Re 379 , it was one of the options given also as there where so many items for consideration " Dont Know" may well be the outcome , but there was space to add comments and questions . My honest answer to lots of the points raised on lots of the threads on this board is I dont know what my feelings are without lots of additional questions or information .
Guest 685- Registered: 5 May 2009
- Posts: 85
Sarah P is absolutely right; we have had the CGI argument for developing both Western heights and Farthingloe at us as if it is the be all and end all of Dover Dover's problems.
Opposition has been thwarted - not withstanding the DXpress - most horrendously at the Dover Society AGM where those who wanted the CGI proposal discussed in open debated were dogmatically told that we would have to wait for such a discussion until the CGI presented their planning application ... when there would be only days to mount and have such a discussion.
The reality is, there are many questions that need to be answered before thinking people can make up their minds.
Yesterday I e-mailed Mike Dawson - boss of DDC Planning asking questions that arose from reading the company reports issued by CGI to their shareholders.
In one report they say, in respect to Farthingloe site A, which includes the area occupied by the former Channel Tunnel workers camp and subsequently designated a Brownfield site, that:
"In 2005 an application was made to vary the existing planning permission. This application comprised a request for permission to redistribute the consent in respect of one of five large buildings for which consent had previously been granted into 3 smaller office blocks with associated parking. The variation to the planning consent will allow the construction of 18 units of office space with 173 car parking spaces - inc 6 disabled spaces and 39 cycle stands.
The Directors believe that this consent will pave the way for consent to redistribute the space comprised within the other four larger buildings in a similar manner and intend to submit progress applications in this respect as they deem appropriate."
... Then in 2010:
"Great Farthingloe Farm currently has planning permission for 225,000 sq-feet of offices. It is hoped that the first phase of development will deliver 400 homes, grouped around a village green and shop, by next year with prices ranging between £225,000 and £325,000."
Could you be so kind as to tell me:
i. How many applications it took to, quote, 'pave-the-way' to this stage?
ii. In respect to Western Heights, could the same ploy be used there, once planning permission has been given?
iii. Finally, I note that a planning application for the Manley House site at Whitfield deferred, as there is a 30% affordable housing condition (S106). Does this rule apply to the proposed Farthingloe/Western Heights development?
a. If so, based on the last proposed housing figures produced by CGI, Western Heights 186 and Farthingloe 611, will the 30% rule still apply?
b. As the CGI state that the Executive homes - aimed at London Commuters, will be on Western Heights, will the affordable homes (approx 240) be at Farthingloe?
Before anyone can make their mind up these and a lot more questions - as I have outlined above - #368 - have to be answered.
Lorraine
Guest 651- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 5,673
I'm not going to waste any more effort until there is more information available which will be some sort of planning application
As I have made clear and a lot of other say the same, none of us are saying YES to the developments, but we are saying YES to considering proposals if they are deemed to be 'right'
To back up the Dover Society, the AGM wasn't the right arena for a long debate and all parties will be invited to a discussion once further details are available...
Been nice knowing you :)
I would like to clarify that I was talking about why people might respond with I dont know , I am in favour of the development within certain parameters .
Guest 710- Registered: 28 Feb 2011
- Posts: 6,950
Don't read any further. As you know this has nothing to do with me really.
What's new? What's so twenty-first-century about anything that is on offer? What is there in any of it that lifts the spirit, feeds the soul or gets 'us' as a species, you as a town excited about the least part of it all or the whole?
Edinburgh is a special place. As you walk about it's staid Georgian architecture or it's more ancient areas what does lift the spirits is that the vista down each side street is of sky and hills;some barren and misty other topped with follies various, Grecian temple and Castle. Even trundling down some tight 'wynd' or narrow passageway there is still a sense of space and of vastness. I am not so sure a sea view can match such a vista of hill sides and the sight of 'weather' interacting with the Earth. Sky and sea may meet at the distant horizon, but to be reminded daily that the heavens and the earth kiss and caress all around us does wonders for the spirit.
So much for the dream sequence.
'Executive Homes', half-timbered Ticky-Tacki* and acres of resting-ground for the motor vehicles...wow!
Not even a hint of 'sustainability', just the threat of more rivulets of rain-water descending on the town.
A price tag of £250,000 to £350,000 and a shop.
[What with house prices coming down here 'in town' and the banishment of the poor from the City as a whole...?]
*
Malvina Reynolds
1. Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky-tacky,
Little boxes, little boxes,
Little boxes, all the same.
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they're all made out of ticky-tacky
And they all look just the same.
2. And the people in the houses
All go to the university,
And they all get put in boxes,
Little boxes, all the same.
And there's doctors and there's lawyers
And business executives,
And they're all made out of ticky-tacky
And they all look just the same.
3. And they all play on the golf-course,
And drink their Martini dry,
And they all have pretty children,
And the children go to school.
And the children go to summer camp
And then to the university,
And they all get put in boxes
And they all come out the same.
4. And the boys go into business,
And marry, and raise a family,
And they all get put in boxes,
Little boxes, all the same.
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they're all made out of ticky-tacky
And they all look just the same.
Ignorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
very eloquent tom.
we really have a catch 22 situation as we cannot really comment until the plans are presented but lorraine makes a good point about the lack of time for serious debate after they are lodged with the council.
Jan Higgins
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,895
Pete Seeger made the song popular, I think that is how you spell his name.
Talking of little boxes there have been complaints that modern houses are to small with not enough storage space, having looked at some I could not agree more.
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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Guest 685- Registered: 5 May 2009
- Posts: 85
Malvina
I couldn't agree with you more ... and beautifully put.
Lorraine
Keith Sansum1
- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,942
jan
wasn't it val doonigan?
ALL POSTS ARE MY OWN PERSONAL VIEWS
Guest 685- Registered: 5 May 2009
- Posts: 85
Talking of little boxes in relation to the prospective executive homes on Western Heights and the mixture of affordable and executive homes in Farthingloe valley last count:
797 in total
take a look at the web site of Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA):
http://goo.gl/UKTdN
Where it states:
The average new three bedroom home currently being built by the UK's top house builders is around 8% smaller than the basic recommended minimum size, leaving thousands of people across the country short-changed. This squeeze on size is depriving thousands of families the space needed for children to do homework, adults to work from home, guests to stay and for members of the household to relax together. The findings feature in Case for Space, new research revealed today by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA).
Lorraine
What are we actually objecting to? I am still genuinely confused.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
Progress, that is what some are objecting to Bern.
Guest 710- Registered: 28 Feb 2011
- Posts: 6,950
P-rogue-ss?
Pro guess?
P Ogress?
Where is the 'progress' in dusting-off old drawings, photocopying them (while reducing them to 92%) and again tessellating them into the same old cul-de-sac and crescent?
A hillside or hill top has one thing money sure can buy, but which cost nothing to produce...a view. How is this exploitation a mark of 'progress' from slavery, child-labour or blood-diamonds?
What is 'gained' is won without effort, but what is lost is lost to all. (except the few with the readies)
How egalitarian. A new Enclosure Act* for the middle classes.
*
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/janusg/landls.htmIgnorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing.
Guest 675- Registered: 30 Jun 2008
- Posts: 1,610
This thread has gone on for a very long time, essentially over plans that are still being worked out and negotiated. There has been a lot of speculation and a few outright objections to something that, so far, is an idea on the drawing board. In a lot of ways, it is a good thing that people are passionate about the heritage of Dover and that so many want to see progress for the town.
It is interesting to see that the same has not applied to the DTIZ plans which, and the headline on today's Dover Mercury sums it all up, only promises the demolition of one building. With the DTIZ we will get a hotel with a large illuminated advertising hoarding, 15 shop units that will almost certainly just mean empty spaces in the High Street when the bigger shops move, a large car-par which will become a skateboard rink and drinkers haven in the evenings and, somewhere way down the line (not to be built until the rest is in place) a paltry 8 houses.
Where CGI's designs show a concern for fitting in with the skyline and a willingness to consider changes, the DTIZ will offer a view down from the castle onto tin, warehouse style, roofs. While the CGI plans offer hope for preserving and making accessible some of Dover's most spectacular views and history, the DTIZ will give us a brick and flint wall with a loading bay opening up onto our busiest stretch of road.
This could be a lesson for future developers, if they want to consider a large project just put up an eyesore and sit back for a few years. After that, everyone will be begging them to do whatever they like as long as they pull it down again.
Politics, it seems to me, for years, or all too long, has been concerned with right or left instead of right or wrong.
Richard Armour
Guest 685- Registered: 5 May 2009
- Posts: 85
Eloquently put Tom.
Barry, as an historian, my view concurs with Santayana, 'Progress, far from consisting of change, depends on retentiveness ... Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to fulfil it.' - Life of Reason vol I ch xii
Regarding the motel on St James is concerned, my objection was well put by the Dover Society, but sadly ignored by DDC.
Western Heights is more than an ancient monument, it is a site of National importance. It is not a case of waiting to see what the developers plan to do - the developers would be doing Dover more favours by developing a brown site - such as St James's.
If they have the money to slosh around then they should state how much they could spare so that it can be matched by lottery funding and used to help to bring Western heights up to the standard of a National Monument.
Finally, to quote Dr Liv Gibbs - Built Heritage Conservation Framework for Western Heights - DDC Document 2012 page 175:
1.7 A vision for the future use or uses of the Western Heights, and a strategy for the site's integrated conservation management, should be drawn up and, following public consultation, adopted by stakeholders and implemented.
1.8 Consideration should be given to setting up a DWH Forum to allow informed debate about the Western Heights amongst a wide community of stakeholders.
Lorraine
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
Lorraine - that is one of my favourite quotes and I agree with it. But, there is room for compromise and needs to be to accommodate life and the living otherwise, for instance, I would still be having to put up with coal fires rather than central heating in my 1857 grade 2 listed home.
There is room for compromise on the western heights to support development that in itself can fund preservation and presentation of important remains.
Keith Sansum1- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,942
will be interesting to see how all this pans out
ALL POSTS ARE MY OWN PERSONAL VIEWS
Guest 651- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 5,673
Lorraine - re your quotes from the Conservation Framework, that is what will happen once there are plans to discuss. The Dover Society have offered to get all parties around the table once there are definite plans and I think that is a good way forward. I believe that they said that you can be there and WHPS will be an attendee amongst quote a few others
Re money "sloshing around" they don't have any! Once they have pinned down the number of buildings that most people feel are suitable and they things viable for them to carry out the development, then they they know what money will be available for the Heritage. Only then we can argue if it is sufficient and can make a big enough difference to compensation for the 'damage' that is done.
As I have said, personally, if the developments can't make a big enough difference and help safeguard the heritage then I will certainly be fighting against it !!
Been nice knowing you :)
Brian Dixon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
i rather have a coal fire or a wood burner in my 1930's house.its ungraded of course but what the heck.
Guest 685- Registered: 5 May 2009
- Posts: 85
Paul
Do I understand, from what you say that the sweeteners will only become available for Western Heights if CGI manage to sell the houses and make a profit to pay off their debts?
In other words, Dover takes the risk of having one of its major National Monuments desecrated by houses - aimed at people who will be working and spending their money in London or en route - in order to get a few sweeteners to do up a bit of this important National Monument if and only if CGI makes a profit?
On the other hand, if CGI fails, Dover is stuck with the built or half-built houses on this important National monument?
If this is the case, then I ask who is taking the risk? As far as I can see - Dover and the country as a whole when Western Heights is desecrated.
This is exactly what happened and how we became landed with Burlington House and St James multi-storey car park.
As I quoted above: 'Progress, far from consisting of change, depends on retentiveness ... Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to fulfil it.'
Lorraine
