Protecting Oxford's visual heritage

Whether it is perched mid-way up the spire of the University Church of St Mary the Virgin or standing on top of a windy Boars Hill, everyone has their favourite panorama of Oxford.

These vistas have stirred great feelings in people — most memorably in the poet Matthew Arnold.

Understandably, many have attempted to secure these views for future generations, something which, in a city under constant pressure for development space, will always be difficult and delicate.

It is clear that those who love the city’s vistas have often felt not enough priority is given to them.

The furore over Oxford University’s Castle Mill development, as seen from Port Meadow, is as good an example of that as one could get.

But whether more can be done is open to question, because you have to wonder whether it is possible to quantify such an essentially ephemeral thing as a lovely view.

This is the problem which Oxford Preservation Trust is currently facing as it carries out a study into the city’s views alongside English Heritage.

Since the 1960s, Oxford City Council’s policy on views has revolved around the concept of 10 ‘view cones’, which are effectively triangles drawn on a map from particular points of the city.

These line-of-sight triangles include obviously glorious locations such as the top of South Park, Port Meadow and Boars Hill — but also other less obvious spots such as Crescent Road, Rose Hill and the A34 interchange at Hinksey Hill.

One clear problem of the current policy is that it only protects views seen from a very exact point and does not allow for a great deal of flexibility or subjectivity.

This is why the Oxford Preservation Trust is hoping to bring about a change in how the city council ‘manages’ Oxford’s views.

Once the study with English Heritage is completed the idea is that simple cones will be a thing of the past — and views which have not yet been protected could be included in the city council’s register of assets, a list of local ‘treasures’ which do not meet criteria for national designation but are valued by city residents.

What exactly will replace the view cones is not yet clear, but it is likely that what Oxford Preservation Trust comes up with will feature descriptions of the view from various points within a certain area and at various times of the day and year.

Debbie Dance, the director of the Oxford Preservation Trust, said: “There is recognition among the various parties that the views in Oxford are not well protected enough.

“But people don’t stand at one point and look at a view, they walk through it in different lights and at different times of the year.

“I don’t think we have the planning guidelines in place which allow for a development like the one near Port Meadow to be properly assessed.”

Her implication is that new methods of assessing and protecting Oxford’s views would prevent contentious developments like the Castle Mill flats from being awarded planning permission.

It is a nice idea. But the concept of being able to safeguard the visual heritage of the city by introducing a few rules that identify when views are compromised, and then sitting back and relaxing, might be considered a slightly naive one.

After all, the Castle Mill scheme was flagged up as a problem in terms of its impact on the city’s skyline as seen from parts of Port Meadow by the council’s very own heritage officer.

The university then sought to address his concerns by amending the scheme, and the revised proposal was put to the relevant planning committee for approval.

Some councillors on the committee say they were aware of the heritage officer’s initial concerns when they passed the altered plans. Others say they they were not.

All would, however, have known exactly what the heritage officer had said if the campaigners now lobbying for the students flats to be lowered had kicked up a stink during the planning process rather than during construction.

Had the always well-motivated, well-informed and largely alert bodies that keep their eyes on this sort of thing spotted the impact that this group of buildings behind the city’s railway station were going to have on Port Meadow, then we would probably not have been in this posititon now.

Cool and timely intervention is much more effective than fury after the event.

No, protecting the city’s views is a collaborative process.

It requires diligent councillors and the appropriate rules being in place to allow threats to be quantified, but it also requires there to be a network in place of — for want of a kinder word — busybodies.

This means busybodies such as the Oxford Civic Society, the Oxford Preservation Trust and local Greens.

It also means professional busybodies like The Oxford Times and the other local media.

All have a role in the planning process. And all have, to a greater or lesser degree, failed in this one instance.

Contrast this with the successful attempt by local conservationists at preventing Oxford University’s proposed book depository at Osney Mead Industrial Estate from being built.

Granted, the damage such a building would have done to views of Oxford was perhaps more clear-cut in terms of its impact on the current city council viewing cones than is the case with Castle Mill.

But the most importance difference is that opposion was voiced early enough in the planning process. The people got angry and had the tools to defeat the plan.

In the case of the Port Meadow flats, the tools were there but the angry people were not.

The truth is that the guidelines governing our views can be changed all the city council or our heritage groups like.

But they can only ever be tools — and they will only work if they are in the hands of people who know what they are doing.

Without the diligence of such people, the postcard sellers of Oxford should always be nervous.