Meeting documents

The Member has taken the following decision.

The decision will take effect on Tuesday 17 January 2006.

Title

Draft Leigh Street Furniture Heritage Conservation Area, High Wycombe

Decision Taken

To designate the draft Leigh Street Furniture Heritage Conservation Area, High Wycombe in accordance with the provisions of Section 69 of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990.

Date of Publication

Monday 9 January 2006

Reasons for Decision

The local planning authority has a duty under Section 69 of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 to determine ‘from time to time which parts of their area are areas of special architectural or historic interest the character or appearance of which it is desirable to preserve or enhance and shall designate those areas as conservation areas’.  There is no requirement to consult before such designations but a request has been received to protect areas of the town’s industrial heritage as the most important Victorian furniture making centre in England.  Character Surveys are taken into account as a material consideration in deciding planning applications within a conservation area.  Your conservation team in the Urban Design Division are of the view that there is a good case for such an industrial conservation area and, following a limited public consultation with interested parties, wish to formally designate the draft Leigh Street Furniture Heritage Conservation Area.

Consultation Undertaken

A limited public consultation exercise was authorised in May 2005.  The local elected members did not respond.  The Wycombe Society, who first suggested conservation area status for a much larger area, commented on 9 November fully supporting the proposals to make the area within the draft boundary a conservation area and the Cabinet Member for Planning suggested the addition of the former Jubilee Works on Jubilee Road.  The draft map was adjusted to add this interesting factory within the proposed boundary.   The owners of Birch Court commented generally favourably, provided the designation would assist in finding appropriate uses for these large and under-utilised former factory buildings.  Marion Miller, a postgraduate student at Oxford Brookes University who supplied much of the historical data used by the conservation section in her MCs thesis ‘High Wycombe’ Furniture Town’ and suggested a much larger conservation area welcomed the designation.  There are no other responses to report.

Your Questions and Views