|
18 month planning extension approved Oct 2006
Balkerne Tower Trust issues Manifesto Oct 2006
Jumbo sold for record £330,000 Feb 2006
Jumbo named as Colchester 'Grot Spot' Nov 2004
Jumbo Grade 2 star listed May 2003
Planning Appeal decision Dec 2001
Myth of the £672,000 repair bill
Summary of the penthouse schemes
Penthouse schemes D & E refused July 2001
Three glass walls?
Maintain Jumbo now!
Penthouse schemes B & C refused Dec 2000
18 month planning extension approved
On October 5, Colchester's Planning Committee voted to extend permission for each of the penthouse conversions (schemes C and E) for a further 18 months. The new deadline is 5-4-08.
The Balkerne Tower Trust has written to the owner's agents, suggesting a meeting to explore alternatives (see next item below).
UPDATE: The applications to extend permission were later withdrawn. Jumbo therefore has no current planning permission as the original deadline expired on Dec 11 2006.
BTT issues Manifesto
Following news that Jumbo's new owner does not now consider the permitted penthouse conversion financially viable, the Balkerne Tower Trust (see below) decides to issue a Manifesto, which says what they would do if they owned the building.
To read the Manifesto online please click here
For a pdf version, which you can print and includes a cross section drawing of Jumbo, click here
Jumbo sold for record £330,000 at auction
At the Allsop auction in London on Febuary 16, Jumbo water tower was sold for a far higher price than it had ever fetched since sold off by Anglian Water in 1987. It was bought by George Braithwaite of Sudbury. He has so far declined declined to say what his intentions are.
Prior to the auction, our appeal resulted in a dozen people each paying serious money to set up a company limited by guarantee, Balkerne Tower Trust Ltd, which planned to bid at the auction and convert to charitable status had we been successful. We had generous financial backing from the Colchester & North East Essex Building Preservation Trust, a major local charity dedicated to saving fine old buildings at risk. We received a lot of goodwill and further pledges of financial support - some from unexpected quarters. All this was achieved in only two and a half weeks.
All the members of the BTT accepted from the start that if a wealthy developer were determined to obtain Jumbo, we could not match a high bid. But we have no regrets for trying.
No one can truthfully claim again that 'there is no alternative' to a developer owning Jumbo. Balkerne Tower Trust has a detailed business plan which shows that a local charity, making public access to this unique building an initial priority, is a financially viable strategy, which would make Colchester even more of a tourist attraction than it already is.
Jumbo has had no significant maintenance from any of its private owners for nearly 20 years.
|
Jumbo named as Colchester 'Grot Spot'
Nearly 3 years after the Planning Appeal decision (see below) and with no sign of conversion work starting, the Essex County Standard has launched a campaign against the shabby state of parts of the town centre.
Not surprisingly, Jumbo features as a major 'grot spot' due to the jungle of undergrowth at the base - 10 feet high in places - including branches illegally sprouting into Balkerne Passage.
The 'Jumbo jungle' is just the latest manifestation of the disgraceful neglect of the whole building - by a series of private owners - since the water tower was sold off in 1987.
Quoted as supporting the campaign are John Jowers (Leader of the Council), Adrian Pritchard (Chief Executive) and Chris Rawlinson of the Colchester Town Partnership.
With such illustrious support for the campaign, will the Council at long last persuade Jumbo's owner to clear up the mess?
UPDATE JAN 05... The campaign must have had some effect, for Jumbo's base is clear of undergrowth for the first time in years!
[back to top of page]
|
Acknowledgements to Essex County Standard
|
Jumbo Grade 2 star listed
An application to the DCMS to upgrade Jumbo from Grade 2 to 2 star has been successful. A Grade 2 star listing means 'a particularly important building of more than special interest'. Only 8% of listed buildings are Grade 1 or 2 star.
The new listing won't affect the current plans (and probably wouldn't have prevented the appeal decision). But it will very much impede any further alteration to the original structure.
Planning Appeal decision
The final stage of the great rip-off of Colchester's most visible landmark was completed by the Planning Inspector's decision of December 11th.
Acknowledgements to Evening Gazette and East Anglian Daily Times
This majestic building, paid for at great sacrifice by Colchester people (and never a penny repaid in compensation when it was sold off) will become a private penthouse, visible at night for miles around only as a glowing box suspended above the town.
Future generations - and Jumbo will survive many of them - will shake their heads in disbelief at the willingness to convert this major heritage building into the private domain of two people.
There are a few saving graces. Only schemes C and E were allowed. Apart from keeping one tank wall, the other tank panels will have to be safely removed and stored. The brick plinth of the central tower will no longer be shorn away to accomodate four large vehicles.
And thanks to our campaign, there will be opportunity of limited public access - originally introduced, as the owner stated, to 'incorporate the wishes of local pressure groups'.
The Save Jumbo for Colchester Campaign would like to thank the 1,800 people who signed our petition, including hundreds of customers of the Arts Centre, the Old Court House, the old Mercury Restaurant and others, the councillors on the Planning Committee who held on to their principles, Bob Russell MP and others too numerous to mention.
[back to top of page]
The £672,000 myth
It was repeated alleged at the Planning Enquiry, and accepted by the Planning Inspector, that the minimum cost of repairs to Jumbo would be £672,000.
This daunting sum was used as an argument against any public financing of a wholly public use for Jumbo.
It is based on a list of work recommended in a 1995 report by Purcell Miller Tritton. But most of these items are improvements to the building!
One very expensive item on the list was re-covering Jumbo's roof in lead. But this is not included in the planned penthouse conversion. Instead the copper roof will simply be patched up. A far cheaper option!
[back to top of page]
Summary of the penthouse schemes
Colchester's Planning Committee have now three times rejected almost identical attempts to convert Jumbo to a private house.
Scheme A was a wholly private version, rejected in January 1999. Save Jumbo for Colchester was formed at that time.
Schemes B & C, in response to our campaign, added limited public access to scheme A, but this was used to divert attention from the real aim, the penthouse conversion. These so-called 'Open Jumbo' schemes were rejected in December 2000.
Schemes D & E - almost identical to B & C with slightly improved public access - were rejected in July 2001.
An appeal against the rejection of schemes B & C has also been lodged with the Planning Inspectorate. This will take place at the end of October 2001.
General features of the schemes were:
- The replacement of the original tank by a bland glass box enclosing a luxury penthouse on three floors, in which the owner would live 100 feet above the town.
- The central tower cut away at the base to provide garage space for four large vehicles.
- Schemes C & E retained the original tank wall facing the High Street - about as realistic as a cardboard cutout, and an admission that glass is an inferior substitute.
- Public access (schemes B to E) at restricted times to a small area of roof space and the belvedere - the sugar coating on a bitter pill.
The owner should now accept the consistent decisions of elected councillors, and propose a benign alternative or sell the building.
Jumbo was built from public funds for a public purpose and is part of our common heritage. It should not be somebody's private house.
Replacing the tank walls by glass would destroy the character of Jumbo as an historic water tower. A glass box on massive brick legs would look absurd.
PUBLIC ACCESS - YES! PRIVATE PENTHOUSE - NO!
[back to top of page]
Penthouse plans again refused
On July 26th, the third set of planning applications to convert Jumbo to a penthouse, virtually identical to the ones refused in December 2000, were rejected by Colchester's Planning Committee by an even bigger majority than before.
There was a long and thorough debate, including contributions from Bob Russell MP and Councillor Bill Frame.
As in the previous hearing in December 2000, the planning officers simply ignored arguments against the plans, including the clear opposition of English Heritage.
[back to top of page]
Three glass walls?
Schemes C and E proposed retaining one original wall of the tank.
If the High Street justifies a view of the original tank, why not other places in the town?
[back to top of page]
Maintain Jumbo now!
No maintenance has been done since 1987 by any of Jumbo's private owners, as this recent photo of a rotted window and patched-up roof shows.
Yet if the latest penthouse proposals had been approved, repairs would have been carried out as if by magic!
To hold out the prospect of repairs as a reward for planning approval is morally and legally unacceptable. As English Heritage states: The owners of listed buildings have responsibility for looking after them.
Whilst the blatant neglect continues, no planning approval should even be contemplated.
[back to top of page]
|