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3.Finding New Uses for Former Military Land: Military Land in the Planning Process
- 1. Military Land in the Planning Process Peter Kendall – Team Leader –Development Advice
- 5. Fort Amherst
- 8. The Royal School of Military Engineering 1870s 2012
- 10. At its height of activity how many people did Chatham dockyard employ ? A) 2,500 B) 5,000 C) 10,000 Vote now using your clicker pad. Answer - 10,000 men and women with potentially a similar number based in the sectors which supported its operation.
- 13. National Legislation - 1990 and 1979 Acts re listed buildings and scheduled monuments. Policy – National Planning Policy Framework – NPPF. Guidance – Planning Practice Guidance - PPG Published advice by Historic England. Local Local Plan – the NPPF says the planning system should be genuinely plan-led. Succinct and up-to-date plans should provide a positive vision for the future of each area and a framework for addressing housing needs and other economic, social and environmental priorities. It requires an evidence base. Supplementary Planning Documents (SPD). These add detail to the policies in the Local Plan. They can be used to provide further guidance for development on specific sites, or on particular issues, such as design.
- 14. The Medway Local Plan (2003) Amongst its strategic objectives the plan has • Identifying the built heritage of Medway as an important historical and cultural resource, especially the defence heritage including Chatham Historic Dockyard, the Napoleonic defences and related buildings and areas. and • the role of the historic built environment is recognised and will be protected. The major defence heritage systems will be sensitively developed, managed and interpreted as environmental flagship projects. The historic dockyard has its own strategic policy(S9) At the Historic Dockyard, Chatham development that respects the historic character of the site will be permitted. The standard of urban design must be of the highest order.
- 19. So with all these designations of heritage assets and the multiple policy and guidance documents available – How does anything get built at Chatham !!
- 20. The Historic Dockyard Chatham will be recognised as the world’s most complete and best preserved dockyard of the age of sail. Sustained by a mix of complementary uses, it will be a maritime heritage destination of choice, giving its visitors a unique understanding of warship design and construction and support of the Royal Navy during Britain’s growth as a world power through to the closure of the dockyard in 1984.
- 22. What was the total length of rope needed for a warship such as HMS Victory? a) 10,000 yards b) 5 miles c) 30 miles. Answer 30 miles or 50 Km – much of it in the standing rigging.
- 23. Constructive Conservation in practice
- 24. Command of the Oceans
- 27. https://www.medway.gov.uk/downloads/file/2989/chatham _interface_land_development_brief_june_2018
- 29. The Great Lines Heritage Park
- 30. New Bridges.
- 31. Command of the Heights
Editor's Notes
- In this presentation I aim to explain how legislation, policy and practice can be used to secure positive outcomes for military heritage and to do so I will use the example of Chatham located within the unitary authority of Medway Council in the county of Kent. I will explain the linkages from strategic development plans through to how individual planning applications are then considered.
- Chatham is located for strategic reasons on the river Medway in Kent and owes its origins to the decision to overwinter the English navy there from the mid 16th C. From this was founded a royal naval dockyard. This was attacked by the Dutch in 1667 leading the British to realise the need to defend Chatham with major fortifications to stop a land based assault. Fortifications required troops to man them and this stimulated the need for permanent barracks so that whilst Chatham is famous as a naval town it was also a major centre for the British army in the 18th C and early 19th C before Aldershot was established. The army and navy both required guns and powder to fight and so a gunwharf and major magazine complexes were also built. These military sites have literally shaped the historic development of Chatham and combine in the present to still create a militarised landscape. Most of this military heritage is now one form or another of a designated heritage asset and this combined with a place still undergoing major regeneration creates a major conservation challenge. I will explain how this has been approached but first I will briefly explain the richness of the military heritage resource.
- The 17th C dockyard still forms the heart of the present day site known as the Historic Dockyard but 300 years of use saw the site grow massively.
- By the end of the 18th C the dockyard had expanded to be the principal ship building yard in England building such iconic ships as HMS Victory
- Such a strategic asset as the dockyard needed to be defended so from the mid 18th C fortifications were made to stop a landward assault. The majority of these still survive and Fort Amherst is the best preserved part.
- In the 19th C with an empire to then defend the navy underwent huge change as wooden sailing vessels were replaced by steam powered iron hulled ships. This required vastly improved and enlarged shore facilities. At Chatham a huge dockyard extension of three large interlinked basins was built in the later 19th C dwarfing the historic dockyard which was retained for its building slips.
- New and much more powerful guns with greater range made the existing fortifications at Chatham useless and so in the late 19th C a group of new forts were built as shown by the red squares on the inset map and illustrated by this picture of Fort Horsted. The guns used improved ammunition and this required safe storage of explosives in newly created magazine complexes such as the picture here on the right of the Chattenden Enclosure.
- Chatham has long been associated with the Royal Engineers who designed and built most of the sites I am discussing. From 1812 the fortifications were used for large scale siege training and this gave rise to what is today the RSME. This is now the only large military establishment still located at Chatham. Today I am thus talking about sites that has passed out of military use but in planning terms many places retain a military presence and finding the means to keep these and the heritage assets they contain in active use despite the major changes in our fighting forces is very important. We want the sites they occupy to be used and cared for but we also want the military tradition to be kept alive. This means being open to accepting change so that historic sites built centuries ago can remain relevant. Here the sergeant instructors with the tools of their trades can be contrasted with the much more diverse force represented at Chatham by present day Royal Engineers.
- Chatham as a military –industrial complex reached its largest extent during WW1 and remained active until after WW2 but then in common with many military garrion or naval towns a decline started in a post imperial nuclear age that saw the UK fall back as a world power. The country did not need all of its dockyards and the closure of Chatham was announced in 1981 dealing a shattering blow to the economy of the place from which it is still to fully recover.
- The navy left Chatham in 1984 and today the army is reduced to just the military school at the listed Brompton Barracks. Over 400 years of military tradition left behind a most impressive array of military heritage sites, most of which had been recognised as listed buildings or scheduled monuments and many at the highest possible grades to recognise their national if not international significance. Chatham needed support at national and local level if it was to adjust to a new post military dominated economy and to regenerate itself as a place. I will now describe how I think this works in practice and also why 35 years on from dockyard closure this is still a work in progress. The dockyard was divided in its ownership with only the oldest part coloured green here being preserved as a heritage led site and the rest coloured yellow and red being made available for new uses. The map on the right shows the concentration in the dockyard of designated heritage assets – scheduled monuments in red and listed buildings as blue triangles. I will return to what has happened at the historic dockyard shortly.
- Nearly every local authority, and certainly those undergoing major change, has a vision statement about what it is trying to achieve. The unitary authority of Medway Council is no exception. Its 2035 goal includes specific reference as a top priorityto heritage and culture. It recognises the role of military heritage in creating identity, driving the visitor and cultural industries and it references the RSME as a continuing military presence.
- To deliver such a vision requires both appropriate planning policies and implemenation strategies to be in place at the local level. These provide the means to help deliver national legislation and guidance in the specific context of Medway.
- Medway Council has had a number of false starts in its preparation of a new Local Plan. It is currently preparing a new version to last until 2037 but in the meantime it is reliant on saved policies from its adopted 2003 version of the Local Plan and on SPDs that it has also adopted. I will examine what this policy framework has meant for decisions about development and management of the dockyard and fortifications but first there are significant other local documents to explain.
- In readiness for the next Local Plan Medway Council has carried out a heritage asset review which is a stock taking exercise to understand what is distinctive about the local heritage (designated and undesignated ) in Medway and how this contributes to its specific identity.
- Using the evidence gathered by the Heritage Asset Review a draft heritage strategy has been prepared which is intended to meet the advice at para 185 of the NPPF in its section on conserving the historic environment. This requires Local Plans to set out a positive strategy for the conservation and enjoyment of the historic environment, including heritage assets most at risk through neglect, decay or other threats.
- Chatham is unique among UK military towns as it was placed on the Government’s 2012 list of tentative World Heritage Sites as an internationally significant example of a historic dockyard and its defences. In readiness for a future UNESCO nomination this SPD was adopted in 2015 as detailed policies aimed at conserving and enhancing the Outstanding Universal Significance of the proposed WHS. In the event Government decided not to nominate Chatham but nevertheless the adopted document remains as policy by Medway Council and it is a very comprehensive framework against which proposals for change can be assessed. Most other places will not have such a document and agreed approach but it does not take a WHS proposal to justify having one. Concentrations of military heritage are quite common for past strategic reasons e.g. as multiple forts and districts with such heritage require a strategic approach backed by policy and not case by case decisions.
- Even before a WHS was suggestied it was recognised in Medway that new development increasingly meant tall or taller buildings and this became a very real issue for Chatham where the military history of the place had created the dockyard at the riverside and fortifications occupying the high land around the town with lines of sight or gunfire connecting the two. Topography matters to an understanding of Chatham as a historic place and both existing and proposed tall buildings can harm appreciation of this – see image. The building height policy has considered locations from which the historic significance of the place can be best understood and specifically what aspects of views from here contribute most to an appreciation of this. The document can then help define for local plan purposes locations in which taller development might be possible without unacceptable levels of harm to the historic environment, including the historic relationships between elements of the military heritage.
- Back in the dockyard the site was in 1984 passed into the freehold control of the Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust. This Trust has been on a 35 year journey to take the run-down dockyard of 1984 and to reinvent it in accordance with its vision statement as shown here. To do this it has pursued what it calls conservation through re-use and this is near identical in practice with Historic England’s own approach of Constructive Conservation. Both rely on properly understanding the significance of heritage assets and using that knowledge to enhance and preserve what is most important whilst enabling the assets in question to find new uses that will in the long term sustain that significance. As an approach it only works if the parties have confidence in each other and share common aims. In the dockyard most of the buildings are scheduled monuments and Historic England advises about consent for changes. Medway Council decides planning permission in accordance with the policies and guidance that I have described. Decision taking is underpinned by the Trust’s own published Conservation Management Plan now in its 5th version and endorsed by all major partners. For individual significant projects the Trust prepares Statements of Significance for individual heritage assets affected so as to deepen the understanding provided by the overarching CMP.
- Some buildings in the dockyard are so significant as evidence of ship building processes that they can only be managed as monuments and not subject to change under re-use. The immensely long ropery is one such example. Rope is made here using traditional techniques and historic machinery so as to present to visitors how hemp rope on which all sailing shops relied could be made.
- This building is the Wheelwrights Shop In 1995 it was under repair and before lifting the wooden floor there was no hint of what lay beneath. Supporting the floor were the hull timbers of a wooden warship. Detective work by Wessex Archaeology was able to identify the ship as HMS Namur a 90 gun second rate built at Chatham in 1756 and a vessel which saw more action that HMS Victory. About 10% of the frame lies under the building. This was an amazing and significant find but a discovery which stopped re-use of the building until a solution to the future of the timbers could be identified.
- The solution was via a project called Command of the Oceans to create a gallery devoted to wooden warships and new visitor facilities. An ingenious architectural solution was to build a new structure between the two historic buildings seen in this image as the black building. Within this a series of ramps could be fitted in to take visitors down into a new under croft gallery identified as a red dotted line in which the warship timbers can be kept on permanent display in environmentally monitored conditions. Above this and at a higher level insertion of a new floor level has enabled the Wheelwrights Shop to become new facilities.
- Here you see the warship timber gallery and the new facilities created in the historic buildings. It is through bold solutions such as this that the conservation challenges in the dockyard have been solved and it is the framework created by all the policies and guidance that enables such positive change. In 2017 this project was a finalist for the prestigious RIBA Stirling prize.
- The most current challenge in the dockyard is about the future of these two sites outlined in red. These are not controlled by the dockyard trust but instead owned by Homes England who are promoting these for residentially led mixed use development. The sites contain significant buried archaeological remains, are adjacent to high grade heritage assets and lie within the dockyard conservation area. It is critical that design decisions here pay extra attention to the significant historic environment.
- To assist in achieving sustainable solutions that combine development of these brown field sites with conservation of the historic environment all the parties concerned have agreed a development brief and this has been adopted by Medway Council as an SPD so that it becomes part of decision taking when planning permission is sought. This is site specific guidance about the parameters for possible development including building heights, total numbers of units and no build areas due to buried archaeology. This is an active planning proposal and only time will show whether the steps taken to date will secure acceptable solutions.
- I have so far described the approach we have taken in the dockyard but the military heritage is much more than this and much of it is concerned with green space and not buildings. These are harder to re-use positively but there is a possible solution adopted at Chatham. I showed this map of the first Chatham fortifications from 1756 and today these remain as scheduled monuments largely in the tree covered parts of this photo. The large green open space is the former field of fire of the fortifications and land once controlled by the military and hence kept clear of development. Today the space acts as a green lung for Chatham and it is a key component of a conservation area designated to protect the Chatham Lines. This makes the land largely safe from harmful new development but it is less good at enabling positive outcomes to better manage the militarily significant open space.
- The green space has been re-branded as the Great Lines Heritage Park and it has seen very significant investment to create an identity for it and to enhance its usefulness by upgrading footpaths and cycle ways. Today it is a green flag award winning park much used by locals either as their route to work or for recreation. Unlocking a solution did rely on a very significant investment of £2 M from Government Thames Gateway funds but equally important was the decision by Medway Council to make the park critical green infrastructure for Medway and to require developer contributions from every new house built to help fund and sustain it.
- Fortifications were built to keep an enemy out and their ditches and ramparts continue to do the same job in the present. Therefore part of the GLHP project was to carefully consider how people would use the land to move about if they were first given the means to do so. Based on this a major new intervention was made at Fort Amherst to build the metal footbridge as seen in the left hand image. This connected the interior of the fort to the field of fire. It has caused some harm to the appearance of the fort but this was decisively held to be outweighed by the public benefits it would provide in the way that the NPPF advises for such harmful change. Its constant use by visitors passing through the fort has shown this was a sound decision. The other bridge here on the right is in timber and was built in 2012 by the Royal Engineers in recognition of their 200th anniversary of their school at Chatham. It is of military design and replaces a bridge that had been lost. Where there is a continuing military presence it pays to develop good relations with them and to ask that they help out from time to time.
- My final slide is of a project just completing at Chatham called Command of the Heights. The total project cost is £2 M and the element I show here is the transformation of part of Fort Amherst into an outdoor performance venue as seen here and in use. My point is two fold. Making good the dereliction of abandoned fortifications is expensive and needs funding such as lottery money. The lottery is interested in outcomes for people and not just historic bricks and mortar but with imagination you can deliver the first by carrying out conservation of the latter. By giving forts new purpose in ways that do not compromise their historic significance they are much more likely to find sustainable futures and to be valued by the people who will use them. Outcomes like this require the kinds of policies and guidance that I have described today in order to create the environment in which decision takers can feel able to support the kinds of change that caring for our military heritage requires. Thank you.