Latest News

State of Play - 26th June 09

To summarise the present situation, the Council has now fallen out with Centros and has withdrawn from the inquiry. This leaves English Heritage, SAVE and IOC to present evidence. However, since the Council has now withdrawn as a participant and only has an observer attending, they will not be able to cross examine.

The other parties will still present their evidence, because though we appear to have 'won', nobody wants to see another plan like this put forward by the Council. Since the intent of the Council in defending the plans was to justify their vision for the CCN site we want all the evidence to be fully taken into account and refusal to be based on that evidence. The inspector is still keen to hear what the public has to say about the scheme and at present we think the public session will be on Tuesday 30th June and Wednesday 1st July. If this changes we will update this page accordingly. For yesterday's news see Mark Rotherham's blog.

Inquiry Blog - 25th June 09

Apologies to our supporters for the lack of news since the inquiry started. We have all been extremely busy with the inquiry itself, however we are happy to welcome Mark Rotherham who will be writing our inquiry blog. Yesterday the Council's case more or less collapsed and today they will be presenting a position statement. Read Mark Rotherham's blog for more details.

Press Release - 15th June 09

We have just issued a press release calling on the government to change the rules relating to public inquiries concerning planning so that developers are compelled to appear and defend their own plans. So far, the non-appearance of developer Centros has resulted in the withdrawal of Allied Lancaster from the inquiry and has considerably complicated things as well as burdening the local taxpayer with the cost of defending the Centros plans.

We have also been told by the inspector that we will not be allowed to present our consultation evidence at the inquiry on the grounds that it is not relevant to the planning merits but we consider this grossly prejudicial to our case and contrary to national policy and we will be pursuing the matter further.

Workshop for Speakers at Public Inquiry - 11th June 09

We will be holding a workshop in the Gregson cinema on Thursday June 11th at  7.30 pm. The workshop is specifically for people who wish to speak at the inquiry. We are hoping to avoid repitition but cover all topics which we wish to bring to the attention of the inspector. We need your input and we do need to co-ordinate the statements which will be read out.

Proofs of Evidence Submitted - 20th May 09

The Proofs have now been submitted and can be found in our archive. Our next deadline is 9th June when we can submit rebuttals to evidence given in the Proofs of the developer (In this case Lancaster Council).

SAVE Special Event + Exhibition - 27th/28th May 09

Special Event

SAVE is sponsoring a special event " A new vision for the Canal  Corridor - A presentation by Richard Griffiths" on Wednesday 27th May at the Storey Gallery on Meeting House Lane from 6.30 – 8pm. Admission is free and everyone  welcome.

Richard Griffiths of Richard Griffiths Architects will present  his ideas for for the conservation-led regeneration of the Canal Corridor site  in Lancaster.

As well as discussing his vision for Lancaster, Richard  will show and describe other successful conservation-led projects he has  worked on in London and Oxford.

Richard has been commissioned by SAVE  Britain’s Heritage to produce a new ‘high level’ scheme for the Canal Corridor  site and will be appearing as one of SAVE’s expert witnesses at the  forthcoming Public Inquiry in June.

There will be a question and answer  session after the talk.

Exhibition

Richard’s plans and drawings will be available for  viewing at the Storey on Thursday 28th May 11am –  5pm.

Allied Lancaster Regretfully Withdraws - 8th May 09

We are sad to learn that Allied Lancaster will not be attending the inquiry in person. Their letter to the Planning Inspectorate pointed out that they as well as other interested parties will not be able to thoroughly investigate the development proposals and the issues they raise because of the absence of Centros. They also said that the potential cost would be prohibitively expensive. As a result, they reluctantly decided that they will now object using a written submission rather than attend the inquiry in person.

News Update - 24th April 09

There was no transcript of the pre-inquiry meeting but you can find the inspectors notes of the meeting in our public inquiry archive. Though the notes do not mention it, we raised the issue of the three omitted applications mentioned in our blog entry of April 3rd but the inspector said that it was not within his remit to consider these in any way since they had not been called in by GONW. To clarify this, they were not called in because our council did not refer them to GONW for consideration by the Secretary of State.

We were surprised to receive official confirmation that those responsible for air quality in Lancaster have never considered the effect of the Centros development on local air quality despite the 500 extra parking spaces in the proposed 800 space multi-storey car park and the planned major roadworks. However, things are not what they seem. Read more in our latest blog entry.

Centros Campaigners Not Guilty - 15th April 09

Four Lancaster residents who made a peaceful protest at the Centros London HQ have been acquitted of aggravated trespass. See more on the Virtual Lancaster Blogspot.

IOC Public Meeting at Gregson Community Centre Wednesday 22nd April 8pm

This meeting in the Gregson main hall is to give an update on what is going on in the increasingly surreal world of Lancaster City Council and to report on the pre-inquiry meeting. We will open the meeting with a couple of short reports which will be followed by questions/discussion. 

Pre-Inquiry Meeting (PIM) at 2pm on 20th April

The pre-inquiry meeting will be held on Monday 20th April at 2pm in Lancaster Town Hall. The purpose of the PIM is to help the Inspector and the participants to prepare for the inquiry proper, and so enable the proceedings to be conducted as efficiently and speedily as possible. See our recent blog for more details. The meeting is open to interested members of the public so if you are free to attend if you want to.

Public Inquiry Announced - 3rd April 09

We have now been notified by the Planning Inspectorate that the inquiry will be held at 10am on Tuesday 16 June at Lancaster Town Hall in Dalton Square. The venue will be reserved for 12 days.

We are currently aiming to get three other Centros applications called in which the council failed to refer to GONW as part of the call-in process. One of these applications is the residential development at the north end of the CCN site which according to the council's own '2006 Air Quality Further Assessment' would risk an extension of the Air Quality Management Area where Nitrogen Dioxide levels are excessive. If you would like any further information see our latest blog entry which gives a full explanation of why the AQMA risks spreading. Our webmaster will be away for while so please contact IOC using our contact page if you want to know more.

The latest blog entry also gives an update on the contentious issue of our council spending local taxpayers money to support a a private company registered for tax avoidance purposes in the British Virgin Islands.

We will be holding a public meeting in the Gregson on Wednesday 22nd April as an update/ question and answer session which will probably be at 8pm but we will post the time in due course.

News Update - 21st March 09

Apologies to our supporters for the lack of recent news. A lot has happened in the last few weeks and we have now started our inquiry blog to keep you informed of progress. We have sent our statement of case to the planning inspectorate and though we have not yet been officially informed, the planning inspectorate has said that the inquiry has been fixed to start on 16 June 2009. This means that our next milestone is submission of our proof of evidence by May 19th. You can see our statement of case and those of other main participants in our archive.

On 11th March, Centros announced that they will not be defending their scheme at the public inquiry and expect Lancaster City Council to defend it for them using council taxpayers money. We have written to all city councillors asking them to reconsider their position in light of centros pulling out and we hope that as many people as possible write to their local councillors to raise the same point.  

We are also concerned that three Centros outline applications have been excluded from the inquiry because the council has convinced GONW that they were not dependent on the main application. Excluding these three applications is bound to affect any alternative future development of the CCN site if the main Centros plans are rejected by the public inquiry. Since SAVE is actively investigating alternative development options for the site using an architect more sympathetic to the historic fabric of the city (as this sketch of a possible Brewery Square shows), we feel it would be folly not to include them. We show how these applications are connected to the main application in our inquiry blog and it would help a great deal if you would email GONW to complain about the fact that they have been excluded from consideration. You can find contact details here under the heading 'What you can do now'.

Here are a few media reports of interest.

Architect and developer decline to defend Lancaster scheme at inquiry - Building Design website article of 13 March, 2009.

Shop, horror - same old story - article by Andy Yuille (CPRE NW Regional Policy Officer). March 2009

War of Words Erupts over Lancaster Plans 18th March 2009 article on the Bay Radio website.

Fundraising Appeal - 16th Feb 09

Lancaster City Council have set aside £50,000 of council tax payers' money to support the Centros development at the public inquiry and they and Centros will be represented by barristers and paid professional experts in an effort to foist this scheme on the city.

At this stage we do not expect to engage legal representation and will represent ourselves. However, the costs of printing 4 copies of every document (some of which run to hundreds of pages) makes it necessary for us to put out this appeal. An initial estimate of printing costs alone comes to between £1500 and £2000.

So far, we have operated on a shoestring and the dedication of our volunteers, but we urgently need funds to make an effective case at the inquiry. We now have a bank account, so please consider making a donation, however small, to help us raise the funds necessary.

You can:

• Make cheques out to "It's our City" and post them to It's Our City, 3 Alfred Street, Lancaster, LA1 1QN
• Use the Donate button beneath the right hand side submenus on this page and on our public inquiry pages to make a donation via PayPal.
• You can also give cash donations in person via the Alfred Street address above.

If you have recently looked at our website, please be sure to click the reload/refresh button in your web browser if you cannot see the new PayPal Donate buttons.

Unconfirmed Rumours of Centros Withdrawal - 13th February 09

Following news items in the Lancaster Guardian and the Visitor, an impression has been given that Centros may pull out of the canal corridor north development. Doyen of deception Steve Bryson, who represents the public face of Centros, will no doubt be rubbing his hands together in glee.

As the Road Sense campaign press release of Feb 10th this year shows, major stakeholders in a development appear able to break public inquiry rules on document submission deadlines without fear of penalty. It is quite possible that Centros may fail to meet their February 26th deadline for submitting their case to the Planning Inspectorate, but this does not necessarily mean that they have given up or will be unable to appear at the inquiry. Public objectors on the other hand have not been allowed late submissions so we strongly urge people to send in their letters to the Planning Inspectorate as explained on our Writing to the Planning Inspectorate page .

New Section for Public Inquiry - 1st Feb 09

We have created a new section on the website to cover the public inquiry. See the last tab on the right at the top of the page.

IOC Subscribers Meeting - Gregson Centre - 26th January 8pm

The aim of this meeting is to develop a plan to prepare for the forthcoming public inquiry.

Members of the IOC strategy group, Cllr John Whitelegg and David Gate of Transport Solutions for Morecambe and Lancaster will educate us on various issues to do with public inquiries including questions such as, "What is a public inquiry?", " Do we need legal representation?", " What we can do pre inquiry?" and so on.

We will also be looking for subscribers to take on responsibility for particular areas which need to be covered e.g research and reports, the legal aspects etc etc.

We hope you will take the time to attend this important pre inquiry meeting. 

Public Inquiry into Centros Proposals - 14th January 09

The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government has now called in the planning application for the Centros development proposals and the Planning Inspectorate in Bristol will be arranging a public inquiry into the matter in due course.

Many thanks to all those who wrote to GONW requesting a call-in. We will update this web page when we know more.

Country Life Article on Centros Development - 10th November 08

Architect Ptolemy Dean slams the Centros development in this article Lancaster Lunacy from Country Life. Thanks to Country Life for allowing us to reproduce this article. For anyone interested, the Country Life subscription number is 0845 1231231

Centros Deal May Contravene EU Law on Competition for Public Works

This article from Property Week should serve as a reminder to the Council that they may be risking an expensive legal challenge if they do not reconsider Centros' preferred developer status.