‘GO-AHEAD’ SOON FOR A NEW WYCOMBE
The ambitious project for rebuilding a big central area of High Wycombe, and for a relief road looping south of the town centre to ease traffic congestion, will be approved shortly by the Minister of Housing and Local Government, the ‘Free Press’ understands.
The plan provides for the building of new stores and shops, a pedestrian only precinct with the River Wye running through it, a hotel, a central bus station, three multi-storey car parks, and blocks of offices.
At the public inquiry into the project, it was said that it would bring a breath of new life to the town, so that it could flourish and give it an architecture and a landscape of excitement and charm.
Bucks Free Press Friday 10 May 1963

TOWN CENTRE REDEVELOPMENT GETS GO-AHEAD
PROJECT Phoenix, the £100 million scheme for the western sector of High Wycombe, has been given the green light.
The development will include a department store, shops, parking, a library, new bus station, flats, eating and drinking places, a cinema and a bowling alley.
It has taken ten years to raise the western sector from eyesore to potential major attraction - and there are still hurdles ahead.
A development agreement should be signed between the council and its partners, Stannifer, in early October, but even after that Stannifer has to get the finance and the right stores signed up.
The department store, House of Fraser, will be the people attraction that encourages other stores such as Gap and Zara to move in. Firms to run the cinema and the bowling centre are identified.
Tesco, whose existing town centre store will be built around in the plan, has drawn up its own proposal for the land and is disappointed at Wednesday's result.
Objectors speaking at Wednesday's meeting were from the High Wycombe Society, Tesco, LxB and Wycombe Lib Dems, and Lorna Cassidy who wanted trees on the site to be saved.
Stannifer said many of the issues would be, or had been already, addressed, while some, like the opening up of the Wye and the removal of Abbey Way were not viable. "We have confidence this will be a high quality scheme that High Wycombe can be proud of," said Shirley Karat, Stannifer's agent.
Bucks Free Press Friday 19th September 2003

stills-from-drift-1-web

stills-from-drift-1-web
Originally uploaded by Fugueur.

stills from research film to be shown alongside archive footage of High Wycombe, in collaboration with Wycombe Film Society at the Shelburne Room, Guildhall on November 17th, curtain up at 7.45pm. Places are free, but limited.

Robert Burns and Wycombe

Buckinghamshire has been referred to as a land of 'Politics and Poetics'.
Its poetic power is so great that even a diehard Scot such as Robert Burns (1759-96) was compelled to mention the town in his poem 'Here's A Health To There That's Awa'.

Here's a health to them that's awa!

An here's to them that's awa!

Here's to Maitland and Wycombe!

let wha does na like 'em

Be built in a hole in the wa'!