POWER TO THE NIMBY ACTIVIST

  By Griff Rhys Jones, by permission of Civic Voice and the  National Trust  A few years ago, standing on a bridge, overlooking a motorway that enabled people to roar across Glasgow at ninety miles an hour (at enormous cost to architecture and quietude) I was proudly told by a charming Civil Engineer that the [...]

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Tesco Development – Summer 2010

Contributed by Mr Ron Redgewell  As we go to press, the Public Inquiry is taking place into Tesco’s planning application to nearly double the size of its store in Trent Vale. Fellow member, Paul Farrelly, MP, succeeded in convincing the Secretary of State to ‘call in’ Stoke-on-Trent Council’s decision to approve the application, thus enabling a Planning [...]

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Parks – Summer 2010

Contributed by Dr Angela Drakakis-Smith  Parks appear to be on the mind of the Newcastle Borough Council (NBC) of late.  The Queen’s Gardens and the Queen Elizabeth Gardens  were due for a makeover, as were the Brampton and Thistleberry Parkway – the latter being not so much a park as a landscaped walkway.  Plans and [...]

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Draft Energy Efficiency and Climate Change Strategy

Contributed by Dr Angela Drakakis-Smith     Newcastle Borough Council Cabinet has just approved a draft Efficiency and Climate Change Strategy (with an associated Carbon Reduction Plan) which is currently available for consultation.  Deadline for comments from the public is the end of February.  The document can be downloaded from www.newcastle-staffs.gov.uk/climatechange or it is available [...]

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The Public Realm Project

Contributed by Dr Angela Drakakis-Smith   Anyone asking the question ‘What’s that?’ may be forgiven – and though there is ‘public’ in the title and we are, largely speaking, ‘The Public’- since few will have heard of this Project.  Some time ago the Civic Society was asked to comment on ‘a plan’ for the town [...]

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Going Swimmingly

Contributed by Dr Angela Drakakis-Smith   It seems that the public Jubilee Baths are about to be demolished and a new baths and leisure centre built.  The plans are currently on deposit at the Guildhall and on the Borough Council web site. The reality of a new leisure centre arises because the old one needs [...]

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Conservation and Planning

Contributed by Dr Angela Drakakis-Smith   Britain has been described as ‘an old country’.  As such, it comes with a long history of change.  Change entails construction, destruction and rebuilding.  In the past, large-scale demolition/destruction was left, in the main to warfare and natural disasters.  In the modern age, developers, national and local government slum [...]

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Newsletter May 2009 – Slimming Down

Contributed by Dr A. Drakakis-Smith The size of the Planning Committee of the Newcastle Borough Council and compulsory training for Councillors who serve on it are to be discussed in a forthcoming meeting of the Planning Committee with a view to improving operational effectiveness and the scope for the further delegation of decisions.  Although in [...]

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Newsletter May 2009 – Planning And Development In Newcastle Town Centre

  Contributed by Paul Farrelly, M.P  for Newcastle-under-Lyme   When I was first elected in 2001, I was very much a ‘planning virgin’. Little was I to know how much of my time, over the last eight years, would be consumed by planning issues. Immediately, there was putting a stop to methane-drilling, which would have [...]

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Planning – A way forward

Contributed by Douglas Morris – Chairman of the Chamber of Trade Central Government contend that Local Communities play a central role in delivering effective local spatial planning.  The use of the planning system (it says) is integral to achieving local aims and ambitions The question we so often ask ourselves is this “Is the voice [...]

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