Planning Applications

I was recently made Vice Chair of Planning, and had to chair a site visit in consequence.


It seems to me that there is widespread misunderstanding of how planning is supposed to work, and that for some people it is really quite intimidatory.


The case that particularly struck me was a proposed new house in two back gardens on Chatsworth Road. Back gardens were made a hot issue during the GLA Campaign by Boris Johnson (although I am not sure he has done much about them since), and this application had objections from more than ninety people including two of the parliamentary candidates for the area.

The site was a derelict garage and the surrounding garden. The committee refused it because of scale, the noise from the railway line, and its status as part of a "wildlife corridor." There was a long discussion over the exact value of the corridor, with (under the rhetoric) agreement that the corridor would be eroded but not severed by the development. We also had a lenghty submission about the welfare of bats, pointing out that trains ran up to midnight putting them off using the corridor. However, as they are nocturnal animals, I assume the late hours won't hurt them.

A lot of the comment struck me as being very personal and at the site visit I had to disallow some of the points (e.g. How long have you lived in this area?). I fear the applicant felt quite persecuted by the end of the session.


Other problems that occur with other applications include residents assuming that Planning Officers are secretly decided against them, or that councillors are simply following a political line. I think that councillors do genuinely try to decide on the merits of the case, and that the officers really do try to balance all the points made to them. There just seems to be something in the nature of these things that makes people see it all as black or white.