Saturday, August 23, 2008

Chair of Planning

At the recent Annual General Meeting of North Down Borough Council I was appointed as Chair of the Planning and Public Services Liaison Committee. Having spent 4 years as Chair of Policy and gained a wealth of experience on Policy related matters it was useful to move to Planning.

Planning takes up a great deal of my life. I have experienced so many decisions made by the Planning Service, while they follow their policies, to a mere resident of the Borough their decisions are at times incomprehensible.

We have had beautiful old Victoria houses demolished and replace by multiple dwellings, we have had back garden development just about every where in the Borough, we have had apartments where there have never been apartments. A number of our villages with an old world charm and character are slowly being eroded. Residents and Councillors have fought against proposals but it always appears that the residents are the ones who don't count.

I have no problem with moving forward and some of the developments and apartments have greatly added to the areas where they have been build.

My greatest fear is that the Planning Service have a phrase 'each application is taken on its own individual merit' in other words they look at the application but not what is surrounding it. Also another favourite term of the planning Service is that a house can be 2 1/2 stories in height, however to my simple mind if there are stairs and living accommodation to the 1/2 storey the house is 3 storey, but perhaps that too simple an equation.

We also have the term 'culumative effect' but it counts for little as far as I am concerned. If one block of apartments is allowed or 1 house knocked down and 4 built in its place I have watched this 'culumative effect' slowly moving across Bangor, with one set of over development follwing another.

When giving the opinion of 'approval' to a development and I query what Roads Servicce have commented - the answer is usually 'in principle they ahve no problems' - what a wonderful non phrase.


My total frustration is that the resident - the one who is objecting, is generally the one whose views matter least.

Councillors have littel or no tools to fight the Planning Service with and it is about time that the MLA's had a close look at the Planning Service and some of the decisions made. We cannot wait until 2012 - by then North Down will be lost in a field of concrete and bricks.