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Thursday, 20 October 2005 |
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igures reported at Thursday's Development and Regeneration Services
Committee show only 69 planning decisions went to appeal.
This was out of a total of 3,714 applications in 2004/5.
Only 29% of these appeals succeeded and the Council is congratulating
itself on its "success".
However, there is an alternative angle on this. The SNP is concerned that:
- Planning officials and the Council in general are tending to give
in to developers' demands too easily. If the Council took a
more robust line, there would presumably be more appeals and that would
be no bad thing;
- Losing an appeal is not necessarily bad. For example,
the developers on the Anniesland Bus Station site were knocked back by
the Council but won on appeal. At least it showed the
councillors had tried to support the local community;
- The City Plan (which guides planning decisions) needs to be
tightened up. Currently there is no provision for
developers being forced to contribute to improved local facilities,
like railway stations or CCTV. It is no surprise there are
so few appeals when life is made so easy for the developers.
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