Marks and Spencer closure

Published on Thursday, 20th April 2017

It was very disappointing to hear today that Marks and Spencer’s is to close its Commercial Road store. The council had no advance warning of this decision and so as things stand details on what will happen next are scant, although press reports suggest a food-only store will open in Ocean Park. 

Debenham’s has announced that it will close ten stores across the country and with the chain having branches in both Commercial Road and Palmerston Road, there is a real chance that one or the other will be on the hit list.

The fragility of Commercial Road as a retail centre is a direct result of the failure to get the Northern Quarter scheme built before the shift to online and out-of-town shopping became as embedded as it now has. High Street retailing in the 2020s and beyond will have to be tied in with leisure activities and in future shop spaces will increasingly be shop window units, with customer orders being placed online. This requires a new approach.

The council’s ability to influence events is limited: all the units in the city centre are privately owned and so decisions on rents do not rest with the council; the same applies to the two main car parks at the Cascades and the Tricorn. As ever, the council just doesn’t have millions of pounds to spend. It can however try and secure funding for the new city centre road, which is the key to getting development moving.

It’s taken three years to do it, but enough money has now been saved up (an extra £11m) to be able to make a serious bid to government for the remaining cash. If approved, a mixed use regeneration scheme becomes viable. That will still take five years to plan and build though; what happens in the meantime is an open question.

Tags: City Centre, Planning

Cumberland House museum reopens

Published on Monday, 10th April 2017

(Image: councillors Luke Stubbs, Linda Symes and David Tompkins)

The Natural History museum by Canoe Lake has reopened after works to remove the old butterfly house and to make other repairs to the building. The appearance of the rear of the building is much improved without the old, wooden structure attached to it.  A new and improved butterfly house will be constructed over the next few months.

Tags: Canoe Lake, Cumberland House, Museums

University launches new nursing training centre

Published on Wednesday, 5th April 2017

Bucking the national trend, Portsmouth University has launched a new nursing degree. 120 students are now enrolled in the first year, with more to come in September. All are following a very practical course that teaches them the skills needed to practice either in a hospital or in a community setting. The new department will be based in a new £4m facility situated within St Andrew’s Court - the former Land Registry building in the gyratory.

The facilities really are impressive, with training spaces that feel like real wards or doctors’ surgeries and with some clever IT to allow not just the sharing of notes, but also the recording of practice sessions; the IT also lets students practice on mock-up patients that are much more than just shop dummies (although they still look a bit like them) and which can display real symptoms and which can react to treatment.

As a country we need our education system to focus more on supplying the skills employers actually need and this facility is a great example of that.

Tags: University

Broadcasting council meetings

Published on Tuesday, 21st March 2017

Full Council meetings have been broadcast live for approaching two years now and they have attracted more viewers than might have been expected: typically the video is downloaded 400 to 500 times and on one occasion fully 2500 people tuned in.

The number of unique viewers will, of course, be lower, but even so, there does seem to be a niche market for this and with the equipment now so cheap, there is little reason not to extend it to other types of meetings.

At Full Council today, I put forward a motion to broadcast all council committee meetings and I am glad to see that it received universal support.

While I doubt many people will watch scrutiny panel meeting, it is important that people have the option and the planning committee will, I suspect, attract genuine interest.

Tags: Transparency

Another new hotel in the pipeline

Published on Monday, 20th March 2017

Another planning application has been lodged with the council for a new hotel: the second in two weeks. If approved, this latest scheme will see Travelodge build 152 bedrooms and a restaurant on a currently unused site just to the north of the former Zurich building.

The application is for a twelve storey building and the submitted images suggest the design would fit in nicely with the neighbouring reclad Zurich (since rebranded as Catherine House). 51 parking spaces would be included, partly below ground.

The area around Portsmouth and Southsea station is changing dramatically, with over 3000 student rooms in the pipeline in five high-rise buildings. Part of the rationale for allowing these developments was as a means of kick-starting the wider regeneration of the southern end of the city centre; the hope being that other types of use would appear in later phases. This hotel proposal is an example of that happening; proposals for a second hotel on the other side of Catherine House will be another if they result in a planning submission, as is expected.

Over time, we're likely to see some general residential schemes and possibly a modest amount of office space coming forward in this general area. The overall effect should be to create a busy and prosperous new community in the centre of the city.

Full details of the application are available by searching for planning application 17/00228/FUL on the council's website.

Tags: Planning, City Centre

Eastern Road improvements move forward

Published on Monday, 20th March 2017

Plans to increase the capacity of the Eastern Road are a little nearer coming to fruition after the half a million pounds made available by the council was formally allocated to the scheme. Work will now start on developing a set of deliverable options.

Meanwhile, structural maintenance on the water bridge started on Monday. This scheme is part of a £1.3m package to extend the life of the stretch of road between Anchorage Park and the A27 roundabout and involves sealing the underside of the bridge and painting all of the metalwork with a corrosion resistant paint.

Work will last until the autumn and there will be a few lane closures, but they should be few and far between. Without these repairs, the road may have had to be permanently reduced to single carriageway operation in the not too distant future.

Tags: Transport

French exchange opportunity

Published on Monday, 20th March 2017

An interesting opportunity for any French-speaking young people out there: the city of Caen is looking for someone aged between 18 and 25 to work on an internship for the month of August. Accommodation will be provided, as will payment of €1100. Click here for details.

A letter and CV (in French) is required to apply. Former councillor Terry Hall is coordinating applications. I won't put her email address online, as webbots trawl sites for that sort of thing. However if you are interested, email me at my councillor email address (available via the council website) and I will forward your message.

Tags: Twin town

Pro tennis tournament coming to Southsea

Published on Friday, 10th March 2017

A major ladies' tennis tournament will be hosted by the Canoe Lake tennis club this summer. The Aegon Trophy Series consists of five short tournaments spread across the country and all played in the month of June. Together they form a warm up for Wimbledon and are a way for up and coming players to compete on a grass surface, improve their rankings and earn some serious prize money.

Some of the world's top 100 players will be here, not least because $100,000 in prize money is available.

This tournament is another feather in the cap for Canoe Lake Leisure, the community organisation that runs the tennis courts. Admission will be free. It will run between the 27th and 30th of June, weather permitting.

Tags: Leisure, Seafront

New hotel planned for Old Portsmouth

Published on Friday, 10th March 2017

A 120-bedroom hotel may be built opposite the dockyard entrance. A planning application submitted to the council seeks permission for a seven storey building on the site of a collection of obsolete commercial buildings. The ground floor would feature a restaurant, the operator would be Premier Inn and there would be no parking created.

While parking is a problem in that area, the benefits of a stronger tourist sector and 79 new jobs mean this development will be good news if it all goes ahead. There is substantial unmet demand for hotel rooms in the Old Portsmouth area, with the Holiday Inn Express in nearby Gunwharf having an extraordinarily high occupancy rate.

Tags: Planning