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SCAS Newsletter Contact: Nick Knight [[email protected]] with your ideas Page 1
Conservation Area Society (SCAS)
Newsletter April 2017 Stoneygate
What Future for `Ashfield’?
SCAS Chair: David Oldershaw SCAS Website: www.stoneygateconservation.org
Newsletter: Nita Foale, Nick Knight Printed by: AVS-Print, University of Leicester
`Ashfield’ in Elmfield Avenue was built in the mid 1930s for cinema chain owner George Scarborough. Until last year it had remained in the same family for more than eight decades. Standing at the end of a long gravel drive on the site of a demolished Victorian mansion of the same name, the house is discreetly screened and the nearly two acres of grounds have become a quiet haven for local wildlife. Foxes and hedgehogs are regular visitors and since 1976 a group Tree Preservation Order has safeguarded forty of the many mature trees
which, according to neighbours, are still a favourite roosting place for owls and the odd woodpecker.
With the recent passing of the last resident, the future of the property is now in question and developers have been seeking neighbours’ views on one possible scheme. The existing buildings would be replaced by a three-storey 72-bed care and nursing home of fairly traditional design, set back on the site, primarily of brick with some stone details and rendered gables. Drawings of the front (above) and Ashfield Road side (below) provide an idea of how this would look. All but five of the protected trees would be retained and others added to replace those lost. Shrubs would be planted to screen a new car park on the Elmfield Avenue side. Boundaries would be marked with metal estate fencing and spear-topped railings and the existing gate posts set further apart to widen the entrance.
This seems to us a reasonable use of the site and while it has a much larger `footprint’, we think the basic design is good. The deliberate attempt to break up the massing, use high-quality roofing and walling materials and incorporate features which reflect the historic houses in the conservation area is positive and the perimeter treatments are sympathetic. The elevations facing Ashfield Road will probably be quite imposing but new trees will help reduce the impact. A more intensive use of the space was always likely and from an ecological point of view, we believe these proposals will preserve the existing wildlife habitats better than, for instance, an estate of new houses similar to those in nearby Stanley Road.
We have some reservations. Large areas of uPVC glazing are neither sustainable nor especially attractive and there is a highly visible difference between opening and fixed panes which affects the proportions and symmetry. Some of the smaller square four-pane windows look inelegant and utilitarian. More natural-looking, water-permeable driveway and parking area surfaces would also be preferable. But generally, we are supportive of the proposals – and we are particularly impressed by the willingness of the developers and their architects to engage with residents before submitting a formal application.
SCAS Newsletter Contact: Nick Knight [[email protected]] with your ideas Page 2
The `contact us’ link on the SCAS website has generated an unusually large amount of correspondence recently and we can only assume that this reflects an increasing interest in the area. Besides people overseas tracing family connections, we’ve heard from TV programme researchers looking for Monty Python member Graham Chapman’s birthplace, students hoping for an introduction to the owner of a Stoneygate house which they’d like to mention in their dissertation, existing residents wanting to know more about their new home and past residents seeking to clarify their memories of their old one. Drag Crnomarkovic was one of these and wrote:
`I'm trying to find out about the former site of Woodbank School on London Road. I believe it is now Oliver Court and I note from an entry on your website that Oliver Court was designed by Douglas Smith. I was wondering whether he might know what happened to the school buildings and whether they were demolished. I went to Woodbank School when it was at 320 London Road but a colleague reckons that it also used to be at 324-326. I look forward to hearing from you.’
Committee member Neil Crutchley responded;
`You and your colleague are both right. The original Woodbank School was at 326 London Road and the house next door (324) called Tythorne was where the headmaster, Harry Barnett Page, lived. The houses were demolished in the 1970s and replaced by Oliver Court which was, as you say, designed by Douglas Smith. Number 326 was called Woodbank, hence the name of the school. When these two houses were demolished the school moved to 320 London Road and Barnett Page was succeeded by R. Rayner. After the demise of Woodbank School 320 London Road became the Islamic Academy. The two attached photos show Tythorne and Woodbank before they were lost. Very sad.’
More Queries from Readers
Art House 2017—Volunteers Needed!
This year’s Art House events will feature the work of more than 50 artists and take place over one evening and two full days; Friday June 9th—6-8.30pm and Saturday/Sunday June 10th/11th - 11.00am-6.00pm. Details of participating venues will be available nearer the time www.art-house.org.uk
As usual we will be running a SCAS stand and we are looking for volunteers to help us out on Saturday and Sunday. It’s great fun and no special qualifications are required; you just need a cheerful disposition, an ability to chat about the Society and its aims and a willingness to persuade visitors that the modest cost of membership would be a sound investment! If you can spare an hour or two, please contact Nita Foale on 2448438 or at [email protected].
Tythorn, 324 London Road Woodbank, 326 London Road
9th 10th & 11th of June
SCAS Newsletter Contact: Nick Knight [[email protected]] with your ideas Page 3
Many of you will already have heard the sad news of the death of Canon Henry Evans on 28th January 2017. Henry joined the SCAS committee in 1996 at a time when our future looked much less secure than it does now. The popular coach trips organised with the Civic Society had ended and the original society of friends, neighbours and well-wishers formed in 1978 when the conservation area was created, had begun to lose its way in the face of increasing new challenges. Membership and morale was at such a low ebb that no subscription was asked for in the year 1995-96. It is typical of Henry that this should be precisely the time he chose to become involved. With David Oldershaw as acting Chair, the society was relaunched and within two years Henry had become Treasurer as part of a new committee with a renewed purpose.
We enjoyed Henry’s congenial company and dry wit and benefitted from his wise counsel and good stewardship for 16 years. As Treasurer he put our finances in order, established a formal system for controlling our incomings and outgoings and generally kept the Society on a solid footing which other committee members built on. Besides ensuring that members’ subscriptions were put to good use, his annual expense claims never (as far as we know) included more than a modest honorarium to our auditor and, as we often liked to say (only half jokingly), his counterparts in larger organisations could have learned a lot from his example. Henry finally stood down in 2012 but again it was typical of him to agree to remain in post until we had found a suitable replacement.
Henry’s influence extended well beyond Stoneygate and he is perhaps best remembered as the dynamic young curate and later vicar of the recently created Stocking Farm Estate whose energy and engagement led to the building in the early 1960s of the new church of St Luke’s. With funds at a minimum, Henry trained as a bricklayer and, together with over 200 volunteers, he spent every spare moment he had on the project until finally the "church the people built" was finished. Such was its fame that the official opening of St. Luke's was performed by no less a figure than Princess Margaret.
St Luke’s notwithstanding, we are looking for some way to commemorate Henry nearer to Stoneygate where he lived for most of his later life and where he will always be fondly remembered.
Canon Henry Evans
The last (December 2016) Newsletter contained an article `Déjà vu – The Extraordinary Story of Israel Hart’ in which we mistakenly stated that Sir Israel Hart and his second wife, Charlotte Victoria, had `only one child, a daughter Vera Charlotte’. In fact they also had three sons; Edward Samuel (b1875), Arthur Charles (b1881) and Leycester Israel George (b1886). Sadly, Leycester died in infancy. Edward became a barrister (like his brother-in-law). Arthur joined the Leicestershire Militia in 1900 and later the Northumberland Fusiliers where he became a Captain serving in South Africa, Antigua and India. He arrived in Flanders in January 1915 and, though twice wounded in action, refused to leave the fighting line. He was killed on 8th May in command of "A" Company, 2nd Northumberlands, while defending against a German attack during the Battle of Frezenberg. His name appears on the Menin Gate memorial and he is also commemorated by an inscription on the plinth of his parents’ gravestone.
A Correction ….
Arthur Hart
SCAS Newsletter Contact: Nick Knight [[email protected]] with your ideas Page 4
Speed Humps & Speed Limits in Clarendon Park Road
In February and March Leicester City Council ran an online consultation to obtain residents’ views on proposals to introduce a 20mph speed limit in all conservation area streets north of Avenue Road and west of London Road and to install speed humps outside No2 and Nos10-12
Clarendon Park Road and at the existing zebra crossing outside St John the Baptist Church. The results will be summarised and reported to the City Mayor who will then decide how (or if) the scheme will proceed.
The weekday congestion around St John’s School during pick-up and drop-off time is no secret and only recently local MP Jon Ashworth asked the City Council to look into safety improvements at the Clarendon Park Road/London Road junction following yet another accident involving a cyclist. These are serious and persistent problems – but it isn’t
clear to us how the new proposals will help alleviate either of them. Or whether they will achieve anything other than obstructing normal traffic flow and increasing air and noise pollution. At the times of greatest risk to schoolchildren, traffic is already
slow-moving and the narrowness of most of these streets (which have parked cars on both sides virtually all day) means that speeding is relatively rare at other times, even in the evening. The area’s problems don’t, in our view, lend themselves to simple `engineered’ solutions. They need a more imaginative approach that reduces traffic volumes and – above all - changes driver behaviour. The school has attempted to work co-operatively with parents and guardians on this and the answer surely remains in their
hands. Until it becomes normal practice to park further away and walk the last few hundred yards or leave the car at home and use public transport, sadly the safety risks are likely to remain unchanged.
Alarmed by the number of reported personal injury accidents at the junction of London Road and St Johns Road, the City Council approached residents last Spring to discuss the possibility of introducing highway modifications. There was a sizeable response and after considering several suggestions and noting the opposition to road humps, the Council ran a formal consultation in March inviting comments on their preferred scheme – to prohibit vehicles turning into St Johns Road from London Road, build out the kerbs and narrow entry at the junction.
We support measures to make cycling safer and we don’t object to the planned highway alterations but we do believe they should be done in a way that (i) minimizes additional visual clutter, particularly on London Road (ii) preserves the original Victorian materials such as granite kerbs (iii) uses appropriate additional materials and (iv) allows a historical interpretation of the original junction. We are especially concerned about (i) and (ii). London Road is, we would argue, the city’s most attractive gateway and retains much of its historical character. The stretch including the St Johns Road junction is currently free of intrusive signage and we think this is a good thing. If the proposals are accepted, other London Road junctions (eg with Springfield, Alexandra and Sandown Roads) may get similar treatment and we are keen that an appropriate precedent should be set.
Friday 16th June to Sunday 25th June
Access to St Johns Road from London Road
SCAS Newsletter Contact: Nick Knight [[email protected]] with your ideas Page 5
Stoneygate Road Restoration Recognised
At their 2016 Architectural Awards ceremony on April 7th the Leicester Civic Society took the very unusual step of making an additional award for `high quality restoration in a domestic context’. We are delighted that this went to Tippetts & Brooks, the company responsible for the beautiful refurbishment of the town houses at 12-16 Stoneygate Road featured in our December 2015 Newsletter.
The main restoration award was won by Leicester City Council’s Friar’s Mill, a transformation into modern office and workspace of Donisthorpe’s eighteenth century worsted spinning works near West Bridge (almost totally destroyed by fire in 2012). Civic Society chair
Stuart Bailey admitted that it would have been extremely difficult for any other nomination to compete with this but said that he and fellow judges felt the need to recognise Tippetts & Brooks’ outstanding work. `We were all bowled over. The craftsmanship and painstaking attention to detail were an absolute delight.’
Think you could help us check local Planning Applications?
One of SCAS’s key activities is to assess and respond to planning applications in the conservation area. Over the last few years the majority of this work has been done by Matt Matthew and Nick Knight with help from David Oldershaw and, more recently, Jill Reville. We have now agreed that Nick is to concen-trate on our newsletter, website and social media so we have decided to try and build a small team who between them will cover planning matters.
Think you could make a contribution? Initially, it would involve (i) looking at applications on the City Council’s planning website with an occasional walk by to check (ii) discussing with colleagues (either by email or `phone) how/whether we should respond and what should be the Society’s position on a particu-lar application and finally, if it is necessary (iii) submitting written comments to the Planning Department. The work has a technical dimension but it isn’t onerous - the guiding principle is that spreading the work between a few people makes the task manageable for all.
If you’d like to learn more, please contact David via the website.
LEICESTER CIVIC SOCIETY City of the Dead - A Guided Walk around Welford Road Cemetery
Saturday 17th June 10.30am Leicester’s vast Victorian necropolis is full of fascinating people, their splendid monuments and their humble graves. Cost: £4 Meet: Cemetery gates Bookings: Stuart Bailey 01509-266818
VICTORIAN SOCIETY
Evening Walk in the Western Park Area
Tuesday 4th July 7.00pm A further visit to Leicester’s ‘Garden City’ continuing our previous walk in this area, led by Richard Gill and Neil Crutchley. Cost: £5 Meet: St Anne's Church, Letchworth Rd. Bookings: Carole Face 0116-267-5946. (Closing date Friday 16th June)
SCAS Newsletter Contact: Nick Knight [[email protected]] with your ideas Page 6
Planning Matters (January to April 2017)
In February we were delighted to receive an e-mail from Nitesh Alagh on behalf of the Sant Nirankari Mission, the new owners of the former Knighton House on London Road. Nitesh tells us that, while primarily a spiritual organisation, the Mission is engaged in various types of charitable activities including `relief work during natural calamities, blood donation, street and river cleaning, tree planting, fundraising and providing free meals, health and wellbeing activities and group meditation sessions’. The Mission has a global network of `Centres for Oneness’ and its Leicester Centre in Prebend Street has been active since the 1960s. All work is done on a not-for-profit basis and it has been recognised through the Queen's Award for Voluntary Service and the Duke of York Award for Community Initiative. Nitesh and his colleagues are keen to share their vision for Knighton House and are hoping for our support and guidance in ensuring that their plans `complement the shared vision for the Stoneygate Conservation Area.’ We look forward to meeting them and discussing their proposals in detail.
At 2 Knighton Park Road consent was given last March for the demolition of a garage accessed from London Road and its replacement with a single-storey detached 1-bed annexe. An earlier plan for a similarly sized building had been refused in 2015 but the main obstacle was overcome by reorientating the annexe so that the front faced London Road. The owner has now made a new application for a larger, taller two-storey building, using a design and materials palette which consciously mimics the main house. A dormer has been added and there are brick arches over the door and windows as in the adjacent ground floor windows. The problem is that the imitation is only partial. The proposed windows are sashes in uPVC rather than timber and they are square - unlike the tall rectangular windows of the main house. The dormer echoes the design of those in the main roof but it is also squarer in proportions.
While the proposals reflect a much greater level of care than previous ground and first-floor balcony extensions, we believe the effect is still incongruous and detracts from the main house. We are particularly unhappy with the case officer’s bland assertion that `the proposals will not be visible from London Road’. This `invisibility defence’ is now routinely used to justify accepting questionable work even when (as here) it doesn’t apply.
The latest plans for 26 Southernhay Road were approved by the planning committee in March after new drawings finally provided sufficient detail to address most of their (and our) outstanding concerns. The design for the front wall is sympathetic and we are pleased that the owner's plans for the rare `concertina’ garage door have been clarified (it will be retained). We are particularly impressed by the new glazing scheme which reintroduces some of the striking art deco styling lost when the original Crittall windows were replaced by previous owners. The incongruous standard 4-section front window threatens to undermine the
effect but we hope there is still time to alter this (and we also think bronze frames might be more suitable than black ones). While we are sad that the original timber front door will be lost, it is pleasing that the design (and side panels) will be exactly reproduced and the original leaded windows retained. If the owners hold their nerve, this development promises, not only to give the house a new lease of life but also to reassert its 1930s modernity in a genuinely exciting way. If it does, the heavy demands made on the time and patience of officers, councillors, neighbours and ourselves may, after all, prove worthwhile.
SCAS Newsletter Contact: Nick Knight [[email protected]] with your ideas Page 7
The latest application to enlarge 8 Ratcliffe Road was approved by the planning committee in February after being amended to omit an unsympathetic new front porch/door and alter a planned rear garden annexe from a dwelling to a `gymnasium’. We are pleased that a condition has been attached to restrict the annexe to non-habitable use and that its width and height have been slightly reduced. However, we are still uncomfortable that substantial rear garden buildings should be allowed at all. Renaming them as recreational buildings is surely fudging the issue. We suspect that applicants will simply reapply at some future date for a change to habitable use and with a suitable structure already in place and central government policy increasingly permissive, our concern is that this may be difficult to refuse.
In defending his acceptance of the annexe, the case officer mentions that, under the Town & Country Planning Act, `permitted development' rules allow up to 50% of a rear garden to be developed without consent. This is true - but when close to a boundary, all such development is limited to 2.5m in height. In practice this allows sheds or shed-like structures (workrooms, dens etc) but it doesn't allow buildings that are clearly dwelling-like, as this one is (it would be 4.4m high, reduced from 4.7m). If planners are serious about safeguarding green amenity space in Stoneygate, we believe they should insist that garden development be limited to the kind of buildings envisaged by the permitted development rules. They should not be compromising conservation area policies to allow potentially habitable buildings that are unfit for the purpose for which they are really intended.
In Brief:
27 Knighton Road Works to hornbeam, yew, beech trees TPO 359 - PENDING 31 Knighton Road, The Woodlands Works to horse chestnuts and sycamore TPO 24 - PENDING 19A Central Ave Convert garage, replace front doors/windows, 1-storey extension - PENDING 7 North Avenue Certificate of lawful use for HMO - PENDING 368 London Road, Gables Hotel Discharge of Condition 7 (travel and parking plan) attached to 20150787 - UNCONDITIONALLY APPROVED 368 London Road, Gables Hotel Discharge of Condition 5 (servicing and delivery management plan) attached to 20150787 - UNCONDITIONALLY APPROVED 24 Ratcliffe Road 4-bed dwelling and detached garage at rear - CONDITIONALLY APPROVED 73 Knighton Drive Rear dormer extension; alterations to roof, rooflights at front, balcony at rear – CONDITIONALLY APPROVED
Flat 1, 3 Cross Road Change 1x 1-bed flat to 2x 1-bed flats - CONDITIONALLY APPROVED 42 Avenue Road Replacement windows and doors; alterations - CONDITIONALLY APPROVED 14 Burlington Road Works to western red cedar TPO 16019 - CONDITIONALLY APPROVED
14 Cross Road Replacement front windows - CONDITIONALLY APPROVED
Planning Committee Meetings. Exhaustive or Exhausting? The planning committee allows elected councillors to ensure that the City’s planning policies are being properly implemented and, where necessary, to challenge officers’ interpretation and/or weighting. It is an important democratic check and, as we have said before, it is essential that it should operate as effec-tively as possible if we are to ensure that the city taking shape around us is the city we all actually want.
It is worrying that planning committee meetings are now routinely going on for 4 or 5 hours at a time. Planning decision-making requires above all a grasp of detail and evidence suggests that some members struggle with this at the best of times. Expecting members who have been continuously active since the early hours of the morning to be lucid 10 or 11 hours later and to maintain concentration for a further 5 hours is just not reasonable. It also encourages officers to cut corners. One recently advised members that a letter sent by SCAS immediately before the meeting was simply a reiteration of comments submitted earlier. It wasn’t - but with the clock showing nearly 10.00pm, several items still to be covered and the Chair eager to move on, what incentive was there to say otherwise? With such a full agenda it's inevitable that applications deemed `less significant’ will be moved to the end of the running order. This virtually guarantees that they won't receive proper consideration – and defeats the purpose of putting them before the committee in the first place.
SCAS Newsletter Contact: Nick Knight [[email protected]] with your ideas Page 8
I/we wish to maintain my/our membership /become a member of SCAS and enclose a cheque
for £6 (per household per year) as from April 1st 2017
Name:……………………………………………………………………………………………..............
Address:.………………………………………………………….................Postcode…………………
Contact Phone: ....................................................... email.........................................................................
Send to: Nita Foale, Membership Secretary, 2 Clarendon Park Road, Leicester LE2 3AD
Phone: 244 8438 E-mail: [email protected]
Clarendon Park Congregational Church
Review of the Year’s Activities
Elections to the Committee
Any Other Business
Guest Speaker: Austin J. Ruddy on `Stoneygate in World War Two’ A graduate of the University of Leicester, Austin edits the `Mr Leicester’ pages of the `Leicester Mercury’ and is author of `To the Last Round: The Leicestershire and Rutland Home Guard 1939-1945’ and `Tested by Bomb and Flame: Leicester versus Luftwaffe Air Raids 1939-1945’
Refreshments will be available. Non-members are welcome.
SCAS AGM Monday 22nd May 2017 at 7.30pm
Congregational Church, London Road
(between Clarendon Park & Springfield Roads)
We have ended 2016-17 with 223 member households which means that, yet again, we've managed to maintain our upward trajectory. The last time membership went down at year-end was 2005-06 and the committee are delighted to be maintaining your interest and support for the Society. As we have said before, the conservation area directly benefits from your involvement and you ARE making a difference.
The `Art House’ weekend is a fruitful source of new members and we’d particularly like to thank those of you who have maintained your membership and intend to do so for another year. We’d also like to warmly welcome more recent arrivals from the Friends of the University of Leicester Botanic Gardens. It was the brainchild of SCAS member Rodney Spokes to kindly include our leaflet with their newsletter and we have returned the favour with this issue. We hope to repeat the initiative with other like-minded groups. We have already reprinted our promotional leaflets and our new membership secretary has devised a `joining’ pack for new members comprising a welcome letter, a leaflet, a copy of the most recent newsletter and a standing order form. 121 memberships are now paid for by this method.
Finally, following several inquiries about paying annual subs by electronic BACS payments, Nita advises that this is fine but please remember to (i) identify your payment clearly (eg with your name and initials) and (ii) send her an advisory e-mail so you can be added to the newsletter delivery list.
Membership News
We're delighted to share the exciting news that the BBC Antiques Roadshow will be visiting Abbey Pumping Station on Thursday 15 June 2017 as part of their 40th series. Time to retrieve those family heirlooms from the attic and get dusting! Check the website for details.
A Date for your Diary…...
