Development Control Committee - TrustNews Summer 1986
We asked in the Trust's last Newsletter in April for members (or members of the public) to let us know their views, suggestions or misgivings about planning applications in the City. There has been a considerable response already to this request and I am happy to report that we are being approached frequently and increasingly with individual views and comments. This makes our task of commenting to the City Council all the more rewarding; we feel less that we are responding from a vacuum. Please go on contacting our Committee members whenever you have a problem or views connected with the development of our City.
Since our April report, we have nothing dramatic to tell you. We continue to comment, favourably or in a critical tone, to the City Council on each weekly list of planning applications. We try on the whole to avoid interference with the individual's right to deal with his own property, building a garage or an innocuous extension to his home. On the other hand, we try to select those major cases of proposed development which arouse the interest - and perhaps the opposition of large numbers of our members; and to throw weight into the argument before the City Planning Committee. Our increasing rapport with both Officers and Planning Committee Members is, of course, important to this line of approach.
In a number of cases recently, applications to fill in spaces between existing buildings in the remaining residential areas within the Central Conservation Area, or perhaps to replace gardens with concrete car parks, have caused us to consider seriously the impact of such developments upon our life-style. Generally, we feel that an exceptionally strong reason should be needed to take away any more of the green or light from around the City Centre. Should any of you "know different" about an individual case, again please let us know!