From your Chairman

As we come to the end of another busy year for the Society, it may be worth looking back on our various involvements.  Members have enjoyed talks on a range of subjects, including Flora Thompson through to the Deane Brothers and taking on board the Hampshire Police Air Support Unit and Froude and Brunel.  Engaging speakers can be a tricky business as we try to balance the content and variety in order to please different needs and tastes.  Hopefully, members will have found something along the way to interest them and increase their knowledge of both Gosport and the surrounding areas previously unknown to them.

World Heritage Site  The South has always cooperated with neighbouring societies and heritage-based groups and never more so than in 2007.  This is because of the proposal to make the Harbour area a World Heritage site.  Your Chairman sits on the Steering Committee to promote this event, together with all the neighbouring civic societies and local authorities, the Solent Forum, the Ministry of Defence, Queen’s Harbourmaster, English Heritage and U.N.E.S.C.O.  The area of the World Heritage site extends from Portsdown Hill in the north to Ryde in the south.  Members may be interested – but not surprised! – to note that the majority of historic sites are to be found on the Gosport side of the Harbour.  I have been working with Celia Clark, Chairman of the Portsmouth Society, to prepare a dossier of these sites which will be given to the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) for consideration.  Celia Clark has spoken with the Gosport Society Committee about the proposals and she and I cooperated in a Harbour cruise in June when we did a voice-over describing all the sites in the Harbour which will go in the dossier.  The underwater archaeology of the Harbour is part of the Heritage proposals as, apart from the Mary Rose, there are a number of identified wreck sites yet to be fully explored and Chris Dobbs, an underwater archaeologist, is in the process of doing that.

The Portsmouth Harbour Heritage proposal is due to be launched on 29^th January 2008 in No. 6 Boathouse in the Dockyard.  If the DCMS accepts our proposal, it will go on what is known as the Tentative List and it may take up to five years before a decision is taken.  This is a very long process and patience is needed.   The benefits of World Heritage designation will be primarily economic and a major boost to the tourist industry.

Heritage Days   This year’s events were rather a disappointment compared with previous years.  Only a handful of people participated in the Society’s High Street and Alverstoke walks, when in former times 30 or 40 people took part.  The Royal Clarence Yard walks were similarly badly attended, while the take-up for tickets for HMS Sultan was lower than in previous years.  This lower turn-out seems in part to be because the same people attend each year and, therefore, by definition new sites and walks should be offered to create interest.  The Society’s Committee believes the Heritage Days events are a great opportunity to highlight Gosport as a town of historic importance.  We have decided to liaise with the Borough Council and the Tourist Information Centre in exploring new sites for 2008 and urge more energetic publicity, particularly from the Borough Council.

Bay House Enterprise Academy   Members may be interested to know that the Academy, which was the subject of a very controversial planning debate for a site in Alver Creek, is now well established within H.M.S. Sultan with the support of the Commodore and his staff, and has been up and running since September.  A formal presentation was held at Alverstoke Parish Centre on 19^th November, with the students themselves introducing the proceedings.  They undertake a variety of studies, including a minimum of 5 GCSEs, practical and technical work.  One day a week is spent at the University of Portsmouth’s Business Studies Department, while some will be working for the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award.  The students told us how they had enjoyed doing restorative building work at both Fort Widley and HMS Sultan.  The second Enterprise Academy in Hampshire is to be established at Basingstoke in 2008.

                                                                                                                                Lesley Burton
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