From time to time I am annoyed by campaigning tactics that some people use, which they must know to be dishonest. An example, here, is from the Save the Queensbury pub campaign. It states that the pub will be demolished, which it will if the application is successful.
Why then is that dishonest?
Because if the application goes ahead, the pub is due to be reprovided in a more modern building on the same site.
I take it that the Queensbury campaign are very attached to that building, and don't want to see a more modern one. That is fair enough as a point of view, but to pretend that there will be no pub there is just tricking people into supporting their campaign on false grounds. If they believe in the "heritage" value of the existing building, they should be clear that that is what they want. To stir people up with threats to demolish a pub when there are no such plans is deceiving people, and any arguments presented in the planning process on that ground will ignored because the planners know that the pub is being reprovided.
It is highly reminiscent of the opposition to the new Willesden Library, which gathered objections against the project by giving people the false impression that the Library was being demolished and simply replaced by housing instead of by The Library at Willesden Green.
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