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Tewkesbury Civic SocietyProtecting Tewkesbury's Architectural Heritage and ensuring today's developments add positively to it.
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Activities
Community Projects
The Civic Society contributes where it can to projects and efforts that have a relationship to our core objectives. So, we have participated in:
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Tewkesbury Town Regeneration Partnership (TTRP)
TTRP is a vehicle for local community group representatives including TTC to meet with TBC officers and members to discuss opportunities for regeneration within the town and immediate surroundings, give input and agree outcomes subject to wider community consultation.
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The main output of this group has been a set of strategic objectives, the Tewkesbury Town MasterPlan (SPD), see POLICIES/TEWKESBURY TOWN MASTERPLAN.
A sub-group produced a set of Public Realm Standards that are intended to guide TTC, TBC and GCC when they place things like signs, seats, fencing into public spaces in Tewkesbury, particularly the riverside area see HERE or click on image for more detail. |
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However, participation has been less than expected and public enthusiasm disappointing so presently TTC and TBC, the principle partners, are examining the role of this group, its effectiveness and advising on its future. The Society feels that there could still be a role for this group in monitoring/supporting the key MasterPlan objectives including Spring Gardens, Borough Mills, MAFF site, Riverside, Traffic/pedestrian interaction/management, Garden Town impact on town centre, Environment hygiene (including bin-blight) etc. We will continue participating if this is so.
Improvements to the Riverside Walk
The Society joined with the Historical Society in a six to seven year lobbying activity that culminated with TBC completing the “Missing Link” whereby land behind the Hop Pole was incorporated into the walk, so allowing pedestrians for the first time to walk from Victoria Gardens to King John’s Bridge mostly close to the Mill Avon and without having to use Church Street and High Street as previously.
The Society joined with the Historical Society in a six to seven year lobbying activity that culminated with TBC completing the “Missing Link” whereby land behind the Hop Pole was incorporated into the walk, so allowing pedestrians for the first time to walk from Victoria Gardens to King John’s Bridge mostly close to the Mill Avon and without having to use Church Street and High Street as previously.
The Society joined with others to seek the removal of the high ugly fence surrounding the emergency slipway and the quay facing the Lower Avon. With the co-operation of the Avon Navigation Trust (ANT), this was achieved.
Then
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Now
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The Society feels there are other things that might be done to improve the Walk, they are detailed in ISSUES/RIVERFRONT. For a while we participated in a now defunct Riverside Partnership with TTC, TBC, ANT and EA to identify and realize some of these. The Society continues to offer its support should TTC (the main moorings and landowner) wish to lead a community effort in this regard.
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Tewkesbury Wayfinding & Signage
The Society joined with other community groups and under TBC leadership delivered a cohesive range of signage, interpretation panels and wayfinding markers for three walks: the Riverside, the Ham and the Battlefield Trail. |
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Severn Ham Exhibition
In 2019 the Society co-sponsored with the Museum and TTC an exhibition about the Severn Ham. It ran over a couple of days and was well attended and received. The objectives were to increase the understanding about and appreciation of this wonderful natural asset we have on our doorstep; we think they were achieved. |
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“Clean up our act” exhibition
This is another joint sponsorship between the Society, the Museum and TTC with TBC taking part too. As the title suggests, the objectives are to look at all areas where some small effort might improve our living environment; litter, weeds, cigarette-ends, dog-poo, bin-blight etc. It was to run in the Town Hall in summer 2020 but is postponed until after the pandemic.
This is another joint sponsorship between the Society, the Museum and TTC with TBC taking part too. As the title suggests, the objectives are to look at all areas where some small effort might improve our living environment; litter, weeds, cigarette-ends, dog-poo, bin-blight etc. It was to run in the Town Hall in summer 2020 but is postponed until after the pandemic.
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Home Grown Exhibitions
In the past we have run exhibitions, we ran an exhibition that featured the best New Build, the best Conversion/Restoration and the Ugliest feature blotting the landscape. We asked the public to nominate and recruited a distinguished panel to judge. Awards were made and blots removed (through embarrassment)! Allisons bookshop was judged the best restoration. |
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We also ran “Now and Then” exhibitions whereat we displayed photographs of all the properties in each of the three main streets, taken fifty and sixty years apart.
It showed clearly the degree of corporate standard shop-front design that had crept in together with the amount of property consolidation as well as destruction. One curious fact was that the number of empty shops remained consistent! It generated a lot of interest. |
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