The Winckley Debate

Since the Council announced proposals in February to radically transform Preston’s Winckley Square, one of the recurring criticisms from opponents of the scheme is that the history of the landmark will be destroyed.

Are these people drastically over-traditionalistic or do they have a point? To find out exactly where the history of Winckley Square begins, we need to travel back over 200 years.

In 1801, under the reign of King George III, the construction of the Square began in an affluent area of Preston, named after wealthy land owner Thomas Winckley. This would soon become renowned as “the finest example of a privately planned Georgian development with open space in the North of England.”

The fact that the Square has been around for two centuries would be enough for some to object the plans for redevelopment. Very often, we take age as the overriding factor when it comes to the “history” of particular sites.

Some would quickly point out that Preston has many much older sites than Winckley, though. So is age really a factor here?

Perhaps the objections have more of a green basis instead. It is particularly fashionable to campaign for the environment in today’s political climate.

The announcement that many green areas of the Square will be covered in granite and tarmac walkways would certainly leave a bitter taste in many a Greenpeace campaigner’s mouth.

So is it history or the environment that is really the cause of many people’s objections at the proposals?

Surely the answer has to be both. There have always been a substantial traditionalist element in Britain. It is part of our culture, this reluctance to change or modernise. We would all be rich if we had a pound for every time someone mentioned the “good old days.”

Similarly, we have a section of society that would recoil in horror at any report of the felling of a tree or even a flowerbed.

So, to refer back to the question of what the root cause of people’s objections to the plans, the answer is actually our own culture. After all, we wouldn’t be British if we didn’t have something to have a good moan about.