Unless water levels rise to more than 20m, which they won’t be anytime soon, our High Street should be immune from flooding, or so you would think (check the dynamic graphic below from Climate Central that models a 10m rise). First off though, there’s a session being run by the Scottish Flood Forum in West Barns Village Hall on the 27th of November and then at the Methodist Church on the 9th December 2014. Insurance, protection and planning are all apparently going to be covered. Of particular interest to those who stay in low lying areas, by rivers and streams and definitely anyone with a beachside/seaside property.
Author: templar
passionate about the new and the old, but only if it is any good
The Conservation Premium
With over 600 designated throughout Scotland and a staggering 9,800 in England, Conservation Areas afford protection to the crème de la crème of our built heritage and environment, for which there is seemingly no direct market. With the designation owners’ property rights are restricted. Changes to the external appearance of buildings and choice of materials limited and the cost of altering and maintaining buildings to a certain standard is in many if not most cases increased. The policy directly imposes a cost on individual owners and occupiers, but all in the name of a greater public good, which recent surveys suggest 92% of the population supports.
unsympathetic alterations causing the loss of traditional architectural features … loss of front gardens to parking … lack of co-ordinated or poor quality street furniture and paving … traffic domination and cluttered pedestrian environment … loss of traditional shopfronts
[Problems which Conservation Areas are designed to overcome]
So how can it be justified? Can it be purely on the grounds of a positive external heritage effect? And what if the social benefits exceed the private costs of maintenance? Is there some intergenerational inequality, whereby residents today pay the costs for future generations to perhaps enjoy? Is there a case for additional support – for these areas will also have more listed buildings with additional development restrictions than non designated areas, in the way that farmers get subsidy to farm wildlife. Environmental subsidies are justified because markets fail to protect landscapes, wildlife and countryside, for as the rural saying goes, “you can’t eat the view.” Well the jury is out on market failure it seems and I see no sign of incentives for householders any time soon. Continue reading The Conservation Premium
Welcome new housing at Station Road? Well not exactly …
I supported the recent application for 17 houses at Station Road on the grounds that this would have a positive impact on the local economy and bring much needed higher quality housing closer to the centre of Dunbar. Moreover the new residents might not be so dependent on the private car, being proximate to the Rail Station and only a few minutes walk to the High Street. But our local Councillors on the planning committee – such a forward looking lot – were minded to turn down the application on the grounds that the old Local Plan foresaw this area of private land becoming a car park, despite advanced proposals existing for developing a major facility next door. OK they went against advice from their own officers and stranger things have happened in Dunbar.
Continue reading Welcome new housing at Station Road? Well not exactly …
The pointlessness of CCTV
Back in 2009 I objected to the application by East Lothian Council to install CCTV on a number of grounds, not least because I find the creeping intrusion into our lives of the state and large business, aided and abetted by a supine media, morally dubious and unnecessary as well as contributing to an increasing sense of public anxiety.
The proposed camera installations would have a negative impact on character of the Dunbar Conservation Area.
The proposal to use the finger post outside Abbeylands was actually dropped (they realised this was utterly daft?) and the CCTV fixed to the lamppost instead. But hardly an outbreak of commonsense, as the existing lamppost apparently was not strong enough to take an extra couple of kg, so they erected a monstrously oversized and ugly lamppost to replace the existing, at god knows what extra cost. In fact they installed a total of 3 of these ugly buggers and no one I have spoken to has been impressed. Continue reading The pointlessness of CCTV