At the planning committee meeting on the 15th of May the application to turn the former doctors surgery at 66 Crown Road into 2 two bed flats, 1 one bed flat and a studio flat was refused. This was despite the planning officer having recommended that the proposal be granted. Forty residents had registered individual objections to the proposed plan which initially included a suggestion that the development would take the doctors parking bay and use it for their own personal use. This was then amended with a suggestion that the number of parking permits would be legally restricted to two permits from that address. The committee was concerned at the amount of flats being proposed in the development which would not even have left room for sufficient space for bicycle parking for all the householders.

Local ward councillor Phillip Morgan spoke on behalf of the residents concerns and said afterwards that he was very pleased with the result which shows that “democracy does work and councillors do take account of local residents views. It was very unusual to have 40 individual objections and showed a high level of public concern about the proposal.” It is now up to the developer whether or not they wish to appeal or to try again with new plans. Hopefully they will want to be more considerate of their neighbours with any future plans.

See previous article