Topic: | Re:David Tennant | |
Posted by: | Karen Liebreich | |
Date/Time: | 12/12/15 19:31:00 |
"If they could only be bothered to tell us how?" Don't really know the answer - apart from reading through planning applications and sending in your comments to the planning dept. Joining local groups, such as WCGS, Friends of Turnham Green. Perhaps supporting Simon Kverndal's legal fight re Empire House. But it is a 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' kind of game. For instance, CHRAG provided feedback to the developers over Empire House, which was then publicised ("we consulted CHRAG!") but ignored ("but we didn't change a damn thing"). On the other hand, if you don't respond, then the council assumes you are in favour. Someone like Marie Rabouhans, vice chair (I think) of WCGS, does a huge amount of work, reading through and responding to planning applications. We should be very grateful to her and people like her. If the responses are generally critical, then it is because most developments seem greedy. Often it feels as though the developers want 10 stories, so they apply for 15, in the hope they will be able to cede a few to appear helpful. But there is an occasional good news story - the current 7-storey block in Power Road, or the building at 500 Chiswick High Rd - where there is a genuine dialogue between developers and locals. It's not that the residents' groups go for easy pickings, far from it. It's that the big developers have more clout, and have already had many pre-application meetings with the council planning dept. They also meet at other events, eg. the big property fair in Cannes earlier this year. Many of the major local developers - eg. Ballymore, Barratt London, Heathrow Airport, SEGRO, Willmott Dixon, and many others - paid for Hounslow to attend the fair, covering the costs of Hounslow's stand, flights, hotel rooms and "inward investor curry evening". I'll get back to guerilla gardening various flower beds around Chiswick now, which sometimes feels like the only - though pathetically ineffectual - way to protest the concreting of Chiswick! |