Dorchester town centre redeveloped: an artist's impression of what new West Dorset District Council offices could look like

WEST DORSET District Council is making a big effort to win support for plans for the revamp of Dorchester town centre, and below – word for word – are two press releases issued today. Why word for word? Because on big issues like this, hours and hours of effort goes into producing press releases, and if you regard them as rhetorical rhumbas or peruse them as political poems, they can actually give a surprising amount of pleasure.

The first one, for example, starts with the word “the”? Why “the” and not “a”, when there have been a couple of other schemes before that failed to come to anything? That’s the reason. “The” sounds more planned and definite, whereas “a” would subliminally raise the possibility that this scheme too might never materialise.

But then whoever wrote this is also honest. That’s why “long-awaited” comes next. The council has been wanting for the best part of twenty years to get a scheme going on the Charles Street site, and the writer feels compelled to acknowledge this fact while at the same time seeking also to suggest that over the last two decades the people of Dorchester have been chafing for action… But have they? 

There are also points omitted. I’ll just pick out two for now, one good, one bad. The bad, but hardly surprising, point is that there’s no mention of the recent fine Simons was given for bid rigging. I’ve put what WDDC had to say about this last September at the bottom of this press release.

The good point is that there is no mention of the Olympics. I was told a while ago that Team Dorset wanted to include the Charles Street redevelopment as an Olympic legacy – think how the spending of £60 million could swell the benefits claimed – but thankfully the idea was squashed. It’s bad enough seeing the Dorchester to Weymouth Relief Road claimed as an Olympic legacy. But that’s another story… For now, seriously, enjoy what’s below.     

THE LONG-AWAITED £60 million redevelopment of Dorchester town centre will move one step closer if a planning application is submitted next month.

The redevelopment of the Charles Street car park in Dorchester is a key priority for the district council.

The planned redevelopment would provide a more vibrant county town with quality facilities including extra shopping, a new library and adult learning centre, affordable housing, 484 public car parking spaces, a 60-bedroom hotel and a new bus stop.

There will be a place to leave cycles and new public toilets are also planned.

Developers, Simons – whose work with West Oxfordshire District Council recently landed a Best Regeneration Partnership award in the Community Partnership Awards – intends to submit a planning application to the district council by April.

Some major retailers have already shown interest in occupying the anchor store.

Pedestrian walkways will link the development to South Walks, Tudor Arcade and Hardye Arcade, meaning that the whole of the town centre will benefit from the development.

New council offices are also planned, and Dorset County Council is looking at whether relocating Dorchester Library to the Charles Street development would meet service needs and provide value for money. A total of £500,000 has been provisionally set aside by the county council towards fitting-out costs if the move is given the go-ahead.

West Dorset District Council Chief Executive David Clarke said relocating the county council’s library and adult learning centre to the new complex would mean better access for local people to a wide range of public services in one place.

Council Leader Robert Gould said: “The public have been kept informed and been consulted for more than two years on the latest plans to develop this site. All the details can be found on www.charlesstreetproject.com

“When the planning application is submitted, there will be a three week period for people to have their say and let the council, as the planning authority, know what they think about the proposals.”

He added: “The new offices will provide a first phase to the important redevelopment of the Charles Street site.

“The development will bring significant private investment, a wider range of shops and facilities and more jobs to the county town.

“The redevelopment as a whole will help Dorchester and the surrounding area recover faster from the current recession.”

For more information visit dorsetforyou.com/charlesstreet

WDDC statement on Simons’ fine last September:

West Dorset District Council Chief Executive David Clarke said: “The district council was disappointed to learn that Simons is one of the 112 companies investigated by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) over cover pricing/bid rigging.

“The investigation relates to three contracts submitted by a local works office of Simons Construction Ltd outside of Dorset, over eight years ago. Simons cooperated fully with the OFT and as a result their fine was reduced by 40%.

“There is no connection between this investigation and the proposed development in Charles Street, Dorchester by Simons’ Developments Ltd who were not involved in the investigation.

“The OFT has advised that businesses that have been part of this investigation should not be excluded from future tenders and are expected to be more compliant with competition rules in the future. The council follows OFT’s recommendations and has specifically employed a leading firm of quantity surveyors to advise the council on the tender process.”

Editor’s Note: The second press release expands on that simple-looking clause in the first, which states that “New council offices are also planned”. The council’s proposed move to new offices is described as “a key boost” to the town centre redevelopment plans outlined above. 

Existing offices at Stratton House (which has, apparently, 17 different floors) are said to be “wholly unsuitable”: they prevent the council from working “effectively and efficiently as a single organisation”. It would be nice to know what the council is prepared to admit - aside from paying big bills for things like heating – that it is doing ineffectively and inefficiently at the moment.

It would also be nice to know how the council squares its future as “a single organisation” with the cost-cutting Pathfinder proposals for West Dorset, Weymouth & Portland and Purbeck all to operate under one supreme team of managers.

My feeling, for what it’s worth, is that people need to ask a lot of questions about this.

Why West Dorset District Council has to downsize

WEST DORSET District Council has launched a video to explain why it needs to downsize and move to modern new offices.

Its chief executive David Clarke is the face of the six-minute film telling people that:

• It’s cheaper for the council to move than to stay where it is
• New council offices and a possible library will mean better access for customers
• Public parking spaces in the town centre will be freed up, in addition to 484 car parking spaces remaining in Charles Street
• The council’s carbon footprint will be reduced
• The Old Crown Court would be developed as a heritage attraction

The video is available to view now on YouTube. Mr Clarke said: “As part of its continued search for savings the district council has decided that it makes no sense to continue to invest taxpayers’ money into the existing buildings which, when built, were never designed as offices.

“It is cheaper for us to downsize and move to modern and efficient offices than to stay. The new building will be less than half the size of current campus.

“Importantly, the new offices will reduce our carbon footprint and will save the taxpayers between £140,000 and £160,000 a year.

“The new offices will be better for customers because they will be able to access all services in one new convenient place rather than at the various different receptions we have now.

“As the first phase of the redevelopment, the offices will also be a key boost to secure the £60m private investment in the Charles Street retail, housing and hotel development.”

The costs of building the new offices will be around £10.7 million. The district council can fund this by selling the Stratton House complex, which it expects will fetch around £3.5 million. The authority has already built up £3 million in reserves to meet the high costs of maintaining Stratton House over the next few years. The council can afford to either use current reserves or borrow up to £4.2 million to fund the rest of the new building costs, because it will not be paying huge utility bills, cleaning and maintenance at Stratton House. The cost of borrowing for local authorities is at historically very low interest rates which can be fixed for the period of the loan.

The council will also ensure the continued use of the existing Stratton House site, made up of several historically important buildings. In particular, negotiations are ongoing with the National Trust about the future of the Old Crown Court and Cells, based in the Shire Hall part of the council offices.

West Dorset District Council’s Head of Corporate Resources and Health Adrian Stuart said: “Moving to new offices will help us improve efficiency and provide further savings to maintain front line services in the longer term.

“If the proposals get planning permission, we expect to move in to the new offices during early summer 2012.”

He added: “The council needs to move because the alternative is to make a significant investment in our current Stratton House site. 

“Even after making such an investment we would still be occupying buildings that are wholly unsuitable to their current use as offices, will cost more to maintain, clean, heat and light than is reasonable to expect, and prevent us from working effectively and efficiently as a single organisation.” 

Harriet Laurie with sons Caspar and Dillon

You can see Harriet Laurie on You Tube by clicking on this link  

GRAPHIC designer Harriet Laurie is one of the leaders of the fight to save Dorset’s only indoor skate park from destruction.

The Trick Factory on St Michael’s Trading Estate in Bridport is in danger of being knocked down so that landowners Haywards (originally teamed up with West Dorset District Council) can build flats on the site.

Ms Laurie is involved because she has three sons. She says, “If they weren’t doing this, they’d be at home trashing the house. This [place] is geared up for testosterone, and my home is a little bit of a cosy cottage where three big boys are just busting out at the seams, so they come here, they get it all out of their system, and they come home and they’re lovely.”

One of her boys, Caspar, admits: “I can skate, which I like doing, and I’m tired out when I get home, so I don’t stay up late, and I’m ready for school and stuff like that. It’s just a lot easier to come here and it’s something to do at night rather than going out around the town.”

The Trick Factory is thronging with boys trying out risky sporting moves. There’s plenty of fallings-off but no visible fallings-out.

Ms Laurie says: “There’s an awful lot they’re learning about how to co-operate with other people, and how to be generous, you know, allowing other people the space and the time to do their stuff and they all really encourage each other, there’s a wonderful kind of bonhomie.”

More activities for teenagers a West Dorset priority

The last major survey of public opinion in West Dorset was bmg research’s Place Survey, carried out in late 2008, published in full in October 2009.

According to this survey, residents’ two top priorities for improving life in West Dorset are more affordable decent housing (47% overall – 57% in Bridport) and more activities for teenagers (43% overall – 45% in Bridport).

This is why the future of the Trick Factory has become such an explosive issue – because it brings the two priorities of affordable housing and activities for teenagers into direct conflict.

(This is also why it’s remarkable that the Trick Factory should – until recently – have been so ignored by West Dorset District Council planners and landowners Haywards: – so casually earmarked for destruction – or so it seems to everyone I’ve spoken to about it…)

Should one priority give way to the other? Harriet Laurie: “Affordable housing is really important, but I think there’s not much point having affordable housing and then having that all full of kids who’ve got nothing to do, who are going to trash the place. You have got to get a balance, haven’t you, between keeping people busy and positive, as well as housing them. I don’t think one has to give way to the other. You can create a scheme that works for everybody.”

But is it now possible to get a scheme that works for everybody? Haywards’ planning appeal – against district councillors’ refusal to allow the transfomation of St Michael’s Trading Estate and the South West Quadrant of Bridport – will begin in West Bay on January 26.

Click here for the Trick Factory’s website 

Click here for the Trick Factory Support Group on Facebook, which (at the time of writing this) has nearly 1,500 members 

THIS CHRISTMAS-TIME, I was sure there would be more chances to see the Symondsbury Mummers  than the show in Broadwindsor detailed below – and I was right.

Margaret Milree, the assistant curator at Bridport Museum, got in touch about three minutes ago to say they will be performing at 6.50pm in Bridport’s Bucky Doo Square tomorrow evening (December 9) as part of the town’s Late Night Christmas shopping event.

And before that she also wrote to tell me (thank you Margaret!):

“Just read your article on the Symondsbury Mummers – they are also performing next Wednesday at the Town Hall.

“Details as follows:- On Wednesday 16 December the Symondsbury Mummers will be performing a Christmas Special at the Town Hall starting at 7.30pm.

“Entrance is £5.00 to Museum Friends and Volunteers and £6.00 to guests and includes mince pies and a glass of wine or a soft drink.

“The event is organised by the Friends of Bridport Museum to give support to the local museum.”

Ms Milree notes that another group are performing a similar historical play in Bucky Doo Square in Bridport after the Nativity on Saturday, December 19 at 12.30. They are the Babylon Morris Dancers/Mummers…

A UNIQUE sporting venue for young people is in danger of being shut down and smashed to bits.

The Trick Factory in Bridport is popular with skateboarders and BMX bike riders from across Dorset, among them contenders for Britain’s BMX team in the 2012 Olympics.

The indoor park is threatened because it stands in the way of controversial plans for the redevelopment of Bridport’s South West Quadrant, which includes the St Michael’s Trading Estate.

Landowners Haywards are appealing against West Dorset District Council’s refusal earlier this year to grant permission for the transformation of the historic SW Quadrant. The Trick Factory is housed inside a relic of Bridport’s net and cordage industry called the Stover Building, which Haywards want to demolish and replace with housing.

Fire officer called in

Haywards’ architect Ken Morgan, as part of preparations for the appeal inquiry, twice in November inspected the Stover Building. Acting chiefly on concerns about a fire escape he saw blocked externally with some loose timber, he called in Dorset Fire and Rescue Service to assess whether it was safe for the Trick Factory to continue.

The Trick Factory has been built up over the last ten years by expert BMX rider Robert Ridge.

Watch Rob Ridge on YouTube talking about the future of The Trick Factory and the South West Quadrant by clicking on this link.

In an email to Mr Ridge, Mr Morgan stated: “I cannot comment for the landlords but my ‘newly realised concerns’ stem from the fact that I must prepare for the appeal inquiry scheduled for January, part of which directly relates to the refusal of Conservation Area Consent for demolition of the Stover Building. During inspections of the building I recognized the potential fire risk and danger to life and cannot, professionally or personally, ignore that.”

Fire officer visits

Mr Ridge has responded to Haywards’ moves, and fire service recommendations, by taking time off work to make improvements.

He said that when the fire officer arrived: “We duly gave him a little tour, and he was fortunate enough to see a busy, boisterous, functioning evening going on here, a lot of people having a lot of fun. He even took the time to speak to a few people, as well as assessing the situation for his obvious concerns, and he said that whilst there were things that needed doing, the measures that we had here, and the way we were running the facility, from what I could interpret, he was satisfied that he could leave, with certain things in place, he could leave the place, and we’re waiting to hear back to find out recommendations to bring us up to a fully satisfactory level. So whilst not everything is perfect here, we’re still running and we hope to keep running and hope to carry out the necessary remedial work.”

On the same night the fire officer came back, an hour or so later. “And in that time we’d already got hands on deck, as it were, to start tidying the place up, making our fire extinguishers more visible, and start on the list of things that he’d recommended, so, on that revisit, I’d like to think we scored a few points there, and I’m hoping that we can satisfy their obligations. We’re certainly hoping to make every effort to keep ourselves running here, to keep all parties happy.”    

Mr Ridge has also begun amassing his own team of supporters and advisers, including the high-profile human rights lawyer Clive Stafford-Smith, best known in Britain and America for his work with captives at Guantanamo Bay.

Mr Ridge got to know through Mr Stafford-Smith through a plumbing job he once did for him.

Possible weakness in Haywards’ case

The issue has become more intense because of the way the Stover Building’s future has been dealt with in planning applications so far. This has been identified by one objector as a potentially severe weakness in Haywards’ case.

Catherine Searle, of the Bridport Environment Group, has told the Planning Inspectorate that she wishes to speak at the appeal in January about the Stover Building and the Trick Factory. Ms Searle is a battle-hardened veteran of Bridport’s last major planning dispute, the bitter struggle between West Dorset District Council (WDDC) and a range of protestors over the future of Downe Hall back in the 1990s. Haywards’ applications for the redevelopment of the SW Quadrant were initially made with WDDC.

Ms Searle believes that the Stover Building proposals – because they affect a Conservation Area – should be “assessed against the same broad criteria as proposals to demolish a Listed Building, ie that ‘all reasonable efforts have been made to sustain existing uses or find viable new uses, and these efforts have failed’” [she is quoting planning guidance].

Ms Searle says that neither Haywards, nor district council committee reports, have referred to the existing use of the Stover Building as the Trick Factory, nor have they indicated any attempt to find any other viable new uses for it. This despite the fact that the Trick Factory has been going for ten years and attracts boys from across Dorset and East Devon, and sometimes places further beyond, such as Southampton. The Trick Factory is the only indoor skatepark in Dorset, and the nearest alternative to it is in Bristol. There is also an indoor park in Newquay.

Call for support to avert “great loss”

Mr Ridge says that having to shut down the Trick Factory would be “a great shame” and “a great loss”, not just for himself but for many others, including the young people of Bridport.

He asked for people’s support: “Support is great, and I would say to anybody out there, if anybody knows, or anybody feels they can help in any way, they are more than welcome to come down or contact us.

“Any grant assistance is also useful as well. We’ve now got people looking at applying for grants as well, because we only run the place on a shoestring budget, on a very modest budget, and as with so many things the key to a lot of it is money and resources, so that would certainly help us in a lot of ways.”

For more details about the Trick Factory, and more pics and videos, click on this link here 

Watch YouTube video showing train journey from Bridport to Maiden Newton in 1975 by clicking on this link. Note: film is silent

WORK may start before Christmas on plans to turn the old Bridport to Maiden Newton railway line into a Trailway for walkers, cyclists and wheelchair users.

An old railway bridge at Loders, between Bridport and Maiden Newton

The Dorset Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty partnership has given £5,000 towards the scheme, which is being promoted by the sustainable transport charity Sustrans.

Maiden Newton Runners have also donated £500 of funds raised through their annual NewTen Madness event.

Sustrans is also organising a raffle, with prizes including a £2,000 bike.

The Bridport line opened in November 1857, as an offshoot of the main line going up through Maiden Newton from Weymouth to Yeovil. Five trains a day ran from Bridport; it took six hours to get to London. In 1884 the line was extended to Bridport Harbour – or West Bay as it became known when the railway arrived.

The railway company thought that West Bay was a more appealing name than Bridport Harbour; a harbour was popularly supposed to be a place where “the scum of a town was to be found” (I’m quoting – from memory – a statement I once read about the name-change from 1884, or thereabouts…) Anyway, scum wasn’t the image that property developers at the time wanted to convey; their aim was to make West Bay into the Bournemouth of West Dorset. 

Circus animals used sometimes to be carried right down to West Bay; elephants would be allowed on to the beach to splash around in the sea, after their long journey in wagons.

The branch line became a well-loved part of the local landscape. Poet and author Sylvia Townsend Warner, who lived in Frome Vauchurch just outside Maiden Newton, described the locomotive as trotting obediently under the shadow of Eggardon Hill like a little horse. She also wrote of the train’s “marmalade” light.

Nevertheless, the Bridport Railway closed in 1975. John Giles-Townsend and his brother Neil boarded one of the last trains ever to run, and they made the film I’ve posted extracts from on YouTube (with the generous permission of John Giles-Townsend; his brother died in 2001).

So what does Mr Giles-Townsend make of plans to turn the old railway into a Trailway? He thinks it will be difficult. When the line closed, land was parcelled up and sold to individuals, farms, private companies and other arms of the state. (Bridport’s East Street station site is now covered by a roundabout…)

Mr Giles-Townsend, a former chairman of Bradpole Parish Council, said: “I think it would have been a marvellous idea when they closed the railway if Dorset County Council or whoever had bought the whole track, it would have been fantastic.

“But I think now it’s too late. Bits of land have been reclaimed, and I can’t see some of the owners selling up.”

But Sustrans are optimistic. They believe that over the next three or four years a lot can be achieved. To read their take on developments, you can click here.

Or for cyclists’ take on developments, you can read more by clicking on this link.

Note: Historian Richard Sims prepared a guide about the Bridport branch line, and sites associated with it, for Bridport Museum. Highly recommended, and it’s only 50p.

A snatch snot of a squirrel eating an apple, high up in the trees over the old Bridport to Maiden Newton railway line. It carried the apple - which looked as big as its head - in its mouth as it scrabbled and hopped around.

ON EVERY page of the new Drimpton Village Voices book Who Were We? there’s something that catches the eye. The question that’s asked about cider comes on a page that (I swear) I opened at random.

Page 303 – which records the life of a woman called Susan Jeffery who actually leaves Drimpton in the early 1860s to  live on Ham Hill in Somerset, where Ham Stone comes from. Susan sets herself up as a laundress. “But of more interest is her growing family,” writer Andrew Pastor notes. By 1880 she has nine sons, but there’s no sign of any husband or live-in partner.

“What should we think? What can we say? Should it matter? It is just that we wonder who the fathers are, for surely there has to be more than one. Were the neighbouring women of Ham Hill at ease with Susan in their midst? Most of them were living conventional lives. They had acquired husbands and most managed to keep them. Among her neighbours in 1871 there had been no single men. Among them in 1881, there were none either.

“Surely, some of the wives must have looked at their husbands and wondered at the very least. These men, stonecutters and masons, were doing heavy, physical work which no doubt helped them work up a thirst. Who knows what a man who has drunk a lot of cider might get up to? Susan, now aged 40, was still attractive – or was she simply welcoming?”

This short section reveals a lot about Who Were We? It is, for a start, a brilliant book – the best local history book I’ve seen for many years. It’s been written by Andrew Pastor, but his use of the first-person plural (What can we say?… we wonder…) isn’t just a stylistic affectation. It reflects the enormous team effort that’s gone into researching this book, and the way that team members have thought about the people whose lives they have been investigating. Census returns (1871, 1881, etc) have provided basic details, supplemented wherever possible by other sources of information (eg, local newspapers, court records, museums…) Where need be, researchers have gone beyond county boundaries (and national borders).

But the key thing about this book is this: researchers have also used their imaginations, to interpret and to speculate and to try to bring people back to life: to reintroduce them to us in a humane and fascinating way. That’s one reason for the book’s subtitle: “Connecting the lives of a 19th century Dorset community”.  That means connecting those lives to us – posing questions to us (What should we think?). It also means seeking to recreate how people’s lives then were connected, even if it’s sometimes difficult or even impossible to work out exactly how they were, as with the puzzles over the identities of Susan Jeffery’s paramours.

Dorset in the 19th century was different. In the video clip coming up, Andrew Pastor pulls out of the quiet surrounding his Drimpton home some of the noise and grind of the past: you can watch the video by clicking on the link in the next line.

Andrew Pastor on YouTube

One of the things Mr Pastor refers to is that Drimpton - which now has just one farm – once had several. The photograph below shows, on the far right, what’s reckoned to be farmer Alfred Ben, dressed up for a wedding in 1902.

It’s a very striking picture, for all sorts of reasons: the whiskers, the top hats, the watch chains, the stillness and self-possession of the two old men, the stiff black shine of the women’s dresses, the almost military assurance of the woman on the left… But they all seem, behind the fence, to know that there’s a barrier between them and the future, whereas the girl in white, not so much in focus in front of the fence, seems ready to step up towards the camera, into the 20th century, towards us. She will grow into better definition; she knows what things were like, and she will seek to make them different again.

I am very grateful to Drimpton Village Voices for permission to reproduce a selection of photographs from Who Were We? Others include an extraordinary picture of 

Netherhay’s oldest resident round about 1908, Ann Hallson, who was then 95. Counting backwards, that means she would have been born during the Napoleonic Wars, in about 1813, before the Battle of Waterloo.

Ann was – it’s thought – a domestic servant, then a flax spooler  at Yarn Barton in Broadwindsor, then a flax winder and a handloom weaver, and then, finally, a pauper. She is listed in the 1881 census as “kept by parish”. Her fortunes fell as those of her neighbours rose. Andrew Pastor notes that her neighbours in Broadwindsor High Street now included “agricultural labourers, of course, but also factory workers, a dairyman, a thatcher, a master baker, a dressmaker, a stonemason, a cordwainer and his shoemaking  apprentice, as well as Police Constable Custard and his family.

“Did Ann smile at the sound of his name?”

Perhaps, in the 1880s, she did, but this picture, remember, was taken circa 1908, by which time Ann had moved to Netherhay, and you wonder – looking at this – what it would take to make her smile now. Her hands seem to retain the memory of decades of hard work – look at her index finger edging forwards – but her face seems closed-up and impassive and her clothes seem to enshroud her.

She had a child, back in the 1830s, but never seems to have married.

Andrew Pastor devotes three pages to her. He writes, finally: “She has made her way through life in a family where the women have looked out for and cared for each other as best they were able to…

“Deprivation and poverty cannot weaken family solidarity. In fact, they may have strengthened it.”