News - March 2006
15th March
BID
LAUNCHED FOR HERITAGE CENTRE IN WELWYN GARDEN CITY
"Welwyn Garden City is the model on which virtually all town planning
has been based worldwide since the 1920’s. So why are we not
celebrating that in the place where it began?", was the question Tony
Skottowe, Liberal Democrat Councillor for Handside asked himself
recently. It all began with the challenge posed by the bid by a
developer to demolish 4 of the oldest inhabited buildings within the
original Garden City boundary. "Residents in the vicinity were appalled
at what was being suggested", said Tony,” and so a few of us
got
together to organise the opposition.” During one of the many
conversations about how to prevent the vandalism to the
town’s
heritage the idea of a centre to illustrate the international
importance of the town emerged.
Amongst
the threatened buildings are the two Cowper Cottages (pictured left)
and given their recognised architectural merit it made sense to base
the proposed new centre to the rear of cottages if possible.The centre would aim to trace the history of the Garden City movement in the UK, show how the design of Welwyn Garden lead to the creation of the Town & Country Planning Act, and so influenced city planning throughout the world as far afield as Japan. "Local residents often notice groups of Japanese visitors to the town", said Tony Skottowe, "and this is due to a thriving Garden City movement over there."
Money will be a key issue in the attempt to site the Heritage Centre behind the cottages, firstly to acquire them and then to renovate them to form part of any display. One of the two was sold a while ago and the other remains in the hands of the council. "A fair amount of repair work will be needed to underpin and restore the cottages, and this will mean raising significant sums of money from every source we can think of", said Tony Skottowe. "The Heritage Lottery fund is an obvious potential donor, as are supporters of the Garden City movement both in the UK and abroad. We are counting the council out of any calculations in terms of funding as they are so obviously short of cash. However, we do hope they will support the initiative and act as ‘enablers’ in realising this project.", he continued.
Plans are in hand for a website dedicated to the project to be available soon for interested people to record their support and interest, so search for "Welwyn Garden Heritage". Alternatively you can contact Tony at 60 Bridge Road, WGC, Hertfordshire AL8 6UR, by phone 01707 324828, or email Tony.Skottowe@welhat.gov.uk.
This was provided to the press for release on 15th March 2005. For a copy of Tony Skottowe's original release (pdf - 375KB) click here