Author: owgrawebmaster

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Heathrow – do you want a third runway?

We have not made a survey of members views but if out last meeting is anything to go by then it seems that most people in the area are opposed to a third runway at Heathrow. The consultation is still on and whatever your views the more people who participate the better.

Further update on our Heathrow Expansion meeting on October 10th:

Those of you who attended this meeting, and indeed those who did not, may wish to contribute to the further consultation on this issue.

The revised draft Airports NPS and accompanying documents including an updated Appraisal of Sustainability can be accessed HERE.

If you wish to respond to the consultation then please CLICK HERE .

Those of you opposing the expansion may find the following documents provided by anti-expansion group HACAN (run by our speaker John Stewart) useful in completing your response:

– The key points of the consultation;

– Some points you may wish to make in your response.

For those of you in favour of the expansion, this is the link for the Back Heathrow site, until recently run by our speaker Rob Gray, which may provide some useful information in favour.

The deadline for contributing is December 19th. You are very welcome to copy OWGRA in on your responses.

 

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A good resource locator

The council has an excellent interactive map for finding the location of a wide range of local resources. It is well worth exploring. The map can be found HERE.

This example shows the use of the map to find the location of “public toilets”. You may be surprised to learn that there are so many. It is worth using the map to find out who runs these public toilets.

It’s a map well worth exploring. Lots of information.

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Bolder application approved

OWGRA member David Pavett, writing in a personal capacity, reflects on the latest meeting of the Hounslow Council Planning Committee.

Planning Committees are a major function of government. In theory they are required to work on the basis of an extensive set of national, regional and local guidelines. Its members are supposed to go for regular training and to take an interest in matters of architectural design, a lot of advice on which is designed specifically for them.

There is a general presumption in favour of development. In other words a proposed development is deemed to be good unless specific faults can be found with it in terms of planning guidelines. Not only that but the guidelines are only that, guidelines, so it can always, and often is, argued that there are reasons for not adhering to them in specific instances.

The seeming tight constraints of the guidelines can therefore, when there is a will to achieve a result irrespective of them, dissolve into background words to which the majority of those involved have no knowledge and or no interest. This was certainly the way things looked in the case of the Planning Committee that determined that there were no significant problems requiring resolution before approval in the case of the application to build a new school, the Bolder Academy on Metropolitan Open Lane at the end of MacFarlane Lane (next to Osterley Tesco). Continue reading →