The Nairnshire today carries a very good front-page report on the proceedings down at the West CC meeting at the Sailing Club on Thursday night. It is surreal but it seems you can reduce a height of a building in terms of storeys yet from the lay point of view make the roof higher (in terms of ‘responding directly to the heights of surrounding buildings’). Read the Nairnshire for the full horror story.
Whatever, this proposal is still too dense and out of keeping with this part of the town. The residents in this area are not against development of the site but surely something 2 storeys and 6-8 flats would be acceptable rather than massive overdevelopment of this site.
You can view the new plans here. Please consider submitting an objection – you never know when it might be your turn to have something unacceptable proposed next to you!
The new application suffers from the same basic problem as the old one: trying to get far too many flats on too small a site. The new buildings would dominate the landscape and the view from the end of the High St, and with only 5 parking spaces on-site, the extra parking from 11 flats will spill out onto Lodgehill, Wellington and Waverley Roads. That area is already dangerous enough: it’s on a bus route; has a large number of pupils from two schools walking along it; parents on the school run and increased pressure on parking now there are fewer spaces in the town; and cars using it as a link to the A96.
ReplyDeleteAs said at the West CC meeting the application is really trying to get a quart into a pint pot, and it will be Nairn folk who are left with the consequences after the builders are up and away.
And what really rankles is that after the three-week period for neighbours to object to the first application closed in mid August, the developer took nearly three months to withdraw the application and then whacked in the new one with a proposal for the same number of flats and the same parking arrangements. That second application effectively wiped out all the many previous objections and left only another three weeks – ending on Dec 11th - for objectors to start all over again.
As Graisg says, this type of development could be coming to a site near you soon. So please support the local residents in trying to get this application rejected and replaced by a more sensible and sensitive plan for the Lodgehill Clinic site.
I think the same thing happened with the Newton proposals. Some would say that withdrawing the application and resubmitting, thereby negating all comments that had been made, was a cynical manipulation of the planning process, that seems to be stacked in favour of the developer.
ReplyDeleteI'd urge everyone who made a comment before to resubmit again under this new application.