Comparison Between Port Sunlight and Letch Worth in Terms of Development - Case Study Example

The growth of these towns was as a result of the initiative of certain individuals. An analysis into their lives is not of importance at this point, but their contribution is. Though their birth was due to the initiative of these individuals, the difference comes in, where in Port Sunlight the idea was on personal grounds whereas in Letchworth, it was just an artist's depiction of a town design, which he never thought of implementing. In Letchworth, the idea was criticized and architects brought in to compete and produce a viable design. This was not the case in Port Sunlight because the pioneer of the idea followed it up to its implementation. The other difference is that Port Sunlight had a gradual growth while Letchworth grew fast but could not finally accommodate any more industries. They all had a common ending; they died and were named conservation areas. The two towns seem to have been built for the primary purpose of industries and improving the lives of the employees and their families. These industries created jobs for the people around it together with their families. Eventually there was a growth in population thus an increase in demand for housing, schools, hospitals and any other social amenities. One distinct thing about these two towns is that the pioneers had great ideas but all had to consult and involve architectures who would put the design on the ground in an even better way than the former. A William Hesketh Lever built the town for his employees who worked in his soap factory. He bought a land big enough to hold the factory and a garden village to house his employees. Though he participated a lot in designing and planning of the village, he hired architects to give put their best towards a beautiful village. Living houses were built together with other public buildings. Apart from the buildings and good living conditions for his workers, he went a step further to introduce schemes for his employees. They included welfare schemes and educational schemes. His main aim was to create an environment of coexistence and brotherhood. The architectures at Port Sunlight integrated a broad variety of features in their planning, borrowed from Europe and Britain a combination that came to be referred to as the Old English. The villages at Port Sunlight consisted of tremendous blocks of housing of low concentration and a number of public buildings such as gymnasiums, theatres and libraries that were surrounded by gardens and open green spaces. The village layout was designed in such a manner that it restricted any open view of the factory and of the inside. The houses were so uniquely built that their backs could not be visible. The factory was purposely built a one storey structure. This was primarily to provide aeration, enough light and a healthier environment for the workers and also to reduce its corporal impact on the village. In Letchworth, the situation was rather different. The planning was more impressive than that of Port Sunlight. The designing and planning of the town is owed a lot to a construction company, by then known as Garden city Company, who also remained the consultants for a long time. For many years the development of the town was controlled by this company. The streets were made beautiful with trees and beds of roses along them. There were a number of factories, unlike in Port Sunlight where factories grew much later. Therefore, in the planning the factories had to be placed in the correct relation to one another. The factories were placed into estates called industrial estates. Currently it is a very common idea but back then it was a world-shattering idea. But at the same time it was not easy for the town to attract other industries. This was because, the public buildings that had been put in the plan to surface around the town, did not really materialize for a long time. For this reason the growth of the town was retarded. The shopping places were placed in the town centre and were served by wide enough pavements and ample parking sites. This gave the shoppers a great time as they went on about their shopping. In Letchworth today, a number of houses have been put up. Areas where houses had been underused but are renovated for better use are visible. Today most houses in Letchworth do not face the streets where traffic flows but to where pedestrians walk and rest, and towards playgrounds. The estates are crossed by footpaths rather than streets. Most of its public places from the pat have been closed down although others are still coming up. These include a secondary school, a primary school and a public library, all closed in different years. Investments in the town have brought an awakening of profits to the town. They include a working farm, a standalone farm, a leisure centre and a theatre. In recent past, the coverage of the factories has greatly reduced. Many indigenous buildings have been torn down and the number of workers reduced by a great number. This was brought about by advancement in technologies and a lot of production being shifted to other areas. Letchworth, despite the fact that it is full-grown, is still a growing residential, industrial and profit-making town, becoming a centre of attention to many visitors from around the world who come to learn and see the first designed garden city. Today Port Sunlight is a conservation area. The village and Sunlight museum are managed by the village trust. The houses had been placed on sale and to today nearly half of them have been sold out. This has attracted other people from outside to live in the village. Until in the '80s, the residents of the village were entirely the employees of the Unilever Soap Company, (born from the Lever Brothers Company) and their families. The village trust also takes care of the landscape and the environment of Port Sunlight. The place has been revived in the late 1990s with a primary aim of safeguarding and augmenting the personality of the village and to keep hold of the indispensable foundation of the community. In Port Sunlight, there are just but enough problems with the management and the residents. The village trust has succumbed to private developers who want to change the area to a modernization. These plans have been received with a lot of criticisms even from lobby groups. This is not the case in Letchworth an area that did not leave any room for expansion of either industries or other structures. Letchworth has not been invaded as is the case in Port Sunlight. This is because from the word go the state was involved and the designing was done with the consent of the state. The state has kept the heritage of the place and no other groups or trusts can claim to oversee the activities of the place. 1. A description of the location and layout of Port Sunlight and the surrounding area. Other than the buildings that have been put up recently, the indispensable layout and character of Port Sunlight has hardly been changed. It comprises of a very extraordinary survival of a huge, absolute, bona fide, prominent and a tremendously imperative late 1800s industrial garden village. A daytime visitor can visit the Lady Lever art gallery which is now part of the Liverpool museums, and still cannot miss to visit, though seriously ruined, the unpopular bridge inn. These are just some of the features. The area is located between Lower Bebington and New Ferry. One building that is still visible is the Lady Lever Art Gallery. She happened to be the wife of Lever who was the pioneer of the village and owner of the soap factory. Another building still in existence is the Gladstone theatre which currently is used to make armature productions. The village also has a church and opposite to it is a primary school which is also open to the public. A war memorial for the great local soldiers who died in the Great War is located at the centre of the village. The village is also served by railway stations found at Bebington and Port Sunlight. The village contains nine hundred grade-II listed houses though the area has been declared a conservation area. The streets and pavements are very wide and large green spaces can be seen with tidy flowerbeds everywhere. The cottages are well kept in different English vernacular style but very well arranged in a neat and fashionable manner. The soap factory at Port Sunlight is still in existence only that it has now changed name from Lever Brothers to the current Unilever. The area is also served by rail or road from Chester and Liverpool. All those who have installed satellite dishes must install them away at the back. All conservatories are made of wood and one must receive a written consent from Listed Building Consent. 2. Discuss the current ownership and management position and any problems over this and future development. The village of Port Sunlight is managed by the village trust and a council has been put in place to check on the building of houses and other structures. The area will soon be privately owned by private developers who have collaborated with the corrupt management for personal interests. This will only be left for the state to intervene. The management has seized to be a defender of the heritage but sacrificed the same at the altar of selfish and corrupt interests. For that reason laws that were being followed in order to preserve the heritage of the area have been trodden upon. Before anybody builds a house in the village or makes any changes to the already existing Grade-II buildings, he has to get permission from the council to do so. But this is not the case with the village trust. Any time they want to make changes to a structure they go ahead doing so without any consultations. In the April 4th 2004 article by Sam Lister, the Village Trust has gone into partnership with a company that owns the village partially. The Village Trust and the company wish to rejuvenate two streets (Wharf and Water streets) by building glass fronted houses. The trust says that the plan will raise a lot of vital income for the village and thus save its extinction. It insists that the plan and design of the new houses will merge well with the traditional architecture of Port Sunlight, and will maintain the industrial heritage of the village. But the trust did not look at the ways of achieving this and the future of development of the village. The chairman of the Trust just found it to be a very beautiful idea. But let us look at the implications of doing this. The development will increase the population of the village, it will cause an influx of enormous traffic, the ample parking slots will no longer be enough therefore haphazard parking, noise pollution will be on the increase and therefore the once serene village will be in a mess, security will decrease and the safety of the people will be at stake. They have even gone ahead to destroy the bowling greens that were sitting places and want to change it to the general landscaping of the area. But the area is already properly landscaped; why alter what was originally there. The developer goes on to insist that the buildings will be lower than the two storey buildings but in actual sense the buildings will be three storeys. It beets logic how a three storey building can be lower than a two storey building. The objective of the Port Sunlight trust is to maintain and preserve the village as a conservation area that will benefit the whole nation at large. This objective does not square well (as put across by the Save Port Sunlight lobby group) with their acceptance to such developments that will cause an irreparable damage to the heritage of the place. Once the area has lost its unique appeal to visitors then it is deemed to loose its revenue by a big margin. The once upon-a-time tourist attraction, having acquired the name 'The International Port Sunlight', will loose its reputation and the damage will be irrevocable. 3. Give advice to a prospective purchaser of one of the individual properties in Letchworth or Port Sunlight, on the problems with the future of the two areas, the location, the individual buildings themselves and the legal position. To start with, these two areas are of great interests to the world and most importantly to the government. For this reason they have been placed as conservation areas. The state would not wish to destroy the authenticity of these areas. For this reason if one has to put up a building in the area then it should follow a certain design that will still portray the old picture of the village. This tells us how limited one will be after purchasing a property in any of these areas. In a nutshell, the future of these two places is blurred to those who wish to live there. The state would wish to preserve them as historic sites and therefore can not do so if there are people living there. New residents will tend to change the authenticity. Sam Lister wrote in the daily post on April 4 2004, citing that the residents of Port Sunlight are protesting on the idea of having a certain section of the area converted into an exclusive housing estate. Sam puts it clear that some of the proposed developments are out of proportion and do not comply completely with the character of the place. With such kind of information coming from the heart of the place, then why should one go to buy any premises there with the proper knowledge that soon or later the residents will be against it. This will develop into court cases, and a possibility of a court injunction may arise. This from my opinion would not be very palatable for a mortgage company to swallow. It would neither be very sweet for the state as the residents would start rising complains like they have already started. The question is, could this cause an eviction, demolition of a building or being mandated to change your house design My answer would be yes. Then why go invest in such a place. If the company wishes still to buy the houses or occupy any of the buildings, then it must be set to preserve the heritage of the village. One of such conditions would be that the building must not be more than one storey as that is the original plan of the area. The other condition would be that you shouldn't change the design of the green lawns and backyards to suit your taste, but rather you would have to leave it as it is. According to the residents, many who want to reside there come up with their own plans; the village trust allows them to change the original plans without even making any consultations. Therefore, the new resident must be ready to comply with the law of preservation of heritage. For residence the area would be very suitable bearing in mind that Port Sunlight is located along the coast. This would have a very nice view of the ocean. The place is also serene, that is if the planned developments won't take place. One problem would be the access to the main land whereby the distance is quite cumbersome. It is also most likely that soon the place will be a true conservation area and thus limit residential freedom. To sum it up, I would advice that the area is not suitable for a residential place. 4. Reflections This research was carried out individually without any consultations being done from the professional field. This was purposely done so that I could broaden my scope of knowledge on research work. The sources of information ranged from the college library to the internet. But the internet proved to be more reliable than the college library. This was due to the reason that most books that contain such information had been considered outdated and had been removed from the shelves. Getting an access to them was rather difficult and time wasting, in any case those that were present were shallow of information, I thus never paid attention to them. It is for this sole reason that I will address my sources in terms of the internet. I loved working with the internet because it held the latest information, though, as I will talk about later, there were some difficulties with it too. The internet encyclopedia was more detailed with both the past and the current information. It was easy to find articles, also with some problems, on the internet that were of assistance. An example is an article in the Daily Post that had been written by Sam Lister on the complaints of the residents of Port Sunlight. Another site is the St. Thomas More Primary site that also had an interesting and helpful article on Letchworth. These were all article that had at least extra information concerning a certain area of study. One problem I faced with these articles was to decipher what the writer wanted to bring up. The facts are clear but connecting them to sum up concrete information was the problem. Another problem is that some of the vital articles have been blocked out of our access or one has to pay some amount in order to get information. Some articles also only had complaints from residents and criticisms about the system instead of having balanced information. Some articles were not useful because they only gave information about the pioneers and their history and that was all. They lay so much emphasis on them that they never gave us the actual information on the area of study. In researching about property there is so much to learn as I did in this research. I came to learn that there are property laws that govern how they should be used and utilized. I learnt that some properties are of state importance and world importance at large and that certain laws have to be followed before leasing such or making any alterations on such properties. I also learned that when making developments on such properties, one has to do so for the interest of all, the community and try to follow the heritage of the place, and should not be led by greed and self benefit. I also learnt that researching is easy but the reporting bit proves to be rather difficult. This is brought about by the fact you have to compile the researched information to make some sense. In my case I was making some comparisons between two areas of study. It is very likely that I may have made errors in the reporting. These errors arise when you mix information; give certain information about a certain area when in real sense you meant it for the other area. The great thing about is that you emerge successful. REFERENCES 1. Press release By Save Port Sunlight 20th April 2004 2. Internet Encyclopedia (Port Sunlight) 3. Internet Encyclopedia (Letchworth) 4. History of Letchworth "The World's First Garden City"; St. Thomas More Primary School Read More