amenities and views<\/a>. But frankly I’d happily pay more for these if paying protected them. As it happens\u00a0these factors are already implied in the price of a property. So even if the policy were implemented and taxes went up, property prices would be attenuated up or down.<\/p>\nIn our case I guess that knocks off several thousands, as the sea views from our kitchen and dining room and garden will be forever lost, and severely diminished\u00a0from the first floor. Time to move?<\/p>\n
3. That it will mean a loss of privacy.<\/p>\n
Curtains will be permanently closed from now on. You are being watched already 24\/7 by facebook and Google, and soon if the Government gets its way, by your ISP and we’re worried about privacy? Well\u00a0there maybe some grounds for many\u00a0residents who are going to be directly ‘overlooked’.<\/p>\n
Even if you don’t lose privacy, the perception of losing your privacy is an important one. Will you\u00a0have to wear a dressing gown or put net curtains up? Will you\u00a0revise your planting scheme and create a garden fortress of Leylandii hedges? How neighbourly would that be?<\/p>\n
4. That there will be car parking for 20.<\/p>\n
Crikey. There is no prospect that it will ever fully be utilised – just look at private car parks anywhere in the immediate locality and you’ll get\u00a0my point, they are under-utilised. Town sites should have as little parking as possible to encourage people to take public transport or join the thriving local car club. But\u00a0our lazy\u00a0decision makers don’t do\u00a0imaginative or, more likely, they’re worried that dopey residents like me will then demand a resident parking scheme. God forbid.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0Assembly Rooms, a building at risk, already has vast gardens, but by dint of not being owned by the developer are not considered relevant, so the local plan ingeniously but daftly applies the parking formula. Even if\u00a0it\u00a0is not going to be developed any time soon.<\/p>\n
If there is a priority, surely it is the Assembly Rooms? If ever there was a case for a compulsory purchase order you’d think that was an open and shut case.<\/p>\n
5. That there\u00a0will be NO GARDENS!<\/p>\n
If the parking proposal is daft and preposterous, the lack of garden provision\u00a0is absolutely \u00a0(expletive deleted) outrageous and enough to make anyone\u00a0cry. I am not talking about some token soft landscaping (they manage to squeeze a tree in I believe) or green car parking aka SUDs.<\/p>\n
Neither poor people, nor\u00a0the old or the young for that matter want or\u00a0need gardens, do they?\u00a0Despite mountains of evidence that greenspace is good for you (mental and health-wise generally) and that there’s an evidenced shortage in the supply locally, there is also almost nowhere for the burgeoning poodle population to SHIT\u00a0in.<\/p>\n
“Let ’em shit\u00a0on your\u00a0beach or your High Street”, I hear our decision makers say.<\/p>\n
6. That the new buildings are going to be ugly.<\/p>\n
Sure they are, that’s why they are so cheap and the developer stands to make a quick buck. Developer also knows that after the 10 year guarantee runs out, they’ll be a steady flow of expensive repairs, which they may benefit from too. To be fair, not all the new buildings at this end of the town are as ugly as they could be, but I ask myself why would you want to annoy the\u00a0neighbours by building further low\u00a0quality into the area? They might gang up on you? Politician’s should take note.<\/p>\n
I find the attempt to make the style acceptable at best insipid. I’ll bet if they go ahead they’ll cut every corner in the book. Heavy scotch slate – I simply don’t believe that would be enforced, but is a well-documented ruse to appease potential objectors, but gets dropped as its impossible to do anything about it. You’ll be lucky if the Council bothers to demand a planning variation.<\/p>\n
7. That they are going to take down a wall that the Council just spent tens of thousands repairing.<\/p>\n
NO, that is what the Council does all the time. It paints pointless white and yellow lines around the locality, and then rubs them out all the time. Or visit the “temporary car park” at Abbeylands to see how they gold plated the spec in order to throw\u00a0\u00a350k of tax payer’s money to merely displace car parking, which previously occurred less than 5\u00a0minutes walk away. Anywhere else a bit of hardcore and a ticket machine would have sorted it, and this site already had handy Auschwitz-style inward facing razor wire fencing in place to protect the cars and add edginess to the street scene.<\/p>\n
8. That the wall\u00a0will fall down.<\/p>\n
So, are\u00a0the buttresses being removed and the wall held up by the new structure? It is not clear. That the wall may need structural support is probably not a planning consideration, rather an engineering\u00a0problem, and won’t stop them creating another expensive temporary car park. More’s the point, what is the history of that wall and does it actually have any historic importance? The new wall was rebuilt using modern techniques and pointing, which to my mind was a missed opportunity to demonstrate what could be done with old red sandstone walls, which are being allowed to decline. But there you go.<\/p>\n
9. That its gonna flood.<\/p>\n
Yes, that’s why they’ve not got a ground floor. Only the cars will die in the event and surely the carbon saving green ideologues will celebrate?<\/p>\n
Seriously, there is an issue around the ability of this site to support 9 flats, even if they are 6 single bedroomed flats and only 3 doubles. So if\u00a0poor drainage and other services are apparently a problem, who will pick up the bill? You and me probably.<\/p>\n
10. That the whole thing is fishy.<\/p>\n
It beggars belief\u00a0that such a sketchy application got through the registration process\u00a0at all, given ELC’s usual attitude towards private applications which rebound with striking regularity.<\/p>\n
I worry also whether a\u00a0small time developer and architect re-known for porches and sheds be being encouraged to put forward proposals in a sensitive Conservation Area? Is it ultra vires<\/em> for councillors or planners to stimulate proposals without discussing them\u00a0first with those that would be affected or community representatives \/ key stakeholders?<\/p>\nI am sure that ELC could cook up a better proposal using their in-house architects.<\/p>\n
11. There has been no pre-planning consultation.<\/p>\n
It feels like\u00a0this is part of a continuing undeclared war of attrition between the Council that doesn’t really have a clear idea\u00a0what is good for local people – it has been progressively de-professionalised, demoralised and paralysed by declining financial\u00a0resources and endemic risk averseness. And local people on the other side who don’t really know what is good for them – they know what they don’t want more than they know what they want – which I think is fair enough, given the dreadful\u00a0lack of public engagement in debates around what it means to live in the Conservation Area, too often painted\u00a0as a hindrance.<\/p>\n
There can be\u00a0a 2 way process whereby experts signal first intentions to develop and then, following on from research and engagement, develop proposals. You would expect them in this day and age\u00a0get their inspiration from a brief (I doubt there is one), the context (a small and potentially sensitive location) and from local people (there’s a host of people that are going to be affected and others who might make sensible suggestions).<\/p>\n
That is not to say that everyone’s post-it view will count. Far from it, but it IS\u00a0about creating a sort of a dialogue, looking at the impacts and mitigation options. The job of the Council is to also look at the\u00a0cumulative economic, social and environmental impacts, not just saying that the public good is served better by whatever they want to do and that everything else doesn’t count.<\/p>\n
When someone\u00a0wants to stick a small\u00a0wind turbine up, ELC somehow\u00a0ensures it doesn’t\u00a0happen,in the name of\u00a0landscape protection. No one’s\u00a0views will be obstructed – only changed, no one’s privacy will be infringed, nor their light removed, etc. When it comes to Conservation Area development\/protection, our towns get whatever the developer plonks\u00a0on the table, usually without any mitigation whatsoever.<\/p>\n
The Council\u00a0has a poor\u00a0track record of\u00a0engaging constituents, except through the dubious unrepresentative coven of Community Councils. The last thing they will do is to actually ask local people what they think [1.A rare\u00a0exception was the recent MIR meeting, which I missed, run by DCC, which brought the Not in my back yarders out in droves. Jolly\u00a0good.].<\/p>\n
Putting aside the satire, we desperately need reasons for people to invest and visit the town, which continues to struggle. We don’t necessarily need a transfer of assets to the community as if this sector somehow has the time and resources to do things better, plainly it has not. What we\u00a0need is\u00a0a development environment and planning and political signals, whereby private investors have the confidence that\u00a0their decisions to buy-into the\u00a0old town living \/ lifestyle are\u00a0not going to be negated\u00a0by the next daft proposal, which is going to favour some business as if that is\u00a0a public\u00a0benefit.<\/p>\n
We should also be trying to attract individual private owner occupied developers – not businesses, who can generally generate more imaginative responses to the special needs of a historic town, working with qualified architects. You never know, some sort of stimulus\u00a0and regeneration of the old town could also create a vibrant niche in traditional building trades. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of square metres of red sandstone walls that could be repointed, repaired and rebuilt, using artisanal techniques that are more sustainable.<\/p>\n
Regrettably\u00a0the current development tendency is towards\u00a0further ghettoisation, mainly where the authorities think they’ll get away with it or know they can. And although I think\u00a0we\u00a0should learn to live cheek by jowl with different people of different ethnicities and cultures and economic status, I still think this development is a poor choice for the locality for the range of reasons I have outlined.<\/p>\n