Town Planning
It's Our City are often asked at meetings whether we have an alternative plan for the site. Our view is that it is not our job to come up with an alternative plan. It is the council's job to come up with a plan which satisfies the aspirations and needs of our community. This means in depth consultation with the community which is an idea which they promote in their planning policy documents but have repeatedly failed to do in practice.
Over the years Lancaster has suffered from bad planning decisions which have resulted in the loss of many historical buildings and distinct areas; St Nicholas church flattened for Boots, Mitchell's original brewery on Church St flattened for the Vue Cinema, and the old bus depot which was a listed building, ripped apart to be ill used and renamed The Kingsway Development.
We are facing the same situation again, with a Centros development that is going to increase traffic congestion and demolish part of a conservation area.
Town Planning Links
- Real Planning For Lancaster 2003 Consultation Report - Real Planning did admirable work in 2003 with their comprehensive public consultation report which Lancaster City Council completely ignored. This detailed report makes the Centros/Lancaster Council public consultation over the canal corridor north development look like a joke.
- Alternative Green Party Plan - Virtual Lancaster article - The Green's introduce their alternative development plan for the canal corridor north site.
- Alternative Green Party Plan - The Green Party's outline alternative plan from February 2007 incorporated many of the wishes of the community.
- Alternative Green Party Plan - Virtual Lancaster article - Comparison of the Green Party and Centros plans discussing the issues.
- Outlineand Reserved Matters Factsheet - This factsheet details the minimum of detail required in terms of layout, scale, appearance, access and landscaping for outline planning applications.
- The Planning System: General Principles - A useful 8 page overview of how the planning system works. We are not sure if anything has changed since the public inquiry in 2009.
- Lancaster Lunacy - A Country life article on the madness of the Centros proposals.
- SAVE Britain’s Heritage - Alternative Plan - SAVE's conservation-based vision for the regeneration of the historic ‘Canal Corridor’ area of Lancaster by Richard Griffiths Architects.
