Fighting a planning application that will affect a conservation area

[Cubist]

My own experiences of battles with the planners echo much of what has been said above. The deck is firmly stacked in the favour of the developer and the law and local regulations reinforce this bias to the extent that if you win in the first round a couple of tweaks to their proposal will carry the day at appeal. Frankly it's barely worth trying to contest any proposal unless you can, and are willing and able to fight the battle on different ground.

A few years back I was involved in an attempt to prevent the construction of circa 70 log cabins in a nearby forest but it was clear that our chances of winning via the official process were virtually non existent. We did however prevent that development and got the company concerned to withdraw the proposed scheme when we managed to threaten the £100M+ investment made by a city organisation after we discovered and suggested there was something smelly and scandalous going on behind the scenes. In other words; we won because of What we knew about the developer AND How we could use the Who we knew to make a stink about that, to Frighten the money.

 

[Salamander]

I’d disagree slightly on the Road Safety Audit, stage 1 is a very high level flagging of risk, which then informs the detailed design. You can’t do a full assessment without having a detailed design so it kind of is what it is. The RSA level 1 also dictates what additional land might be required by the scheme to deliver it safely, hence why it is done before planning. From what you’ve said there isn’t any additional land available, so it is all a bit moot.

Stage 2 is the examination of the detailed design and that’s where junction layout, signage etc is considered so that’s the one where most of the points raised in this thread would be reviewed. That often takes place after planning so you could push for planning assent to be conditional on successful passing of Stage 2?

The Stage 1 RSA in this instance was in my view, cursory and made no mention of the obvious road safety issues, giving disproportionate consideration to tactile paving at pedestrian crossing points, and matters relating to the once-weekly event of refuse collection. The Audit 'team' of just two people were on site for only one hour at the quietest time of day (14:00pm to 15:00pm - which has been queried by the Local Highway Authority), and they made no mention in the brief survey report of the topography of the road causing significant visibility issues in the vicinity of the access. They also made no reference to the lack the most important swept path analysis drawings, which were only submitted later by the applicant, following comments from the public.

 

[Flyfisher]

All fair points that could be legitimately be highlighted in a formal objection but I suspect that the end result would be some further examination of the points raised and additional studies and/or amelioration works agreed that will meet the various statutory requirements such that planning consent can be granted.

Probably the only thing that really would stop the development in its tracks is if the works involved in overcoming an valid objection made the whole project financially unviable. I'd guess that's actually unlikely (because the developer(s) would already have considered such a risk) so the main result of objecting will be to delay the development or increase the costs.

 

[Salamander]

Further to my Road Safety Audit comments, the two images below are 'before and after' screen captures of the left hand side of the new access, showing its proximity to the existing sports field access. Prior to the RSA Stage 1, the LHA had requested that the new access be moved east to allow a gap between the two of 15 metres, which I have shown in red. After an objector pointed out that the left hand lane of the access would not accommodate RCV swept path movements without the vehicle overhanging into the right hand lane of the access, they had to widen the left hand lane and mouth of the access, thus reducing the gap to only 5 metres, which clearly goes against LHA instructions.

 

[a twig]

To be honest I don’t think there is much of a win for you there, for the majority of traffic there wouldn’t be much difference in impact between the two designs, and the widened mouth improves safety for large vehicles.

Unless they are real sticklers for their previous 15m stipulation I’d suspect that would be allowed.