On 09 Nov 2006 08:41:15 GMT Adrian wrote :
At my church we could rebuilt
the halls and provide some really first rate community facilities.
It's CA so no point in talking to the planners

Wrong.

Not here.

This is LB Richmond. When Chartered Surveyor Weekly (as was) profiled
LBRuT some years back its advice to readers was to start work on the
appeal before submitting the planning application as they'd almost
certainly end up appealing.

Ten years back I did a planning application for a new garden wall at
the church. Our tame architect talked to the planners first and
reported back that it would be a waste of time going further as they
were adamant that the existing (less than lovely) wall must stay. I
said that I would make an application on behalf of the church. I first
ran the plan by the local amenity society, whose response was that
what we proposed would be a great improvement. Do. the neighbours, no
objection. I then submitted the application with copy correspondence.
At this point it should have been almost a rubber stamp approval. But
no.

Two of us went to a meeting with the planners. I explained (again)
that part of the reason for the new wall was to resite the gate to
accommodate a new access ramp. One of the planners (I was glad I had a
witness or no one would believe me) said that he couldn't care less
about disabled people, saving the old wall was what mattered and they
were going to refuse the application. After bit of research in
planning law books I then wrote and said that if they did we would
appeal and ask for costs, quoting a pertinent law case. At this point
they approved it. Months of work; if it had been chargeable it would
have been in four figures, all for something that any sane person
would see is a great improvement over what was there before.

Ten years on we are looking at more substantial changes. Lots of
people agree that if we could demolish all the halls and start over we
could end up with much better facilities - and IMO the overall
appearance could end up being much better than now. We also know that
such a scheme would inevitably end up being the subject of an appeal,
probably involving spending £25K before we even had a planning
consent. So this won't happen. Third rate halls etc used by numerous
community groups will end up as second rate. Were it not for the
planners they would be first rate: no amount of renovation will make a
to-narrow hall wide enough.

If you want to see the power of the planning and conservation brigade
to destroy just go to Twickenham town centre. The strategy was to
protect small shops by resisting all new development. People now spend
their money elsewhere and the shops that they were protecting are now
gone, replaced by charity shops or restaurants .. and more than a
handful of empty shops.

There are areas where planners do have a positive attitude, for
example John Lewis is in Kingston because the planners worked really
hard with JLP to make sure that their store came to Kingston not to
Sutton. But are they the majority or exception?

--
Tony Bryer SDA UK 'Software to build on' http://www.sda.co.uk