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Tewkesbury Civic SocietyProtecting Tewkesbury's Architectural Heritage and ensuring today's developments add positively to it.
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Issues
Borough (HEALINGS) Mills redevelopment
This site sits partly on the north-east corner of the Severn Ham and partly on both westerly corners of Quay Street. See picture below:
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The site is of great historic interest in that it encompasses the old Town Quay which was the hub of the Port activity which at one time was crucially important to the town. It was also on the route to the Upper Lode ferry which first crossed the Quay bridge then skirted the north west Severn edge of the Ham to the ferry, all before the Severn Lock and Weir were built of course.
The site was acquired piecemeal over the years and included a previous rail extension and plots with such interesting names as Knaves’ Acre (https://tewkesburyhistory.org/Knaves-Acre). The last piece was acquired in 1987 from the then Town Council amid much controversy.
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The core properties were built in 1865, replacing earlier ones, and used for milling, owned and operated by Healings, Allied Mills and lastly ADM. The mills closed in 2006.
ADM prepared to sell the properties and caused some local concern as their lawyers sought to tidy up deeds etc. and prove that no public rights of any sort existed on their sites. The matter was resolved in a Court ruling, rights of way through the site to the Ham for legitimate management/utilisation purposes (as opposed to public access) were maintained.
The sites were then acquired by The St. Francis Group, a company specialising in brownfield sites, obtaining Planning permissions for developments before selling them on to actual developers.
Permissions were granted (but expired in 2017) for redevelopments of the two sets of properties on the Quay Street corners, see below for details.
14/00744/FUL
ADM prepared to sell the properties and caused some local concern as their lawyers sought to tidy up deeds etc. and prove that no public rights of any sort existed on their sites. The matter was resolved in a Court ruling, rights of way through the site to the Ham for legitimate management/utilisation purposes (as opposed to public access) were maintained.
The sites were then acquired by The St. Francis Group, a company specialising in brownfield sites, obtaining Planning permissions for developments before selling them on to actual developers.
Permissions were granted (but expired in 2017) for redevelopments of the two sets of properties on the Quay Street corners, see below for details.
14/00744/FUL
Fisher German has advertised the properties (see https://www.onthemarket.com/details/3842380/) but the fact that the sales brochure is no longer accessible on their site does not bode well!
See also ISSUES/UNFINISHED PERMITTED DEVELOPMENTS
See also ISSUES/UNFINISHED PERMITTED DEVELOPMENTS
Click on picture to see more images of the Mill sites
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No application has yet been submitted for the main (Ham) site although tentative ideas for development have been floated to the Town Council and public. But those were quite some time ago.
The Environment Agency has voiced major concerns, we understand, about any new developments on the flood prone area of the main site. If so, and no doubt sensibly so, this will inevitably reduce the attractiveness of the site to developers. In the years since milling stopped, any assets of value have been stripped out and sold and there has been slow deterioration of the properties. There was and is an ongoing concern for the fire risk to the empty properties. This and illegal entry and vandalism have been of such concern that in 2017 TBC started legal proceedings against the owners. These proceedings were withdrawn when the owners agreed to take certain security measures.
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To get a really good idea of the state of the buildings one can see a video on YouTube HERE.
Another major drawback for the site is the amount of demolition necessary. A number of relatively modern metal framed structures need taking down (some have been) as probably does one of the Victorian buildings which has a very noticeable lean!
It is surprising perhaps that the Quay Street sites have not been sold and developed, if and when they are it will brighten up that end of a street that presently is rather run-down and soul-less.
Even with its obvious problems, the Ham site does have one core building of great merit and the opportunity to exploit watersides, something that has proved a valuable ingredient in other developments like Gloucester Docks, Worcester Basin etc.
TBC have included this site as a key potential redevelopment site in the Tewkesbury Town MasterPlan, now a Supplementary Planning Document (SPD). Also, the site features in the submitted Borough Plan as an opportunity for mixed development including homes.
Recently TBC secured High Streets Heritage Action Zone (HSHAZ) status and won Government funding which ultimately is intended to put new life into the High Street. Funds will be poured, they say, into a range of projects many of which are identified in the SPD and which it is hoped will collectively regenerate the town through investment in its historic fabric, an example being the Borough Mill.
HSHAZ money will be used to match fund preparatory studies at the Mill site on the Ham (such as flooding, ecology, structural condition, etc.) prior to detailed redevelopment proposals.
Recently there has been a hiccup in that Historic England have stated that the southern building (the leaning tower of Tewkesbury) “could be retained, repaired and rehabilitated”. This judgement is contrary to that of the owners’ structural advisors who state that it is dangerous and should be demolished. The building, along with its sister, is Grade II listed (quite recently) and whilst the Society would normally oppose any attempt to ignore that listing, we tend to side with the developer’s view and do worry that this judgement by Historic England might sink the whole Mill site redevelopment possibility.
Most recently these same two buildings on the Ham site were proposed and accepted by the Victorian Society as worthy of being in the top ten list of Victorian and Edwardian buildings of national importance at risk of being lost. See HERE for detail. Whilst the Society applauds the inclusion of one of the buildings, it regrets the complication caused by also including the one that leans; as we implied above, it is probably past economic saving.
One thing the Society feels strongly about is the restitution of public access to the old Town Quay (https://tewkesburyhistory.org/The-Quay) on the lower Avon. It was in the late 1980s, at the time of the last major site investments by Allied Mills that the public right of way was extinguished with a pedestrian bridge at Back-of-Avon replacing the old route through the site, a controversial decision at the time and one that rankles even now. We feel any development of the site should give back such public access to a reinstated Town Quay.
