calls should be resisted. We need a ‘can do’ approach, not an ‘anything will do’ attitude. As Newcastle’s MP, I want to see a mix of care and ambition from the Council for our town centre, and I’ll do anything I can to help. Or provoke debate.

Newsletter May 2009 – CIVIC AWARDS SCHEME

07 Thursday May 2009

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Awards, Conservation, Development, Developments, Newsletters

Contributed by John Sutton

 

There has been some progress in reviving this scheme, which has been in abeyance for many years.  It is designed to give recognition to quality of design and construction in buildings and landscaping in the area, and is done in collaboration with the Borough Conservation Officers.  Thanks are due to Louise Wallace and other members of the Council for their help  in promoting the scheme, and also to retired architect Roy Manning, who had experience of the original scheme and who has given us much helpful advice and guidance. More to report in our next issue.

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