A curious
Planning Meeting last night. To get the headline out of the way, the
Planning Committee decided that their mind was not changed by the upgraded
listing of the Scenic Railway and that they would have accepted the change to
the scheduled timing of the works. But that only tells part of the story...
First up we’ve had some changes in the
Committee Membership with Cllrs Hart and Poole replaced by Cllrs Nicholson and
David Green, though both attended the meeting. Certainly no dumbing down on the Labour side then.
There was criticism of the two mock-ups of the
proposed store showing one, the height of the development in scale to the
Scenic Railway, including the 4m height difference between the two (arguing
that Arlington should have been in the image) and second, the image of the
store without the hotel section (arguing that the positioning of the store
being behind Dreamland Cinema was wrong). While I normally agree with that
Councillor and have great respect for him, I must disagree with both
criticisms. Arlington is off to the right in the first image so doesn’t really
count and as the plans show, the store would creep behind the left side of the
Dreamland building.
Harvey Patterson spent his time discussing
a letter of objection from Richard Buxton Solicitors, though the word
dismissing might be more appropriate. Normally I’d defend his advice giving
because he’s usually right on the money but seemed to be off his game last
night and a little more agitated than normal. He criticised the publication of the letter online. I read the letter
online pretty much as soon as it was published and I have no issue with it
appearing online. There’s definitely a public interest and the Members of the
Committee should be aware of it.
To reiterate what I said in the preview,
this Public Inquiry came only because of the referral to Full Council which was
in itself necessary given the legal complications that were appearing. I hear from elsewhere that in fact this Public Inquiry was merely a threat to
push the Committee into accepting the application and to ease its process, and
that once that approval was given the Public Inquiry would be dropped. We shall
see if that is the case in due course.
A Councillor made a comment that the letter
to Cllr Poole from June (see “Pooleing Around”) was inaccurate in its
description of that meeting’s vote as being decided on the Chair’s casting vote
and that instead it was a normal vote. Sorry but that’s not true, it was a 7-7
tie and the Chair’s casting vote decided it. The letter was right.
Im not really one for attacking my own side but I’d be a hypocrite if I didn’t name Conservative Cllr Binks who spoke
against the development back in June (words along the lines of “I cannot
support this application”) but voted in favour, much to the surprise of those watching
the meeting who had done the maths and expected the motion to be defeated. Her
mind had not changed last night and neither had her vote in favour of the
development.
As readers will know, I support the
Arlington development and want to see it do well, but that I believe the
Arlington House works must be done prior to the store construction since the
resident’s needs should come first, especially when residents are highly
concerned about Freshwater’s willingness to adhere to its obligations towards
its tenants. I don’t agree with the second vote taken last night. As the
reports and the advice given last night made abundantly clear, Freshwater
didn’t really have a particularly good reason other than “minimising
disturbance”, in itself not very convincing. In fact during the debate it was made clear that they would be satisfied with the current schedule, so Im unsure as to why a change should be necessary...
Discussion of Ramsgate Sport Centre's proposed extension seemed to focus on the possible increase of confrontations that might be caused between pedestrians and cyclists by shortening the footpath following behind Paradise Avenue from a width of 3 metres to 2 to allow for more shrubbery. I kid you not... An amendment was made to avoid that and it passed.
Discussion of Ramsgate Sport Centre's proposed extension seemed to focus on the possible increase of confrontations that might be caused between pedestrians and cyclists by shortening the footpath following behind Paradise Avenue from a width of 3 metres to 2 to allow for more shrubbery. I kid you not... An amendment was made to avoid that and it passed.
Cllr Nicholson’s comment of “a step into
the Twilight Zone” pretty much summed the meeting up, indeed the last meeting
of the year.
5 comments:
James,
In fact Cllr Cohen did not use his 'casting vote' at the first meeting. There were 15 members present (including the chair) The 'floor' was divided 7/7 Cllr cohen used his 1st vote (as a member of the committee). So the decision was made by a straight majority. The chair has an extra 'casting vote' to use if the committee is 'tied' (ie if someone is absent)
Bit of a case of six of one, half a dozen of the other given his 1st vote was the decisive one, voting according to the Chair's convention of voting with the recommendation. I cant really be bothered to argue about it, Ken.
finally read it, I cant understand all the fuss just pass it and get on with it. As for the cycle/path issue reduce the width and include mre shrubs to hang over sounds daft to me it willmake path even narrower,
James, to be honest I don’t have an opinion either way on situating the supermarket there, but I do have one on the aesthetics of the supermarket building and I wondered what you reckon.
To my mind the view of Margate looking at the seafront is architecturally interesting, whether you like them or not the Dreamland Cinema and Arlington House are striking pieces of architecture representing design ideas of their time. The new Tesco building however seems to be a bit of a blob.
Do you think there is any way that Tesco could be persuaded to make the thing look a bit more interesting?
When I said shrubbery I really meant 'landscaping' (basically to put off light pollution into Paradise)...had Monty Python on my mind at the time!
With the legal battles at the moment, I'm not sure how any proposed changes would be dealt with and I cant see Freshwater want to find out either.
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