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Minutes of the Committee Meeting held at 1pm on Monday 27th September 2021 at 18 Sandbourne Road, Bournemouth.

Meeting opened 1.05pm and closed at 2.05pm

Present: Ken Mantock, Jean Bird, Hilda Brownlow, Elaine, Cooper, Jean-Daniel Kursner, Beryl Parker, Sally McGrath, John Soane and Alex McKinstry.

Apologies: Paul Newsome and Philip Stanley-Watts

Tribute: Ken paid tribute to our late President John Barker who had served the Civic Society with distinction over many years and who contributed so much to the appreciation of Bournemouth’s local history. Thanks were recorded for his service and friendship and kind thoughts and condolences had been passed to his widow Eileen and his family. It was unanimously agreed to donate £200 to John’s chosen charities in lieu of flowers.

  1. Minutes. The minutes for the meeting held on 26th August were agreed

2. Matters Arising from the Minutes.

Committee Members: Jean-Daniel (who had attended Zoom committee meetings over recent months) and Alex McKinstry were welcomed to the meeting. They were both attending the meeting as observers with a view to see if over time they might join the Committee. Elaine was thanked for contacting colleagues who might be interested in joining the Society and committee.

Caroline Peach Meeting: No reply had been received from Caroline regarding topics sent across for the deferred meeting. Jean would chase a reply and seek dates for a face-to-face meeting now that Coronavirus regulations had changed. Ken noted that there had been staff and establishment changes within the BCP Planning Department so we needed to understand how this affected the service.

  1. Built Environment.

  • Boscombe Area Town Development. Martha Covell, the BCP Boscombe Project Manager had thanked us for the observations and sketch sent across last month and we would keep a watching brief on proposals.

  • Cleaner, Greener, Safer Bournemouth. Following Ken and John’s email exchanges and conversations with councillors it appeared from the now published report to this month’s BCP Cabinet that grass and verge cutting issues will be resolved and much investment made in improving the townscape and creating civic pride. There was action to tackle graffiti on public land and buildings so we needed confirmation that graffiti on private land, that was probably even more a problem around town, would be dealt with. Ken had emailed the Chief Executive and sent information again to Councillors and the Echo.

  • Seafront Strategy. We need to send in our comments.

  • Local Plan. The sub-committee needed to meet. Ken, Elaine, John, Jean-Daniel and Jean.

  • 16-20A Belle Vue Road. Redevelopment plans had been rejected last week by BCP’s Planning Committee. This was great news but as the Planning Officer had propised acceptance an appeal would be likely. In the meanwhile we would support local residents and the Southbourne Heritage Forum urging the Council to locally list historic buildings here, designate a conservation area and improve tree planting and appreciation of the environment. Our already agreed idea for supporting blue plaques around town should feature some in Southbourne. Ken suggested Jean-Daniel and Alex might contact Verity of SHF to see how we could work together on these items.

  • 896 Christchurch Road. Plans to convert this prominent historic building in Pokesdown to 12 flats had been submitted – they are reviewed in John’s monthly digest.

  • Wharfdale Road . Our objections to the 9 storey flats had featured in The Echo.

  • Old Christchurch Road. Our support for the change of use of the listed bank building to to gaming centre had featured in The Echo.

  • Fir Vale Road. John had attended the open day for plans to redevelop the nighclubs and felt that they were in principal acceptable but were too high and needed better integration into the existing townscape. We would keep a watching brief on the plans.

  • Bobby’s. The historic town centre shopping centre had reopened and although only the ground floor was currently occupied the restoration works and re-use of the building was very positive.

  • Parks & Open Spaces Meeting re Hengistbury Head. John S would be attending the BCP meeting on 9th October but it was suggested that Jean-Daniel and Alex might attend as well if free since they both lived in Southbourne.

  • 24-28 Ferncroft Road. A resident had contacted us via the website thanking us for our objection to plans here.

  1. Heritage and Conservation.

  • Blue Plaques. Still awaiting progress but agreed that Southbourne could be a good starter area for the initiative.

  • Civic Design Award Scheme. Still awaiting progress. Ken to chase Caroline Peach..

  • Westover Road Aviary. Our £2000 donation had been delayed as the bank had rejected our cheque but had admitted it was their error A new cheque had been sent..

  • Queens Park Bench. This will have to be delayed for a year as the Council were so far behind due to Covid.

  • Charminster Tram Shelter. It was agreed to make a £200 donation to the Charminster Community Action Group toward their restoration and planting up of this heritage feature.

  • Garth Carbery. Development pressures existed and plans to develop in the grounds of this grand Edwardian villa were being mooted. Alex had prepared a history of the building and grounds and hopefully the building would be listed or locally listed. It certainly could be included in the Belle Vue Road Conservation Area.

  1. Planning. See John Soane’s written reports for August:

  • 45 Westby Road. Care home extensions – defer for better scheme.

  • 38 West Way. Backland infill development – reject.

  • 12 Queens Park Gardens. New dwelling – reject

  • 38 Northey Road. Rear and side extension – reject

  • 1 Porchester Road. Unauthorised dwelling – enforcement action? reject

  • 81 Broadway. Infill bungalow – reject

  • 40 Evelyn Road. Block of flats – reject

  • 69 Coombe Avenue. Extension – defer for improvements

  • 183 Alma Road. Infill student flats – reject

  • 470 Christchurch Road. Conversion of shop to flats – defer for improvements

  • Chocolate Box Hotel, 2 West Cliff Road. Extensions – approve.

  • 60 The Avenue. Extension – defer for improvements

  • 896 Christchurch Road. Conversion to 12 flats – reject

  • 38 Poole Road. Additional storeys to roof – reject

  • 7 Old Christchurch Road. Additional storeys to roof – reject

  • Wooton Gardens .Block of flats – approve.

  • 9 Tower Road. Extentions – reject

  1. Planning Board . Last Thursday’s meeting saw the rejection of plans ay 16-20A Belle

Vue Road and approval of plans at West Cliff Gardens.

  1. Communications Timetable. The next newsletter would be the Christmas

edition. Ken asked colleagues to send him recollections of John Barker to include in the

tribute.

  1. Civic Voice. Civic Voice was continuing its campaign on the Planning Bill and had a forum on 30th September.

  1. Membership Officer’s Report. 1 new member. Saly will let Ken have updated outstanding subs list so he can write to members. Ken would pass to Jean-Daniel copies of the new membership leaflets so he could issue them around Southbourne.

  1. Webmaster’s Report. All good and up to date, all enquiries being followed up.

11. Treasurer’s Report:

  • Current Account. £44,976.00

12. Any Other Business.

  • Roger West. Roger West might attend the October Meeting

  • Southbourne Cross Roads WC. Works were in hand to create a modern artwork on this brickbuilt building. There seemed to have been no public consultation before the building was whitewashed and now is being painted with nautical themed images. Alex would take photos and we would investigate further.

  • Grand Bingo Hall, Westbourne. Sally noted that the listed building was up for sale again as the plans for conversion to a gym had not been taken forward.

  • Student Flats. Hilda asked if we knew how many purpose built flats there were for students in the town. It was noted that the creation of new purpose built flats in the Lansdowne had the benefit of taking the pressure off loosing family homes in Winton etc that had for years been converted to student accomodation and now were reverting to family homes. We would ask BCP Council for data.

Next Meetings

Monday 25th October and 22nd November both at 1pm at 18 Sandbourne Road (at the invitation of Jean)

Ken Mantock

25th October 2021 Chairman

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