Forty Years On e-newsletter Issue 5 July 2013.pdf (1.55 mb) - Vivacity

MemorabiliawantedKlackers, Chopper bikes, Ker Plunk: Is any of this languagefamiliar to you?Was there a ‘Party Seven’ at your party, was the man in yourlife wearing ‘Brut’ aftershave. Did you hit the dance floor‘Saturday Night Fever’ style, pogo to Punk Rock, dress toimpress Glam Rock or New Romantics style? Were you aNorthern Soul fan; did you dance all night long at the Wirrinaallnighters?We are holding an exhibition at Peterborough Museum laterthis year and are looking for memorabilia from the 1970s and80s to include. We are particularly looking for items that arerelevant to Peterborough for example, toys or games that weremanufactured by Peter Pan Playthings, items that relate toFreemans Factory, Thomas Cook, or any other organisationthat was part of the city’s expansion during those years.Do you have anything that reflects the clothing or socialactivities of that time such as photographs, toys, posters orrecords?If you have an item you wish to loan for the exhibition pleasecontact beverley.jones@vivacity-peterborough.com orcall 01733 864632.We need some New Towns …In the 1960s and 1970s the population of southeast England was predicted to rise by 3.5 millionpeople. Existing housing in big cities such asLondon was cramped and unsanitary.“New Towns were designed to relieve the pressure onLondon. To give people in London the opportunity to getbetter homes, better jobs, better lives outside of Londonbecause they could not achieve those things in London itself,which was over crowded.”David Bath, PDC“We were living in high-rise buildings in Hackney on the 11thfloor and I had two children. You couldn’t let children playdownstairs. I’d never even had a garden. I’d always beenbrought up in flats in London and we didn’t even have abalcony in the flats I grew up in.” Jean Hawkes“When I was a kid we lived in a flat in London with a sharedloo. We didn’t have a bathroom, it was tin bath - had nocentral heating either.” Suzanne Waller“I’d had experience of town planningelsewhere, not as a planner but as an employerof planners if you like and I didn’t like the DraftMaster Plan for Peterborough very much at all.I thought it was much too doctrine and muchtoo rigid, much too strong in an architecturalstructure sense, and that it just didn’t have theflexibility and the fluidity and the adaptabilitythat I felt was necessary and so I didn’t geton all that well with the consultant planners.”Wyndham Thomas, PDC“The original New Towns had been built in open countrybut when it came to Peterborough they realised that they’dgot an existing cathedral city and they just couldn’t ride inrough-shod. So we were the first of the partnership NewTowns. The Development Corporation were far and awaythe important executive arm but nevertheless had to takethe City Council with them and the County. And I had someextremely able chief officers who meshed with Wyndham’schief officers to produce the Masterplan.”Peter Sidebottom, Peterborough City CouncilThe designated area for expansionAn artist’s impression of Henry Wells’ design for Peterborough City Centre“In 1960 there was a study going on called the Wells Study.Henry Wells was looking for areas to expand within theeastern region. Ipswich, along with Peterborough and MiltonKeynes, were areas all looked at. I became very involved andwe pressed for Peterborough to be one of these expandedareas.”Councillor Charles SwiftFortyYearsOnExploring Peterborough’s development since 1968“There had to be a lot of discussion. We had an awful lotof discussions with the department, with the ministry,particularly the late Dick Crossman and Dame Evelyn Sharp,all the civil servants at that particular time.”Councillor Charles Swift“They were very keen to get going and appointed consultantplanners whose task was to draw up a Draft Master Plan.Peterborough’s was drawn up by a town planner named TomHancock who had as his sidekick, John Hawkes. So when Iwas appointed and came in to take up my post, that’s whatI was presented with, a Draft Master Plan already done byHancock Hawkes. They had stipulated a population size; thecity was to grow from 70,000 to 160,000.”Wyndham Thomas, PDCThe Draft Master Plan for PeterboroughPick up your FREE limited edition copy of the Forty Years Onbooklet which is packed full of images, info and oral historyabout Peterborough’s expansion in the 1970s and 1980s.Available in Peterborough Central Library.