Autumn Newsletter and 50th Anniversary of the Conservation Area

Friends of Quarry are celebrating the 50th year of the establishment of the Conservation Area in 1971. To celebrate this, the illustrations on the 1971 leaflet, which was produced by the City Council, and describes the reasons for founding of the Conservation Area, are being used as the front and back pages of our Autumn newsletter. The Conservation Area leaflet is also on our website.

In that leaflet the Council described the principles of conservation to be used which included:

1. The Council will use their powers under the relevant Acts to ensure that the character of the area is maintained.
2. Where new development is involved, the scale of the new buildings and material used, shall be sympathetic, and in keeping, with the existing development.
3. Where change is considered necessary, it should be carried out by adapting existing buildings (with possible exceptions) in a manner which will be in keeping with the scale, materials and character of the area.

Friends of Quarry have worked with the Council to apply these and other principles to the development within Quarry over the last fifty years. This approach has generally worked well but as explained in the last newsletter we have had our differences with the City Planners over the egregious development at 1 Quarry High Street.

Following two years of intensive lobbying and discussions of this development the Planners have accepted that what is built does not accurately reflect what was proposed in the original application. Following our persistent representations, they have asked for a retrospective planning application and if this is not forthcoming have indicated that they will then take appropriate enforcement action.

We were also heavily involved in the campaign to prevent the installation of a 20m high 5G mast at the entrance to Quarry. Planning permission for the mast was eventually refused. These cases highlight both the need for careful scrutiny of planning applications within Quarry and the need for an organization like Friends of Quarry.

If you are interested in protecting the character of the conservation area, please consider joining the Friends of Quarry and joining the committee.