We should of course congratulate the Lib Dems on strengthening their position on Winchester City Council in the recent elections, though I can’t help noticing that the largest majority by some way was won by the second Green Party candidate.

I gather from the hustings held by WinACC that this means the Green Party can now be represented on committees.

Now the weeks of election purdah are over, can the council please look at some of the outstanding issues in the city, which may not yet be on the radar of the two Greens?

There’s the Corner House, on North Walls and Parchment Street, bought three years ago by WCC to make into accommodation but still standing empty, with windows full of dead plants. There’s the old Register Office, opposite the station, bought longer ago, renovated at some cost and still unlet.  

There’s the little house on the corner of Tower Street and Cross Street, originally owned by WCC, where £80,000 was spent to turn it into two eco-flats, before giving up the attempt and selling it. It’s now, after a little work, on the market for £750,000, cementing the loss of a council house and creating something far out of reach of the great majority of residents.

On a far larger scale, there’s the new deal for Central Winchester Regeneration (ex Silver Hill) where the council is selling the site to a developer on terms likely to result in an effectively privatised area. We don’t know yet what will be built, and there’s no doubt some impressive architectural names have been mentioned. Yet when similarly award-winning names were bandied about in the north east, on other schemes by the same developers, oddly their plans didn’t come about.

Similarly, the promised social housing didn’t come about either, with the developer citing the usual ‘viability’. This history doesn’t seem to have emerged in the due diligence I’m sure WCC have carried out.

There is an awful lot here that needs fixing by the new/old council.

Judith Martin,
Romsey Road,
Winchester

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