The long running farce of the St Joseph’s Development in Madeira Road, Ventnor and the actions of the Isle of Wight Planning Department continues.
Disclosure: as we’ve stated before, we live next door to this development.
We know that it’s hard, dear reader, to keep up with these twists and turns. There’s plently more to this that we’ve had to deal with on a weekly basis for the past three years, but we’ve resisted putting it on VentnorBlog, only posting when we feel that the issues raised are of a wider public interest.
This is a fairly long post, but we found it hard to split into separate pieces, so if you’re interested in the peculiarities that arise with planning issues on the Island, read on.
Planning committee next week
On the agenda for next week’s Planning Committee, as a seperate item rather than bundled together with other items (for some unexplained reason), is _another_ application for retrospective permission in relation to unauthorised amendments carried out to the St Joseph’s development over the last two and a half years.
These amendments, have taken _a year_ to come to the Planning Committee. Incomplete, confusing and inaccurate plans from the architect, Duncan Gayler, have gone some way towards contributing to these delays. What the rest of the delay is down to is unclear.
Although the amendments might appear to be minor, when you look at this development as a whole, the fact that this is one of four retrospective applications for this site, the delays and the fact that the current report has Head of Planning, Bill Murphy’s name on it, rather than the case officer, Russell Chick (who, our ever-so secret planning mole tells us drafted the report), it all adds up to something quite puzzling.
Discrepancies in the report
What has been omitted from the list of amendments submitted as part of the retrospective application, is the increased height of the block housing maisonette, unit 4.
The report states that the height issue is being dealt with by another application – Not so.
The only other application for St Joseph’s which we’re aware of (unless there are plans to put in _another_ retrospective application), is that to retain the increased height to the blocks housing flats 11 and 12. There is no mention of the increased height of unit 4 in that application.
Not only does the extra height of unit 4 affect daylight into our property, but it has also increased the sight lines into our property from the bedroom of unit 4 – a fact confirmed by Senior planning officer, Andrew Pegram, during a site visit on 24 August 2007.
It was in the bedroom of unit 4 that we stood with Andrew Pegram during this site visit when he stated that
“this (the increased height) has been done at his (Michael Jennings) own risk, he will have to put in another application and we will consider it as if he hadn’t done the work. There is no leniency because he has done it and we feel sorry for the developer.”
He went onto say
“We will deal with minor changes without new applications, but what we’ve got here is a collection — well, I wouldn’t even say of minor changes — what we have are a combination of some minor and major changes.”
Further confusion in the report
The report, which is the only reference that the elected members of the planning committee have in front of them when they are coming to their decision, is not accurate.
Item 2.3 in the report states
2.3 St Josephs has been extended to the rear with two large modern blocks and a further block to the west, providing flatted accommodation and a pair of semi-detached houses, and the original Victorian blocks have been converted to flats under a recently approved scheme (P/00321/06).
First issue: they use the term ‘recently approved scheme’. This application was approved back in 2006 – how does that make it ‘recently approved’?
Secondly the P-reference number is for another planning application all together – for the retention of an agricultural building at Couthy Butts and has nothing to do with St Joseph’s.
It does however, have a connection to us and VentnorBlog.
The Planning Department are well aware of VentnorBlog’s coverage of the controversial decision to demolish the last remaining Georgian Workers Cottages at Couthy Butts, based on the planning officer’s report. The case officer on that? Russell Chick.
What the heck is a Couthy Butts case number doing anywhere near the writing of this report?
One conclusion that been suggested to us, is that the planning department was bearing in mind our coverage of Couthy Butt’s refusal while they wrote the report that directly affects our property.
Other reasons? Well frankly we really can’t think of another reason why Couthy Butts’ reference number would be any where near St Joseph’s.
The third issue: We don’t feel that the objections that we submitted have been accurately reflected.
Planning Application Pulled From Committee
This application was due to go to Planning Committee many months ago.
For most of this year, we have consistently pointed out to the Planning Department that the amended plans were hard to follow, as both we and our neighbours had struggled during each subsequent application to make sense of the changes.
The plans didn’t reflect what had actually happened on site, were totally confusing and unclear to read.
After the public consultation period closed — and the public were no longer able to comment — and just before it was due to go to Planning Committee, we were informed that the application was being pulled by the department from the committee by case officer, Russell Chick who stated that …
“I am still concerned that the plans submitted are not clear enough for public view. I am worried that persons who do not normally look at such plans would be confused if watching proceedings at the planning committee. Whilst I am satisfied that the plans are correct, I think there needs to be a full list of changes submitted by the architect so that the Members of the committee and any person within the public gallery can follow proceedings fully and not become confused.”
What!? This is beyond belief! Many months of requesting clearer plans and you _now_ come up with some cock and bull nonsense?
Pulling the plans gave the developer the chance to continue developing without permission and separate out the roof garden as another planning permission, which the developer’s project manager told us, was done at the suggestion of the planning department!
We wrote straight back to Mr Chick asking how, if the plans are not clear enough, did the Planning Department justify putting the retrospective application out to public consultation?
His reply was
“I think the plans are clear when viewed together at a slow pace, however, committee meetings are different to say, looking at plans on a desk or online. A list will help to guide people during the meeting.”
Rather weak reasoning don’t you think?
Oh … and the “full list of changes submitted by the architect” still doesn’t accurately reflect all the changes … and when we recently went to look at the plans, we found that they’re _still_ not correct!
Another restrospective planning application
On top of all of the above, there’s _another_ planning application that’s just finished its public consultation.
The summary of it is, the applicant claims to want to spend many thousand of pounds making changes to a flat roof space, while seeking to assure that it won’t be used as a roof garden. Developers don’t spend money for the fun of it, they do it for a financial return.
It’s clear to anyone who’s seen this, that this is a ‘roof garden by stealth.’ For goodnes sake, the planning department even refer to it as a roof terrance in their descriptive text.
The roof garden, which developer Jennings has been told three times that he cannot have — including by the Planning Inspectorate — is controversial. For that reason alone it should not go to delegated powers. Let it be aired, in public, where the elected members can see through this thinly veiled sham.
Orders from above?
There’s an extra layer to this.
We do wonder whether Bill Murphy’s involvement in an application for amendments has anything to do with Councillor Jonathan Fitzgerald Bond getting involved with this again a few months ago. It was he, you may remember, that wrongly allowed the orignal application to be decided under delegated powers.
Our planning mole tells us that Cllr Fitzgerald Bond contacted Bernadette Marjoram (then head of Regeneration and Development) asking to help the developer, Michael Jennings, who felt he had been ‘unfairly treated’ by the Planning Department!
We asked to see the correspondence between Cllr Fitzgerald Bond and Bernadette Marjoram, only to be told there was none. What confused us is that we’d been shown an email from Bernadette Marjoram to Mr Pegram referring to Cllr Fitzgerald Bond’s involvement.
Damned if they do and damned if they don’t?
We have over the last three years been frequently disheartened by some of the dealings that we have been forced to have with some members of the Planning Department.
We know that planning can sometimes be difficult, and a phrase we’ve heard from IW planners is that they’re “damned if they do and damned if they don’t,” but when you’ve had continual problems, this excuse wears thin pretty quickly.
Of the other planning applications that we’ve featured on VentnorBlog, when ‘mistakes’ have been persistantly pointed out to Planning, their excuse for them has been to blame “human error.” Let’s see if that’s used for this one too.
Get in touch
If you have found parallels with your own experiences with what we’ve written here, do get in contact. We’d be interested in collating them.
We’ve heard from other people who have had issues with some in the planning department and found it difficult to pursue them alone. Perhaps acting together, we may be able to move to change.
