Saving The Working Boys Home *UPDATE*

[Cambo]

Received email from Victorian society today

 

Hi Michael

 

Just to let you know that I have contacted the council and they say they expect an application imminently and will consult us when it arrives. I have passed all the information to my colleague James Hughes, as Hereford is in his area so the consultation will go to him.

 

Best wishes

 

Kathy

[dippyhippy]

Brilliant!

 

Thanks for posting this update Cambo!

 

Any extra support is vital at this stage.

 

I have contacted another group, and am awaiting a response!!

 

If I hear something positive, I'll post it up!

[megilleland]

A good time too ask questions.

 

[megilleland]

multipost post deleted sorry

[Cambo]

Drove past the old boys home & noticed the entrance has had a reasonable patch of Tarmac relaid?

[SON OF GRIDKNOCKER]

Will all Voicers who regularly pass the council-owned Bath Street Offices (aka the former Working Boys Home) please keep their eyes peeled for the obligatory planning application notice, which is likely to appear on a lamp post there any day soon?

 

Local residents will then have only about two weeks to send in objections to the crack pot idea* that these handsome late-Victorian buildings (for which a host of alternative uses could - and should - have been considered) should be demolished, to make way for a fire station. Let's give the complacent Andrew Ashcroft a thoroughly miserable summer, shall we?

 

*copyright: Cllrs Bramer & Johnson

[dippyhippy]

Thanks for this timely reminder Grid Knocker!

 

We all need to be on our toes - the window of opportunity will not be open for very long!

[Aylestone Voice]

There will also be a notice in the HT

[megilleland]

Now that the industrial units behind Royal Mail have been demolished, where the Link Road, is planned it makes more sense to relocate the fire station to this area as there wil be no demolition costs involving the Bath Street Offices. Still no news on a planning application.

[dippyhippy]

I suspect it will be August, when many folks are going, or are already, on their holidays. They did pretty much the same thing with the Lime Trees, Decisions were made at a meeting just before the Easter Weekend. Sneaky.

[Cambo]

Still no sign of a planning application as yet?

I wonder wants taking so long as was expecting it in July it's near September now!

I see Des McGuire pass away on 12th of August he was 87 he was the owner of the building which fusion is located in & the recently vacated odeon cinema in front of the county bus station upon his death!

[stupidfrustration]

Last I heard that building was going to be part of the new University.

 

Makes a lot of sense too for the kids to walk to the college past it every day and aspire to go to the Uni at the bottom of the hill.

 

Will be interesting to see what happens.

[dippyhippy]

What.....do you mean INSTEAD of knocking it down and replacing it with a new fire station????

 

You must tell us more!!!

[Ubique]

From Council press release today - looks as if they think it's Tablets of Stone ( apologies Bobby )

 

As part of its accommodation strategy, Herefordshire Council is in the process of closing a number of office buildings and co-locating staff into fewer locations, including Plough Lane, Shirehall and Blueschool House.

 

This will not only reduce our costs and overheads, but will also allow for buildings and land which are surplus to our requirements to be used for additional purposes, such as the proposed new fire station on the current Bath Street location.

[Cambo]

Thanks ubique for posting this. accommodation strategy so they spent £6 million on doing up the shire hall & plough lane & hope to save £350,000 a year with the closure of bath street, brockington & blackfriars but say this won't be fully realised until they have sold bath street & brockington?

My understanding is they are swapping bath street for the fire station & brockington was offered to the new university but now there saying there going to put brockington on the market & any expression of interest from potential buyers should contact Connell estate agents in Bristol?

 

When brockington was offered to the new university it was valued @ £800,000 I believe & the fire station which was also offered to the University for I think £500,000?

[Chris Chappell]

I am close to the plans for the new University and am not aware of the above plan for Bath Street.

 

The question I am going to ask Cllr Bramer is why, if the building of the new fire station in Bath Street is unlikely to be finished till2017, and the completion of the southern link road, between A465 and A49, is also due for completion in 2017, why the new fire station, ambulance station and traffic cops, do not have a new build on same site wholly or in part built by 106 money. This would give up Both Bath Street and the present fire station site to much needed housing!

 

Did Cllr Bramer think of this or investigate it?

[Cambo]

Chris whereabouts on the new link road do you think the emergency services should all be located? As one of the reasons the fire service said why they couldn't relocate there was because there was a one in hundred yr flood risk?

Althought they say the life span for a fire station is 30yrs?

[megilleland]

Especially if there are going to build 800 homes off the link road, it would be best to be sited as close as possible to this amount of housing. Also the getting off the link road will access the other parts of Hereford much quicker, contrary to what the fire service told us at their consultation.

[dippyhippy]

I seem to remember reading that on the original ESG plans, there WAS a new police station?? Then it was dropped. Can't recall if I read this here, or on HT.

 

The ambulance service have just spent a not insignificant amount of money refurbishing and modernising their Ross Road base, and loads of money has been spent on a stop gap solution to the police base.

 

I get the feeling the fire service do not actually WANT to share premises.

[Chris Chappell]

Hi Guys sorry for delay in responding but suffering from back pain so forgive if I not concentrating well.

 

The 800 planned houses, which I do't think we can stop now, will be built up against the access road. It stands to reason therefore that with these homes plus the expansion at Rotherwas, that a fire station/ambulance/police etc, needs to go close to these developments. It is b......s for the fire service to say it floods there as 800 houses are to be built there? The EA is convinced that everywhere south of the Wye floods. Some of our EA information comes from Shrewsbury office while some comes from thier Cardiff office, needless to say they do not communicate.

 

I am for the Eastern route bypass, so I would think that the fire station could be closer to Rotherwas than the A465. I am told that subject to planning etc, the Southern link road will be built by 2017. I can not see fire station being built much before that so wait for a year then build new fire station on access road!

 

This gives us housing land at Bath Street, St Owen Street and Ross Road where ambulance station is now. Which in turn might mean we can save some green belt land!

 

There has never been a plan for a police station with the 800 houses. A new school is planned and a few shops. No community facility or church and only one way out of estate on to access road!

Hope this helps

[dippyhippy]

post 586 0n page 24 is what I have been referring to Chris!!

[dippyhippy]

OK folks!

 

We need to start thinking about solid reasons for objections for this.

 

I'm plumping for the reason that the design does not enhance or improve the conservation area. I am also of the view that the materials they are planning to use, are going to make this carbuncle look like an industrial unit which would look more at home on The Rotherwas industrial estate.

I have concerns about the size of the training tower, the effect on neighbouring properties ie. noise, being overlooked.

Also access - straight out onto Bath Street.

 

There are also other environmental aspects to consider. Trees will be felled......again.

 

There is an awful lot of information contained within this thread......I've just spent over an hour re reading it! The clock is now ticking, so let's throw some ideas around, make sure this topic is back on the radar.....and get those objections in!

[Denise Lloyd]

But it is not the look of the building that matters it is the fact they are demolishing the existing building.  I have not had many successes with my letters in the past but that is the line I think I would emphasise - they could be replacing it with a supermarket/brothel/tea house or whatever it is the site that niggles.  

[Cambo]

I agree with you dippy on all points as it is in a conservation area after all! So we do not want it looking like a industrial estate!!! So just because it is the fire service that want to build it then that shouldn't give them the right to just build wot they want, without regard for the enhancement of the area. Or the demolish of a perfectly sound structure that is not in such a state of disrepair as to cause a danger to the public. so this does not warrant it's destruction. Not to mention the loss of some of Herefords heritage & landscape.

Also it is used as a nesting site for swifts which are a endangered specie!!

[dippyhippy]

Hi Cambo, there is some interesting information regarding this on the swift conservation website.

[Cambo]

I wonder if megilleland can put up a link?

[Denise Lloyd]

Go to RSPB and are there any bats?  But they will have done all that or should have done if they are worth their money.

[dippyhippy]

Hi Denise, no, there are apparently no bats......although this whole thing is making me feel decidedly batty, but I don't think that counts!

[megilleland]

I wonder if megilleland can put up a link?

 

Swift Conservation website.

[Cambo]

Thanks megilleland I've sent them email