Guide Conference will recall landmark city report

Conference A conference in Chichester will mark the 50th anniversary of a landmark study of the city which paved the way towards better conservation.

The Chichester Conservation Area

Advisory Committee (all volunteers from various local organisations as well as architects) is running the conference in the Assembly Room on October 4 and 5.

CCAAC member and three times former mayor of Chichester Anne Scicluna explains: “Fifty years ago four English towns were studied for special conservation, and a large report brought out for each of them – Bath, Chester, Chichester and York, with Chichester being the smallest of them.

“From this, new conservation areas were formed.

“Now, 50 years later, we will be looking at what has changed and what hasn’t, relating to the recommendations in the reports.

“The conference will hear speakers from each of the four towns, as well as a keynote speech from the chairman of Civic Voice.

“On the Saturday there will be relevant guided walks looking at the Pallants, the main area looked at in the Chichester study and 20th-century Chichester. Pallant House has offered concessionary rates for attendees of the conference.”

Anne urged anyone with an interest in Chichester’s past and ensuring its future to come along for the weekend.

“Tickets for the two days cost £40 – very cheap for a conference! – and can be obtained from the box office at the Novium Museum.

“This includes coffee, a buffet lunch and tea and cakes on the Friday and the walks on the Saturday.”

As Anne says, the conference will examine the effects the studies had on the four towns and also the state of conservation areas nationally today.

“The study happened in

1968 but there was a strike in Her Majesty’s Stationery Officer, and the reports were not brought out until 1969.”

The report found Chichester to be generally in a good state.

“But it was a question of keeping it good and if we wanted to do that, we had to take into account the history and the historic fabric, and so it encouraged the conservation areas to make sure that we enhanced the areas of historic fabric.”

In 1969, Anne was a young mum bringing up children.

She joined Chichester City Council in 1975 lost her seat in 1976 and came back in 1979.

She has been a Chichester city councillor for 40 years unbroken now – which puts her in a good position to judge how Chichester has fared. It hasn’t done badly.

“I think Chichester has basically done OK.

“There are things that I would have done differently, but on the whole a lot of other towns have suffered far worse than we have.

“I think we have managed to keep the integrity of the main part of the town, and we have got buildings of some quality now being built.”

Tickets for the Four

Towns @ Fifty Conference are available at £40 from the Novium Box Office in Chichester. Anne Scicluna