Pressures and Frustrations from the Era of Mega Scheme

However, whereas in subsequent years, the success of this Council venture was the principal cause of the economic recovery of the fortunes of middle to lower category hotels and the principal retail sectors of Central Bournemouth, the BIC was in no way an automatic talisman in respect of the correct choice of other large hospitality/shopping initiatives by the Borough Council as the string of failures in the late 198s testifies.

Irrespective of particular planning and financial considerations, it was as if an unseen guiding hand of aesthetic restraint was mysteriously deciding what man made changes would be essential in order to sustain and enhance the configurative traditions of Central Bournemouth and what would be, in the long run, harmful to the existing environment.

Thus, between 1980 and 1989, at the same time that the BIC was being built and consolidated, the following projects were suggested, discussed and eventually not put into effect: the de Vere/Ladbroke plans for leisure, conferencing and retail facilities between the Pavilion environs and the Pier Approach. (1980): the Grosvenor Development schemes for all weather retail leisure cum amphitheatre link between Old Christchurch and Commercial Roads, which would have stretched from the War Memorial in the Central Pleasure Gardens to well into the Lower Pleasure Gardens opposite Gervis Place. (1986-1987): a new series of applications – including two new ones from de Vere/Ladbrokes – for the comprehensive development of hospitality facilities (including an aquarium and an Imax cinema) for the Pavilion/Pier area. (1987): an extensive new shopping centre submitted by Guardian Properties, comprising new shop units, a major store, an extended multi-storey car park and a new bridge over the Central Pleasure Gardens, to be built between Commercial Road and Avenue Road (1989) and a huge sports facility to be built on the playing fields of Meyrick Park by the Meyrick/Whitbread Group to consist of squash, bowls and golf pitches, together with dining capacities, parking and a large supermarket.

All these initiatives were very extensive and they were all aimed at highly visible parts of the town centre, where the balance between landscape and townscape came together in a very sensitive way. Even more significantly they were designed to be hermetically operated, bearing little communal or visual relevance to the adjacent, linear patterns of the existing urban environment.

The first de Vere/Ladbroke scheme would have created a massive rotunda-ed structure on the site of the Pier Approach Baths and further shopping and general purpose malls on the eastern side of the Pavilion and between the Pavilion forecourt and Westover Road, and would have completely smothered the setting of this famous building. Fears that important sections of the unique Pleasure Gardens would be completely lost – echoing similar unease expressed about the BIG monstrosity – were voiced when the Grosvenor proposals were unveiled. Irrespective of the considerable elegance of some of the initial designs which would have taken the form of domed and integrated conservatories, the main opposition was aimed at the loss of three acres of valuable open space in the town centre. If this had occurred, the former unique progression of natural vistas through Central Bournemouth, which had been a feature of the resort since the early nineteenth century, would be lost.

In spite of the increased pressure for enhanced urban speculation throughout great Britain during the 1980s, Bournemouth Council, with the benefit of hindsight, gained to a considerable degree in recent planning negotiations, was now beginning to understand better that only a limited number of carefully placed, large complexes could be successfully fitted into the constricted topography of the Lower Bourne Valley. So when it came to preserving key morphological aspects in conjunction with the better ordering of traffic circulation – these were more often considerations which took precedence over more conventional commercial concerns. It was not that a protected link between the two halves of the main shopping areas of the town was not desired, it was simply now appreciated that it should be achieved in a more restrained manner.

Moreover, even as two large developments for the town centre began to peter out, alongside new entries for the Westover/Bath Roads site and the Guardian scheme for the presumed revival of a neglected part of the Central Gardens covering 350,000 square feet and costing £20 million, an increasing weariness began to be felt by the population of Bournemouth from the almost continuous stream of ambitious commercial projects that were put forward to change the face of the resort.

The final blow that can be said to have brought the era of continuous planning to an end was the very strong response triggered by and engendered by the prominent games and leisure facility taking up to 70,000 square feet that was destined for Meyrick Park. At a memorable meeting on 19^th July, 1989, called by the Meyrick Park East Rate Payers and Residents’ Association, the post 1945 consensus of comprehensive redevelopment that had been the accepted planning orthodoxy in Bournemouth for several decades, finally bit the dust.

Voices were now being increasingly raised as to weather or not further efforts to increase the prosperity of the town by the Borough Council should be directed towards achieving a more harmonious connection between the existing built environment and less grandiloquent redevelopment schemes. It had become quite noticeable that while the final completion of other important vacant sites in the town centre – such as the former Exeter Road Bus Station and the Winter Gardens – had been stalled for ages, less ambitious projects, such as the Sovereign Centre in the run-down commercial heart of Boscombe, had been successfully carried through. Many people now thought that the civic authorities in Bournemouth had neither the moral right nor the expertise to regulate at the same time, several major projects that collectively could greatly alter the visual appearance of the heart of the resort.

However, quite apart from the general complaint from developers that the Borough Authority had become notorious for planning indecisions, it is quite probable that the unprecedented exposure of the planners in Bournemouth to elaborate schemes of every possible sort, had made them very much aware that comprehensive reconstruction projects would not be the obvious way to revive the economic fortunes of the resort and enhance its unique Sense of Place. Moreover, the civic establishment of the town was also increasingly doubtful of the considerable pressure to follow the example of Blackpool, whereby the provision of hedonistic attractions would take precedence over aesthetic and topographical considerations. Gradually the Borough Council began to realise that the step by step enhancement and modernisation of the existing restrained and decentralised urban environment in conjunction with more professional marketing of the facilities that were available, was the best way to represent Bournemouth to intending visitors and residents.

The Era of Smaller Scale Planning: Conservation, and Visual Sensibility

The planning department now came to believe that a greater interest in the proper conservation of the built heritage in older neighbourhoods would have a beneficial effect on the social and economic condition of the entire town. Such actions would not only revive neglected parts of the centre, and further afield, but it would also allow a more objective design criteria to be applied to the appropriate visual and spatial perspective of new developments in the vicinity of existing townscape.

In common with an increasing national interest in bringing historic buildings back to life, as demand grew for more restored/converted residential properties to be used as rest homes or flats for professional people, pressure increased on the Council to evolve a more pragmatic conservation policy which embraced not just individual buildings but entire sections of original townscape.

The Bournemouth Civic Society, (founded 1972) by means of well-coordinated campaigns that have considerably deepened respect for the material remains of the past throughout the resort – has fought to prevent the demolition of architecturally significant, older buildings and also the construction of poorly designed, new edifices – where both actions, if allowed, would degrade the existing built environment.

At the same time, in 1987, the Planning Department engaged John Soane, an academic with specialist knowledge on the development of Bournemouth, to help co-ordinate the evolving building conservation policy of the Council. Apart from producing general reports on the general criteria and implementation of proactive policies and in respect to selected central areas. Dr Soane also initiated 77 detailed surveys of the middle of Bournemouth, Boscombe, Charminster, Southbourne and Pokesdown, which covered the history, spatial structure and architectural style of these districts as well as the present use, condition and social characteristics of every single road.

As a result of all this enhanced activity – a contrast to the fractious planning sagas of the previous 30 years – Bournemouth Corporation began a period of comprehensive Conservation Area creation beyond the already existing ones at Talbot Village, Throop and Wick, starting in 1987. Between this date and 1994, no fewer than 16 new Conservation Areas comprising the whole of the town centre, Dean Park, Portchester Road and large parts of West and Central Boscombe and Southbourne were brought into being. However, before each neighbourhood was so designated, a very detailed study was made dealing with its history, topographical character, spatial structure and social problems, together with recommendations for general enhancement and visual improvement – including a survey of every single property.

The level of progress that had been achieved can be ascertained by the principal objectives set out in the Bournemouth Annual Civic Report for 1989-1990. Much greater prominence was now given to the creation of Conservation Areas and to a more sensitive perception of the visual importance of older neighbourhoods of the town in relation to overall urban development. There was even the first sign that major changes in planning policy, such as the eventual pedestrianisation of the Square heralded a stronger emphasis being given to the aesthetic implication of major re-development schemes. This was a sure sign that new design sensibilities that had been evolving for over a decade in the Era of Post Modernism now penetrated well beyond metropolitan circles.

However, with the demise of massive redevelopment projects that had been principally aimed at extending the central tourist sectors of Bournemouth, the Borough Council, in a natural progression from an increasing interest in the preservation of the historic built environment, now became more concerned with the general condition and sustainability of landscapes and townscapes, not only in Bournemouth but throughout the wider conurbation as well. By the late twentieth century the population of South East Dorset now amounted to well over 400,000, which involved very considerable daily journeyings between smaller inland communities and the heavily built up coastal belt. It was now necessary for the Borough Council to worry about the greater need to balance, more objectively than in the past, the economic, environmental and social aspirations of every aspect of the resort; indeed, obligations in this direction were set out in the new Strategic Plan as part of the South West Regional Structural Planning Conference when Bournemouth became again a separate unitary authority on 1^st April, 1997.

With increased responsibility, however, came increased pressures and quite soon, with the election of the new Labour Government, also in 1997, the Council found itself obliged to provide for an extra 12,400 new, affordable homes – a considerable proportion of which might have to be constructed on 16% of the Bournemouth Green Belt along the Stour Valley. Irrespective of the firm commitment made in the District Wide Plan 1997/98 that substantial provision for new homes would be made in conjunction with a great expansion of local employment opportunities, no amount of new residential projects or conversions of older properties could possibly fulfil the required general momentum of further urban growth.

As the Millennium approached, a feeling existed that the consistent encouragement by the Government of a kind of metropolitan, communalism, would be increasingly at odds with the laid back relationship between the individual and his/her surroundings that had been the particular morphological distinguishing mark upon which Bournemouth had always built its tradition of hospitality. With a minimum interest by the government in the existence of a unique Sense of Place within every urban entity, and bolstered by the considerable property boom of the first years of the twenty first century, the older, more sedate, residential neighbourhoods of the town were ever more assailed by cowboy land speculators, hell bent on building new blocks of flats for the buy-to-let market. The result was a redevelopment free-for-all, especially across the wide central belt of medium sized villas from Boscombe and Southbourne to Queens Park and Charminster.

Moreover, because the Government wanted to provide an increasing number of houses for both the free and social markets, in order to ensure the maximum use of development land to fulfil government quotas in residential districts, mainly in Southern England - such as Bournemouth - not only were high targets laid down but the gardens – and so by implication the adjoining properties – of existing, well established localities could now be classified as “brown field land” and therefore allowed to be redeveloped.

Consequently, until the great international banking crash of 2008, the Borough Council received numerous speculative applications for new construction for the sites of viable family houses, often of considerable architectural significance. Since it was impossible to prevent some regrettable losses, the Planning Department was forced to adopt drastic policies in order to mitigate the effects of unwanted urban change in relatively intact, historical areas of the town. Developers were usually required to build new blocks of flats in a generally traditional domestic style which would enable a reasonable degree of visual and neighbourly continuity to be maintained. Even so, this imperfect compromise was obtained at the sacrifice of entire sections of original townscape as along Richmond Park Road and in the general vicinity of Church Road, Southbourne.

The heart of the problem was that by around 2000 the better quality residential neighbourhoods of greater Bournemouth, mainly created during the late Victorian and Edwardian eras, which the Council most earnestly wishes to preserve, had had for quite a long time, no longer any close connection with the original society that had created them. Changing democratic life styles and the unprecedented property boom of the early twenty first century had brought about a situation in which newcomers who wished to acquire residential property – either in which to live or to rent out in the more desirable central parts of the town – no longer desired to exercise total responsibility for living in or managing, entire, single or converted, older houses; here was an open invitation for developers to provide smaller, more efficiently run accommodation.

At the same time, in view of mounting government emphasis for a more intensive use of already existing residential and brown field sites, the Borough Council was fully cognisant of the eventual possibility that portions of still flourishing, former artisan districts – as for example East Boscombe, Pokesdown, Winton and Moordown – might have to be restructured in a way considerably different to how they were originally designed.

Accordingly, between 2007 and 2009, two detailed studies relating to how the spatial, aesthetic and communal structure of different neighbourhoods of Bournemouth could be more positively related to general planning procedures were undertaken. The larger project conducted by the Matrix Partnership for the Borough Council, concentrated on drawing up a set of plausible characterization criteria to be used in connection with all relevant planning applications for the whole of Bournemouth. The second research initiative was carried out by the Bournemouth Civic Society – but with the active support of the Planning Department – and set out to determine the extent to which the visual and spatial configurations of semi-detached/terrace housing parts of Boscombe and Pokesdown, lent themselves to considerable change at a higher residential density.

The Matrix Report concluded that the best way the preservation of architecturally distinctive, older townscapes could be preserved, would be by diverting fresh building to newer parts of the town, which would be less sensitive to change and made less contribution to the essence of Bournemouth. More controlled development of neighbourhoods lacking identity and quality would allow local character to be more precisely enhanced. Finally, aesthetic, social and economic criteria, possibly relating to every road in the historic, residential localities should be used to determine which sections of the micro-townscape are worthy of absolute preservation and which are not.

Even if present levels of conservation planning characterisation may not yet be fully achievable on practical grounds, these findings give a fair indication of the trend towards a more theoretical and precise assessment of the cultural distinctiveness of particular built up areas that are likely to be taken on board increasingly in deciding the future planning policies of progressive, residential conurbations across Europe as the new century progresses.

However, in residential streets generally considered less worthy of preservation, other pragmatic and communal considerations could open mitigate against demolition, as the East Boscombe and Pokesdown Survey of the Bournemouth Civic Society demonstrates. Even if certain parts of the quarter near Christchurch Road and Pokesdown Station were found to be in considerable need of renovation, the research results clearly showed that well over 50% of the higher density residential communities were well ordered and flourishing. Consequently, since it was discovered that there was only a quite limited amount of substantial restructuring (3 – 5%) that could be sensibly carried out without considerably degrading the original social equanimity and visual form of the original townscape, it was concluded that any major alteration to the creative intentions of the original builders would be an act of irresponsible folly.

Not surprisingly, a better understanding of the advantages in attaining a better lifestyle to be gained by the more sensitive treatment of organic townscapes throughout Bournemouth was increasingly appreciated by the Borough Council in respect of future planning ideas for the town centre after 1990. The most important step towards this end was the creation of a pedestrian precinct in the Square in 1993, followed by a more complete, prize-winning scheme, financed by £1.9 million from the Millennium Commission, a few years later. Dispensing with the previous, over-large, all weather linking proposals, the new arrangement consists of an exceptionally well designed combination of hard and soft landscaping, which – with the help of an elegantly designed circular Obscura Café – links together in a restrained fashion, the two main shopping sections of the resorts. From this time came a more profound understanding by the Borough Council of the need to ensure that future architectural and planning changes fully reflected the ambient character of the adjacent townscape. To quote the Bournemouth Town centre Character Study of 2009:

“Character can be defined as a combination of all the aspects of a place that together make it distinct from anywhere else. As such character is made up of many different elements, including locally distinctive patterns of development, the relationship of buildings to the land form, natural features built form and use.”

With the obvious exception of the ill fated Imax Complex at the Pier Approach, a more informed, spatial distinction would now increasingly be made between building projects that were circumscribed by the scale of adjacent, established townscapes and the other, more expansive proposals usually destined for larger cleared sites not so spatially related to the existing built environment.

Smaller structures which have been constructed on sensitive sites over the last 15 years have included: the Oceanarium, a graceful, one storey curvilinear building, neatly positioned near the West Cliff by the Pier and the new Central Library at the Triangle (2000) which, although constructed in neo-Modernist style – by its moderate dimensions and relatively integrated architectural form, has not disrupted excessively the surrounding late nineteenth century retail quarter. In addition, the new arrangements in the Boscombe Pier area, where in place of an over-large original scheme, a jointly funded Council/private initiative has greatly improved the listed pier head and pier; renovated and modernised the nearby, three storey beach hut building and enabled a prominently sited, quasi-vernacular styled, flat development to be located at Honeycombe Chine.

In respect of the only very extensive and generally un-coordinated locality on the edge of inner Bournemouth between Lansdowne, Holdenhurst and Christchurch Roads, the Borough Council with a more visually integrative planning concept now in operation, has proposed a gradual development of the remaining vacant sites to create as far as possible a reasonably presentable, sculptured perspective of modern office and retail premises – rather similar in fact, but on a smaller scale, to the downtown silhouette of Los Angeles. Structures would decline in height and density from the central spire along Christchurch Road to lesser structures centred in Lansdown, Cotlands and St Swithin’s Roads. The new administrative headquarters of the Dorset Police and the adjoining student hall of residence are representative examples of the restrained Modernism that will become more apparent in particular, insignificant locations of the town.

Indeed, a distinctive building in this category which should eventually be constructed in the heart of Bournemouth, near the Pavilion, in the Pavilion Gardens, which will contain a variety of leisure and entertainment facilities. In retrospect, the uniquely curving, low rise shape of this complex – complete with a circular swivel shaped tower and terrace gardens – is less important than the decision to build here a distinctive integrated structure in place of the earlier huge projects for this site, which would have completely covered the entire area between the old Pier Approach Baths and Westover Road. In addition, it is highly significant that the Council has decided not to replace for the time being, the hugely disliked Imax building when it is finally demolished.

It now seems certain that a steadily reviving respect for the exceptional seascape and landscape perspectives that were the principal reasons for the original founding of Bournemouth in the Lower Bourne Valley, has now once again come to the fore within Council circles. Consequently, the final form and appearance of the last important, under-developed, central section of the town along Exeter Road is now of exceptional concern to the Planning Department. The problem is that this collective site is both quite extensive and yet at the same time near important topographical elements that together constitute integral parts of the unique visual character of Bournemouth. In addition, and irrespective of quite reasonable proposals for two new hotels on small portions of the area, respect for the unique linear townscape of the centre has not been properly appreciated, either by the authors of the Design and Development Report for Exeter Road (2006) or by the architects of recent over-large and visually inept designs for the two principal vacant sites at the old bus station and the Winter Gardens.

All these proposals exhibit a negligible understanding for the low rise, indirect perceptual attributes that have always distinguished urban development in the Lower Bourne Valley and instead envisage a high density, metropolitan orientated extravaganza in which the greatest emphasis would be placed on so-called “active street frontages”, to the exclusion of any relationship between the natural landscape and the use and context of the new buildings.

In the coming years, the main thrust of the Borough Council will be to convince the wider world that, in spite of the ever-increasing, frenetic, social commualism in large metropolis, there still exists in residential resort areas such as Bournemouth, a civilized lifestyle, whereby the aesthetic and functional connection between the individual and his/her built environment remains a perfectly viable proposition in which to invest.