Projects and Campaigns
Stroud Civic Society runs campaigns for specific issues and organises occasional projects....
These campaigns and projects are sometimes run by the Society on its own, but are more often undertaken in partnership with other bodies and groups.
A few of our projects and campaigns are outlined below, and listed in the links to the left.
(For more general information on the Society's work see the About Us page).
Campaigns
The Society campaigns in its own right or joins with others on contentious issues.
We campaigned successfully, against the odds, to save the Hill Paul building from demolition (more information on this and other groups involved below).
But other campaigns are less successful. The new Merrywalks Apollo Cinema, constructed over the bus station site, was a great disappointment. We lobbied unsuccessfully to change the appearance to a more suitable finish, and for the cinema entrance to be from the town through the Merrywalks mall, not from the road outside the town centre.
For other planning campaigns, current and past, have a look at the Planning page.
Projects
We intervene directly when we can make a difference.
A recent example of this was when the Society sponsored the restoration of this ancient, rusty petrol pump outside a garage in Nailsworth.
The pump is thought to date from the 1920s, and though the garage has been trading since the at least the 1930s, seems to have been installed second-hand - though not in recent memory.
The present owner, Tom Hinds, had stored the delivery hose and arm safely, but the pump was looking in a bad way.
The Civic Society arranged to have to have the pump cleaned by grit blasting, followed by an immediate zinc etch primer. It was then hand painted with machine enamel paint.
The pump is now restored to its former glory.
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Hill Paul
The Hill Paul building, a former clothing factory in Stroud town centre, was the subject of became a major campaign in 2000/2001 when it was threatened with demolition.
The Civic Society was one of many groups who fought for its retention and helped form the the Hill Paul Regeneration Group. This Group demonstrated that the building was still viable, despite developer-led reports stating it was unsafe and uneconomic. They also had to fight indifference from the planning authority, who were minded to grant demolition permission despite it being a landmark building in a Conservation Area. The building is not Listed.
The building is unusual for Stroud, being a late architect-designed Victorian clothing factory in the town centre by the railway - not a stone-built textile mill in the valley bottom like so many other Stroud industrial buildings. The polychromatic brickwork design is by Henry A. Cheers of Teddington (Middlesex). It was built in the 1890s and continued in production as a factory until 1989.
The Save Hill Paul Campaign is especially remarkable as it involved dedicated Stroud individuals to risk many thousands of pounds each, to effectively pay a mortgage on it whilst the future was determined.
These investors had no guaranteed return, but the eventual developer, who converted the building into flats (and added a new top floor) rewarded them with a share in the property on completion.
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Canal Conference
The restoration of the Cotswold Canals - the Stroudwater Navigation (7 miles/12km) and the Thames and Severn Canal (29 miles/46km) - has been ongoing for many years, with work mostly led by the Cotswold Canals Trust.
In 2001 the project was strengthened by the formation of the Cotswold Canals Partnership, a consortium including all the relevant local authorities as well as the Canals Trust. As an early contribution to the debate about how the canal could affect Stroud town, the Civic Society organised a one day conference in 2003. Proceedings are available in pdf format here.
Since our 2003 conference the canals project has developed considerably, and has been awarded a major HLF grant.
For up-to-date news visit the Cotswold Canals Partnership website.
Keeping it in Style
In 2002 the Society revised and reissued its booklet 'Keeping it in Style'.
This publication gives advice on how to retain local and historic style when managing and renovating local buildings.
Limited numbers of the paper copies are still available on request (contact details are available here) and a lower quality scanned copy is available to download by clicking here (5 MB download).
