Category Archives: Walkways

A type of footpath which passes ‘in, through or under’ a building. Commonly found in modern shopping centres.

Community Action Group – Green Space Tidying

Environment, Walkways

The Chichester Action Group (CAG) kicked off earlier this year, hoping to make modest but useful differences to the city we all love.  One of our ‘quick win’ ideas was tidying up unsightly areas where overgrown foliage goes well beyond ‘wilding’ to the point of visually marring parts of the urban landscape.
Our first blitz was in the strip of stone paving between the Oxmarket Gallery and the backs of the shops on East Street.  The area had become so wild that it was an off-putting sight for those using the twitten beside M&S to access the Oxmarket and nearby car park.  The condition of the space was also starting to attract litter and had the potential to become a magnet for miscreants.
So on a grey Saturday afternoon (November 14th), a group of 11 volunteers – from both CAG and the Oxmarket – joined forces to return the area to a far more presentable state.
The job took barely 90 minutes but the results are striking:

Oxmarket - before
Oxmarket – before

The lane behind the Oxmarket gallery before November 14th

 

 

 

 

 

Oxmarket - after
Oxmarket – after

After

 

 

 

 

 

A week later we scored a second success, this time along the embankments of the Roman Walls in the city’s northwest quadrant.  This summer we had noticed walking-tour guides telling visitors that this area “used to be beautiful” and we were keen to make sure that we could remove such comments from the script!
However, as the maintenance of this land is officially a council duty, the DIY approach used in cooperation with and eager support of our friends at the Oxmarket, wouldn’t work on these areas.  Instead, Jane Langford on behalf of CAG, launched a concerted campaign to nag the district council [CDC] into action.
Despite an initial rebuff, Jane’s mixture of diplomacy and persistence eventually had the desired effect, aided by the intercession of certain local councillors to push CDC to act.
In the end, the CDC’s Parks and Gardens did a sterling job and the results are truly remarkable:

Northwest Walls - before
Northwest Walls – before

 

Northwest Walls access point before November 20th.

 

 

 

Northwest Walls - after
Northwest Walls – after

After

 

 

 

 

 

More work remains to be completed on other sections of the walls but Jane’s groundwork of involving and cooperating with councillors and residents’ groups means that this should prove a springboard to encourage the CDC to continue with refreshing other ‘Green Spaces’ along the City Walls Walk and beyond.

So congratulations to all involved.  Two different approaches both proved successful.  And to the many passers-by who expressed their support when seeing the clearance in action, please do join us at the Chichester Action Group for more small but important ‘quick win’ efforts to get our beautiful city back to looking beautiful.

See more ideas for CAG to work on here, and to volunteer help please email cag@chichestersociety.org.uk

 

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Where has Chichester’s Civic Pride gone?

Environment, Pavements, Trees, Walkways

If you get off a bus outside Chichester Cathedral, what do you see?
Dilapidated flower beds with a sign proudly displaying the fact that they belong to Chichester City Council.  There’s also another weed-strewn flower bed nearby beside Phillip Jackson’s statue of St Richard.  Why isn’t this flower bed maintained by the Cathedral’s works team?

Uncared-for trees on West Street
Uncared-for trees on West Street leave littel room for buggies and pushchairs. Photo Brian Henhan

Let us return to our hapless bus passengers, residents or visitors to Chichester leaving their bus, who will have to squeeze (this is late July), beneath and between untrimmed over-hanging lime trees, negotiate rubbish on the ground.  Across the road is another eye-sore, the once proud Army and Navy store (and later House of Fraser) now seemingly abandoned for the past four years waiting for its Guernsey-based owners to decide its future.  If our bus passengers get as far as the Cross, they are just as likely to fall over one of the trip hazards on our pavements.  When is our highway authority, West Sussex County Council (WSCC), going to do something about the parlous state of the paving?

We live in hope!  Chichester District Council (CDC) has commissioned a Regeneration Strategy for Chichester, agreed at Full Council in mid-July – but this city is in dire need of action now!  Could our City Council better maintain not only their flower beds but also pay for sweepers to keep pavements in front of the Cathedral clean?  Cannot the interminable
discussions about paving in the city centre – and who pays for what – be concluded at long last by WSCC?  And we must ask CDC to publish their Regeneration Strategy and deliver it as soon as possible.  In the meantime, our ‘Councils’ should do their bit to improve the dilapidated state of our city centre now and not later.  If they can’t do it perhaps we the
residents should form a work party to tidy the place up!

Peter Evans, Chairman

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