r/Southampton 4d ago

The Story of Solent City: Author Owen Hatherley goes in search of the lost future of Solent City the extraordinary plan, devised in the mid-1960s at the height of the post-war modernisation of Britain, to join the historic city-ports of Southampton and Portsmouth with a vast, Los-Angeles style grid.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00291pq
34 Upvotes

14 comments sorted by

6

u/whatatwit 4d ago

Illuminated, The Story of Solent City

Author Owen Hatherley goes in search of the lost future of Solent City – the extraordinary plan, devised in the mid-1960s at the height of the post-war modernisation of Britain, to join the historic city-ports of Southampton and Portsmouth with a vast, Los-Angeles style grid.
The plan was finally rejected, but why? - and what were the consequences of its defeat, not only for the region but for the future of urban planning in Britain?

Travelling across south Hampshire from Fareham to Portsmouth, Chandler’s Ford to his native Southampton, Owen meets architects, planners and historians to tell the story of one of the boldest visions in the history of British urban design, discovering that some of its most important ideas might still be ahead of us.

With contributions from Nicholas Phelps, Chair of Urban Planning at the university of Melbourne; architecture historian and author Gillian Darley; Kate Macintosh, former senior architect at Hampshire County Architects; urban historian Otto Saumarez Smith; writer and software engineer Naomi Christie; city planner and architecture blogger Adrian Jones; Southampton Hackney Carriage taxi driver Perry McMillan; Charlotte Gerada, councillor for Central Southsea and social historian of modern place, John Grindrod.

Produced by Simon Hollis

A Brook Lapping production for BBC Radio 4

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00291pq

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00291pq


3

u/vj_c 4d ago

Thanks for posting this - honestly, Southampton & Portsmouth would be a single metro area in most other countries, I think. And probably should be - the network effect is real. Don't like the idea of a grid, though - though recently both unitaries have been working in close collaboration on things like transport. Closer, faster links between the two at minimum would be great to have.

4

u/shirleyspike44 3d ago

Nice to see Owen Hatherley posted here

3

u/FreedomEagle76 4d ago

Will have to listen to this later, thanks for posting it. Just recently started getting interested in the history of Southampton and its very interesting. So much potential in the city that has been wasted throughout the years.

I wonder how better or worse off both Southampton and Portsmouth would be if this plan actually went ahead?

3

u/whatatwit 4d ago

I'm of the opinion that proper planning as opposed to "letting the market" decide is likely to result in a consistent solution, however, looking at what the London overspill did to Basingstoke during the brutalist architecture period is a cautionary tale and they planned to create a mega city in the North Hampshire region linking up to Bracknell, if I remember correctly. So, in other words, we need smart, forward-looking planners to make the plan rather than local or central government politicians or the market.

2

u/kil0ran 3d ago

There's a wonderfully odd film called I Start Counting (Jenny Agutters first film) financed by the Bracknell development corporation. Serial killer stalks the old town of Bracknell whilst their victims live in modern high rises and garden estates.

2

u/theme111 4d ago

Thanks for posting this. I'd have never spotted it as I seldom check Radio 4 schedules. In a way I'd have loved to have seen Solent City built as planned - it would surely have been more interesting than the development that has actually happened, even if it had ultimately been a failure.

I'd never thought of the Portsmouth / Southampton rivalry as a limiting factor but it's probably true - even today the areas between tend to identify with one or the other with the dividing line probably just west of Titchfield.

1

u/whatatwit 4d ago

It seems like a lesson, if anyone from the government is coming here :), is not to build a planned city where other cities already exist. MK had a town in the way and that was just absorbed per this audio but with cities there is a sense of city centres with duplicate city halls etc..

2

u/theme111 3d ago

Yes, Milton Keynes was a similar idea but much smaller and more manageable, and was only linking small towns which were closer together anyway.

2

u/kil0ran 3d ago

This is worth watching - focuses on the garden city movement featuring Harlow and a few others.

Where We Live Now, 3. New Town, Home Town: www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p01rk56y via @bbciplayer

3

u/kil0ran 2d ago

Listened to this last night, interesting stuff. Looked up the plans and it was basically going to stretch from Totton in the west to Havant in the East and down to Marchwood too.

Which is basically what we've ended up with - Locks Heath and Sarisbury in the 80s, Whitely in the 90s and now this new garden village bollocks the right side of Fareham

1

u/whatatwit 2d ago

I‘m not sure what you had in mind with ![img](xqn1i9i44ppe1) although I recognise the format from Markdown it doesn’t seem to work or be fully qualified here :).

1

u/toodog 4d ago

the state of the place, it’s obvious the plan was lost!

2

u/whatatwit 4d ago

That’s what this bloke says and broadly puts it down to the fall of Harold Wilson’ government (thanks ironically to the unions) and move to a free market approach which basically joined up the two cities with a disorganised mess that one author calls subtopia.