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In the News
Plans
for City Centre Redevelopment
You may have read in the Hampshire Chronicle of the plans to redevelop the area around Kings Walk Antique Market. In response, we sent the following letter to the Head of Planning at Winchester City Council:
For the attention of F Tebbutt, Head of Planning, Winchester.
Case no: 06/016006
Winchester no: W20036
Developers: Lonnon and Henly
Dear Mr Tebbutt,
Re: Kings Walk Refurbishment Plans
While we here at the King’s Walk Antique Market fully recognise
the need for refurbishment of the Kings Walk area of Winchester, we are
increasingly concerned that the proposed plans fail to take into
account the historic significance of Silver Hill. This area was
the centre of Georgian and Victorian trading in the city, with many
small businesses including tanners, hatters, basket makers etc.
Silver Hill was a centre of small trader excellence, and thanks to the
Antique Market, it still is! The antique market building was rescued
from use as a furniture repository for Whites the movers, and is one of
the few remaining Victorian buildings in Winchester. Now, it is
considered a valuable asset by both visitors and local shoppers, many
of whom have been buying from us for over twenty-five years.
The new plan for the complete removal of this wonderful Victorian
building, and a rebuild to include housing is frankly absurd. It is yet
another example of the City’s seeming intent to exclude small
individual traders from this part of the city, and remove specialist
shops who sell different and interesting items not found elsewhere. It
is this very diversity of shopping that both the tourists and local
enjoy.
As a trader for over 25 years in the Antique Centre, I have many valued
local customers, who often tell me they simply do not want further
large national chain stores in this area. As consumers, they want the
right to browse and buy from individuals selling antiques and curios,
items which simply cannot be found elsewhere in Winchester or indeed
any city close by except Salisbury.
My main points on the refurbishment plans are simply these:
1. There is no provision made for lockable, affordable units in an
antique and craft building in the centre of the town. If the plans go
ahead, a whole major attraction for visitors and residents alike will
simply vanish. Winchester will consequently lose out on the
international traders who come to the Antique Market to buy, and spend
valuable dollars, Euros and pounds in the city during their stay.
2. Retention of a refurbished Antiques and Craft Market would provide
an interesting and historic centre for tourists and residents alike.
The current Market has no display on its past history, and its interior
has only tentative visual links with the area’s history.
Let’s make its history its virtue, and keep a valuable antique
trade alive in Winchester.
3. Winchester simply does not need more large shops. Proof of this has
been the total inability to attract long-term tenants in the Brooks
Centre over the last 10 years. Winchester is a historic city with
character; more chain shops would simply turn it into another anonymous
faceless high street that bores shoppers rigid and stifles choice.
4. Empty shops, high rents, ongoing road works, and expensive in-town
parking, all make Winchester a difficult place in which to shop and
trade as a small business owner. The decision to eradicate the one
place antique traders can actually afford to trade and attract
customers is short-sighted and totally counterproductive to the town.
Please retain a portion of the history within the walls of a very
important historical city, and give shoppers a chance to wander and buy
non-high street items as they do in Norwich, Exeter and other great
cathedral cities. Otherwise, Winchester will lose both visitors and
locals alike to other cities and other counties in their search for
unusual or antique purchases. And the one thing Winchester cannot
afford to do is lose out on trade!
This is not a Da Vinci Code to crack, it’s simple economics. Lose
the Antique Market and you lose a major shopping attraction for the
city and the valuable spending it attracts. Does Winchester City
Council really want to do that? I think not.
I would be happy to show you around the market and talk you through
exactly what could be achieved by a far-sighted Council eager to
promote the antique trade, rather than smother it.
Yours sincerely,
The Jays Nest
Antique and Craft Market.
Winchester.
