SIR: Years ago the RIBA identified that the realisation of a high-quality built environment required a collaborative and creative partnership between a skilful and committed team of architects and designers and a committed, well-informed and enlightened client. In Winchester we had such a professional team in John Tompson Partnership (JTP) who conducted the first and only genuine public consultation exercise I have experienced in 35 years as a citizen of Winchester and continued to develop this into the Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) for the regeneration of central Winchester. Where is this document now? It has to all intents and purposes been jetisoned, together with all the goodwill and commitment with which the citizenry bought into that consultation process. A different team of consultants have been brought in. These consultants may be competent enough in their own field but every time there is a stalling, a back-tracking and a rebriefing the new-team have to re-tread the same learning process which was undertaken by their predecessors. It is immensely wasteful of time and expertise.
Given the all too many examples of these ill-conceived false-starts, some engaged in with little or insufficient prior consultation, it is a tragedy that the single example of a major regeneration which was proceeding along the right lines and had engendered public confidence, has perversely been derailed, possibly because the second partner required for a high quality outcome, the enlightened client, is nowhere in sight.
Kate Macintosh MBE RIBA
West End Terrace
Winchester
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