Welwyn Garden Heritage

Civic Voice is launching the Love Local campaign on 17 April to celebrate what is attractive, enjoyable and distinctive about where we live and what makes us proud to be there. They want to start by hearing your views.

This will allow them to build up a picture of what your community loves locally and how it compares with the rest of the country.

There is a link below to a short survey below asking you to tell us what you love about where you live. The survey should take no more than 10 minutes to complete and the results will be used to help campaign for places to be more attractive, enjoyable and distinctive.  If you are also able to send digital photographs then that will help bring things to life. Photographs should be emailed to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and they may be used on their websites and in their work. Please keep the file size to less than a megabyte if you can.

Please visit the survey at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/lovelocalcampaign and support the Love Local campaign.

The first results will be announced at the launch of Civic Voice on 17th April.  Every completed survey will be entered into a prize draw to receive a signed copy of Griff Rhys Jones' latest book Rivers and £100 to be given to the civic society of your choice.
 
Civic Voice will be working with the media and central government to tell them what matters most to the civic movement.  This is an important opportunity for you to help raise the profile of the civic movement and give voice to the issues we all care about.  Please submit your views and make sure they are received by Monday 5 April at the latest.

We all know how lucky we are to live in Welwyn Garden City. You may be surprised to learn, however, that many people throughout Europe know this too and want to spread the word across the continent about how special garden cities really are.

Over the last 9 months the Trust has been talking to organisations in both Paris and Liege about making a bid for significant funding from the EU. The idea behind the bid is to use Welwyn Garden City as the example of what can be achieved when a garden city works well. We need to find out what exactly makes a garden city special so as to aid other ‘garden cities’ and new towns in Europe to reach the same quality of life.

The EU has launched a programme to do just this and the Trust was invited to participate. Much to our surprise we were the only UK organisation to express an interest and so now we are the sole UK representative on this hugely exciting project to rekindle the garden city movement of Ebenezer Howard. 

The project will involve

• Examining the key features of garden cities in the UK and identifying those that can be repeated elsewhere.
• Investigating approaches to involving the local community in St Denis, just north of Paris, with explaining and supporting the revitalisation of their garden city.
• Looking at the best modern techniques for refurbishing run down mining community housing in Belgium to achieve the most sustainable housing possible.

Like all projects involving grants of money we need to make a financial contribution from the Trust. Our UK partners to date include the Town & Country Planning Association and the University of Hertfordshire and discussions are taking place with others.

If you can help us spread the word with even the most modest contributions to help win significant EU funding to bring the Garden City Movement back to the forefront of modern town planning that would be greatly appreciated. Any donation will be gratefully received, you can find a suitable form by clicking here.

For more information on the Garden Cities Project , or the Trust in general please email or call us using the Contact Us facility.

The Trust held a meeting to outline its ideas on creating a Heritage Centre in Welwyn Garden City on 25th March to gauge the reaction of representatives of industry, retailers and public bodies. The result according to Tony Skottowe and his fellow Trustees was " A resounding chorus of approval."

An audience of around twenty 'movers and shakers' from the town were invited and were given a visual presentation by Rob Cowan of Urban Design Skills the consultants appointed to carry out an initial feasibility study for the Trust. Guests were shown what it might be possible for the Centre to offer the town and other local organisations if it becomes a reality.

Particularly encouraging was the response from one major retail operator who commented that "An outstanding building offering exciting new reasons for visiting the town would be a great asset". Understandably concerns were expressed about obtaining the funding for such an ambitious venture but the Trustees are already investigating potential support from a European Union scheme involving the importance of the Garden City ideals to modern urban living and the issue of sustainability.

The Trust will be holding a similar presentation for its supporters and any members of the public who are interested on the evening of Tuesday 12th May in Campus West. Please check our Events listing for details.

The Welwyn Garden Heritage Trust was recently invited to send a representative to an EU project in Paris based on the importance of Garden Cities throughout the Community. As it turned out Welwyn Garden was the only UK town to turn up out of all those contacted.

The meeting took place in St. Denis opposite The Stade de France, which is just to the north of central Paris, and involved people from Belgium, Germany, The Czech Republic, Hungary and France. There are numerous garden cities across Europe all based on the original ideas of Ebenezer Howard but adapted to create green havens in cities such as Paris and Budapest. The two themes of the meeting were “Tourism & Culture”, looking at how garden cities could work together to promote their towns and increase tourism, and “Garden Cities and Sustainability”, which concerns combining all the main features of the garden city concept with the need to create sustainable communities for the future. As part of the meeting delegates were taken on a tour of one of the ‘garden cities’ in St Denis.