Post by gary on Jul 29, 2006 10:10:45 GMT
A planning injustice
We are all now aware of the overwhelming eyesore created on and around the old St. peters car park in Burnley.
In 2004 outline planning was proposed to redevelop the old St Peters Car Park site and land adjacent to create an integrated health and leisure centre. The leisure centre was to replace the Thompson centre with a new swimming pool, sports halls etc, and the Health centre would incoporate Doctors surgeries, out of hours medical centre, pharmacy etc.
After receiving plan drawings, Burnley Council sought advice on the proposal from the design architects 'CABE' [Commission for Architecture & the Built Environment].
Besides other clients, CABE have advised many councils before on these design issues to enable councils to avoid poor designs and potential future environmental problems.
CABE works on behalf of the public. The public, after all, are the people left behind after the planners and architects have moved on. www.cabe.org.uk/
Obviously Burnley Borough Council have allowed the building on the site to go ahead and it is now completed.
So let's take a look at the advice CABE gave Burnley Council.
** What you are about to read will startle some.
Others, familiar with Burnley Councils procedures, will find the typical roughshod method of the council once again overriding public opinion..
THE CABE REPORT [Extracts]
Please keep the comments in touch with the progress of this scheme.
[CABE's Director of design reviews] 25th October 2004
------------------------
So what did Burnley Council make of the recomendations in the CABE report?
Well, from the above points we see that 'the recommendations have largely been ignored'.
Also, Burnley Council (BC) were also under tremendous pressure to make a decision or possibly lose the funding from Sport England.
So what happened at the Development Control meeting?
Outline Planning Permission was Granted on the 6th Sept 2004 at the Development Control meeting.
The committee report can be downloaded here: www.burnley.gov.uk/site/scripts/planning_details.php?id=1276
--- Reason for recommendation seen as 'Bizarre' ---
The planning report states that "the proposal does not acord with the allocations set out in the adopted or emerging local plans". The proposal also departs from the development plan in that the area should be set aside for major retail development.
However, the report says the proposal 'is generally in line with government guidance and other local plan policies and is acceptable in principle'. There are no other material considerations to indicate that planning permission should not be granted.
WHATs that I hear you ask? No other considerations? What about the CABE report?
Yes, for some bizarre reason the decision to approve the proposal was made BEFORE Burnley council had received the requested CABE architects report (see bullet points above from the report).
Outline planning permission means that the decision to refuse or approve can be changed at a later stage.
So why, after receiving the CABE report didn't Burnley Council refuse the proposal or at least amend it?
Remember, this is a major proposal contrary to the development plan being 'recommended' based on government 'guidelines'.
The proposal breaches several local plan policies in terms of height, scale, and disproportionate with its surroundings.
Access is a major concern, and the sheer height of the building only adds to the fact that this is an inadequate location for a centre that will require hundreds of people each day visiting it.
Environmental impact assessment showed that the height was out of scale and would dominate the skyline. On approaching the building any visitors simply could not find the drive-in entrance and would likely stop their cars causing traffic hazards, even if signposts were provided to the front door, this would still happen.
What Burnley really needs are planners who work in the interest of the people of Burnley, who negotiate alternative sites and take into account what the citizens want and where they'd like to see new civic buildings that ultimately they will use and cherish as new heritage.
Not because some planner at Burnley town hall suggests a 'quick fix' or lose out on funding.
There were many alternative sites for this proposal.
Come on people of Burnley, it's your Town, it's your future, don't let any developers walk hand in hand with the Council all over you!
We are all now aware of the overwhelming eyesore created on and around the old St. peters car park in Burnley.
In 2004 outline planning was proposed to redevelop the old St Peters Car Park site and land adjacent to create an integrated health and leisure centre. The leisure centre was to replace the Thompson centre with a new swimming pool, sports halls etc, and the Health centre would incoporate Doctors surgeries, out of hours medical centre, pharmacy etc.
After receiving plan drawings, Burnley Council sought advice on the proposal from the design architects 'CABE' [Commission for Architecture & the Built Environment].
Besides other clients, CABE have advised many councils before on these design issues to enable councils to avoid poor designs and potential future environmental problems.
CABE works on behalf of the public. The public, after all, are the people left behind after the planners and architects have moved on. www.cabe.org.uk/
Obviously Burnley Borough Council have allowed the building on the site to go ahead and it is now completed.
So let's take a look at the advice CABE gave Burnley Council.
** What you are about to read will startle some.
Others, familiar with Burnley Councils procedures, will find the typical roughshod method of the council once again overriding public opinion..
THE CABE REPORT [Extracts]
- In our view, the current proposals for this large and important project, which seems have to been driven by unrealistic funding deadlines, are deeply flawed and should not go ahead.
- The site is difficult to provide access to pedestrians and vehicles and difficult to build upon.
- Access to the site for pedestrians and cars is poor.
The site is probably not big enough to take the amount of accommodation in a suitable way. - Changes in [ground] levels will make access problematic, ramps and steps are ulikely to deal with this adequately.
- There is no clear strategy for dealing with car parking.
- The river brun could be incorperated into the scene related to nature and landscaping, nothing has been done to take advantage of this.
- The committee [CABE] found the proposed plans, elevations, and 3 dimensional form struck the committee as haphazard and disorganised.
- The views provided give us cause for great concern.
- The mixed project of health and leisure facilities need to be seperable, the design does not take this into account. At present, the design resembles more of an office block than a local surgery mixed with a leisure centre.
- Although we do not think the architects are primarily to blame for the fact that this project is so poor, we are dissappointed how the project is presented as a detailed planning application.
- For such as site with complex contours and levels, there are no adequate site sections, despite repeated requests [to Burnley council] from CABE's enabling programme.
- Well designed buildings have been developed elsewhere incorporating health and leisure into the same landscape and surroundings. These innovative designs serve the needs of those who will use and visit, and that will come to be well-loved features of their settings, as with civic buildingsin the past, which local people fight to save when their destruction is threatened.<strong>It is hard to imagine anyone fighting to save this project.</strong>
- It is dissapointing to us that that although this project has received specific advice from CABE's enabling programme, this advice appears to have been largely ignored.
- We understand that money from 'Sport England' is going into the project, and that there was considerable time pressure to find a design to secure the funding from Sport England.
- The present project would not be an acceptable use of public money, and any system that results in pressure due to time needs to be reconsidered.
- For a public sector project as flawed as this to be brought forward is therefore a great dissapointment. To build sustainably means, amongst other things, to build buildings that will have a long life and be of a quality that improves their chances of being cherished and looked after.
- To build projects of this kind may be seen as a 'quick fix' in an area looking for some evidence of progress is to repeat mistakes of the past.
- To build a bad building six months or a year sooner than a good one can be delivered, when the bad building will have to be re-developed twenty years on, is not an intelligent way to proceed.
- This project fairs no better than the Thompson centre building which you informed us is not very well liked.
- People of Burnley deserve better than what is on offer in this project.
Please keep the comments in touch with the progress of this scheme.
[CABE's Director of design reviews] 25th October 2004
------------------------
So what did Burnley Council make of the recomendations in the CABE report?
Well, from the above points we see that 'the recommendations have largely been ignored'.
Also, Burnley Council (BC) were also under tremendous pressure to make a decision or possibly lose the funding from Sport England.
So what happened at the Development Control meeting?
Outline Planning Permission was Granted on the 6th Sept 2004 at the Development Control meeting.
The committee report can be downloaded here: www.burnley.gov.uk/site/scripts/planning_details.php?id=1276
--- Reason for recommendation seen as 'Bizarre' ---
The planning report states that "the proposal does not acord with the allocations set out in the adopted or emerging local plans". The proposal also departs from the development plan in that the area should be set aside for major retail development.
However, the report says the proposal 'is generally in line with government guidance and other local plan policies and is acceptable in principle'. There are no other material considerations to indicate that planning permission should not be granted.
WHATs that I hear you ask? No other considerations? What about the CABE report?
Yes, for some bizarre reason the decision to approve the proposal was made BEFORE Burnley council had received the requested CABE architects report (see bullet points above from the report).
Outline planning permission means that the decision to refuse or approve can be changed at a later stage.
So why, after receiving the CABE report didn't Burnley Council refuse the proposal or at least amend it?
Remember, this is a major proposal contrary to the development plan being 'recommended' based on government 'guidelines'.
The proposal breaches several local plan policies in terms of height, scale, and disproportionate with its surroundings.
Access is a major concern, and the sheer height of the building only adds to the fact that this is an inadequate location for a centre that will require hundreds of people each day visiting it.
Environmental impact assessment showed that the height was out of scale and would dominate the skyline. On approaching the building any visitors simply could not find the drive-in entrance and would likely stop their cars causing traffic hazards, even if signposts were provided to the front door, this would still happen.
What Burnley really needs are planners who work in the interest of the people of Burnley, who negotiate alternative sites and take into account what the citizens want and where they'd like to see new civic buildings that ultimately they will use and cherish as new heritage.
Not because some planner at Burnley town hall suggests a 'quick fix' or lose out on funding.
There were many alternative sites for this proposal.
Come on people of Burnley, it's your Town, it's your future, don't let any developers walk hand in hand with the Council all over you!
