| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re::Shepherds Bush Housing Group Defend St Margaret's House Plans | |
| Posted by: | Adam Beamish | |
| Date/Time: | 25/11/10 20:06:00 |
| Hi Colin, Thanks for your valid points, and you're right, sometimes what one person 'moans' about is a very valid point and one that the developer can and does address. No major developer in their right mind wants to start off on a 'bad foot' with the neighbourhood. On this particular site however I'm not sure wider pre-application consultation/community involvement would have assisted anyone. There still appears to be an element of 'confusion' about the fact that the application doesn't involve a change of use and what the Council can and can't take into account. As you say I try to be non-partisan, having worked on both sides of the fence I hope my view isn't 'blinkered'. At the same time I do think that the average person in the street has no concept (quite rightly, why should they ?) of the expense involved in putting together a major planning application and how Local Authorities generally are a nightmare to deal with. There's this perception that developers are greedy and make huge profits from all development schemes, but in this day and age it really isn't like that. Returning to your points about democracy I think there is an extremely uneasy relationship between democracy and planning policy/guidance. I've always struggled with the notion of planning committees making decisions about planning applications when usually the Elected Members have no planning background (and Member Training is pretty minimal) and ultimately have been elected by their constituents to serve them, yet are supposed to determine applications solely upon their planning merits. I mean, it's so much easier to refuse the application to keep your constituents happy and then if the applicant is successful on appeal you can just blame the Secretary of State. And as for localism, I think it's easy to believe that most people want the same things, but in reality it never works out that way. It reminds me of my time at Hounslow, one night I'd be at Heston & Cranford Committee trying to persuade Members to take enforcement action against a massive extension that contradicted every planning policy, the next I'd be at Chiswick Committee and Members would want to take action against a wall that was one brick course too high but harmed no-one. I generalise, but the whole concept of localism doesn't seem to recognise that in the space of a couple of miles within the same Borough the environment, the people, the character etc. can change substantially. |