Update #16
December 12th 2022
We are very sorry to be the bearers of bad tidings this festive season but unfortunately, we will all need to officially respond to the revised plans and submit our comments AGAIN on the planning portal!
Even if you have already done so, it's important that if you don't like the overall proposals - you let the council know.
(And if you haven't commented yet then now is the perfect time to have your say!)
We agree, it's incredibly disappointing that the developer has deliberately chosen to release their amendments over the Christmas & New Year period. Some might argue it’s a deliberate ploy to avoid any scrutiny and put us all off commenting.
Sadly, the amendments are minor and mostly cosmetic - and don’t significantly alter this overbearing, insensitive and inappropriate scheme. It appears developers have ignored the community and the huge number of fundamental objections from individuals, independent experts and council departments. So if you still don't like what you see then you need to act now!
But don't panic - you don't need to write much to have a massive impact.
5 minutes is all you need and you can be back to your Christmas preparations in no time.
Here’s a simple 3 step guide to how to comment - quickly - and some guidelines about what you might want to bear in mind.
1. It doesn’t need to be long:
If you objected before, then you only need to write a short paragraph confirming the reasons for your previous objections still stand. E.g. ‘The objection I submitted to the original planning application still applies to this proposal. I continue to believe that this planning application should be refused for the reasons I stated before’.
2. Outline your main concerns:
If you've got time, you may want to briefly list a few of your reasons. You can refer to our review of the revised plans here. Or you can look at our summary here for a more detailed breakdown of all the issues. But the main areas that SCAN objected to before, still stand:
Overdevelopment - still too big, too dense & too high
Loss of Trees and Wildlife - still too many trees being chopped down
Traffic - not enough parking spaces leading to overspill and road safety hazards
Loss of SEND provision - derisory offer of shared use of a room is an insult to the 70 years legacy of special needs education on this site
Harm to Heritage - the scheme is totally out of character with our neighbourhood and disregards the fact that this is a designated Conservation Area.
3. Click HERE to go straight to the comments page:
The deadline is January 5th. The Council will accept any comments received after this deadline but if possible, people are asked to respond within the set period. Don't forget you can write your objection beforehand andn then copy and paste on the council's website.
Wouldn't it be great to give the developers a sack full of objections to open on Christmas Day?
We apologise again that we have to ask you to do this at this time of year when we know everyone is busy. Sadly we’ve been forced to do so by the developers’ timings.
So - please make your views known - every comment counts.
Thank you and wishing you all a very merry Christmas.
From the team at SCAN