To save this land we need as many objection letters and points submitted as possible; so you, your neighbours, friends, family and clubs can all put in objections NOW. Just follow the process below, be sure to quote the planning application 12/00924/DC number , your name and address. Anyone, anywhere can put in an objection. Its really quite easy and will only take a few minutes. Feel fee to copy anything here.
Some changes are detailed below since this planning application was first submitted and so the following is very important for those that have already submitted their objections and are wondering whether to send in additional views to the council. Plus for new people wanting to know what to say. We’ll get a standard email written up in due course for those that want to use that. Deadline for any objections is 29th June 2015.
But before reading on, the main objection is what will be lost, how this affects our health, education and happiness especially young kids, and how destroying this green space community land doesn’t conform to Council or National policy (more on that in due course……..…this is work in progress….. but you can see our website front page and get , and feel free to copy, our full planning objection document on the right hand side icon. ) Its very sad to see a property developer not ONCE mention what the land is being used for! Not once have they mentioned The Children Wood group and all they have done for kids, the schools that use the land, the nursey groups, not once have them mentioned all the people that use the land whether to walk their dog , have a picnic, just relax in, or grow some vegetables in the allotments or tend the community orchard or compost bins. Not once do they mention that thing we call “community” they will destory. Especially when you think the huge effort that has been made by getting a host of Council and Government policies drafted up and voted in to make sure they do just that – consult with communities they will be affecting. Instead they describe the land as a gap site and in disrepair. Thats truely shocking and we all need to do something about it – which is send in an objection.
Lets start with some of the new parts New City Vision Ltd has added to this planning application:
1. ALL trees on the land are destroyed. Including the large lime trees currently along Clouston street. The idea of destroying any part of this land is shocking but they had said previously they would keep the lime trees. They all go now. To quote: “All existing lime trees to be removed and replaced with uniformly sized and spaced species. “ (i.e. 8 small trees along Clouston street). Note 500 trees are currently growing on the land including a community orchard along Kelbourne street.
2. They have added two new dwellings on Kelbourne street making the whole new devolvement encircled. Some background information follows. The developer knew how bad it looked for them to destroy the whole land and so tried previously to say there would be some open green space left. This was viewed as just spin; you can’t reduce the North Kelvin Meadow to just a very small part of its existing size and still make it work – its not a residents garden, its a wild open green space for all in the community to use. However now they aren’t even trying to do that. The central green ish part is now surrounded on ALL sides by buildings. It’s simply a small residents area with some parking and space for bins. Lets be clear and ignore any spin, the land as it currently is, gets destroyed for 90 extra flats and we all need to object to that.
3. NCV Ltd new Eco Survey makes no mention of the large number of Orchids the land has. The land has so many Orchids as we don’t cut the grass etc unlike most Council run parks. All came to the land naturally and have been there decades.
4. The existing “Right of Way path between Kelbourne and Closuton street” is lost. Their new plan has a narrow lane going through the Clouston street town houses. But note the lane is covered with flats directly above it, so it’s basically a “common close” it’s going through and so can’t be seen as keeping the existing right of way. Note NCV Ltd drawings now label this area as private land reinforcing the loss.
5. They state the land isn’t in a conservation zone. In fact the land is in a conservation zone (confirmed by the Council), so their application is incorrect. Therefore they fail to address the needs of a conservation zone such as every tree is a protected one (called a TPO status). There are 500 of them on the land. What happened here is the land wasn’t, but its status changed a year or two ago.
6. Their Sanda Street new tenements now go up to 5 floors high from the pervious 4 floors. Not along the whole street but it begins with 5 and then moves to 4 floors. Quite unbelievable as it was previously pointed out 4 floors would over look the two floors of the old fire station opposite, so quite why they have increased it to 5 makes no sense. They aren’t taking on aboard even design considerations from local people that would be affected.
7. Note some of the car parking is on existing streets. So if you think Cloutson street etc is busy now, with an extra 90 flats that is an issue. The official calculator for extra people is to times the 90 dwellings by 2.5, so that gives an extra 225 people. This was called out to an extent in the last version.
8. Last but by no means least the land and groups / people using it have flourished in so many ways since the application was first submitted back in Dec 2012. It’s worth mentioning this to emphasis just how much the land is now used and how much the land still benefits the health, education and happiness of local people of all ages. Tell the Council!
If you’d like to see the detailed drawings of New City Vision Ltd (NCV) planning application 12/00924/DC then follow the link below. Once the page comes up, then click “Documents” you’ll see their plans in a bunch of documents dated 19th Nov 2014. The original ones are dated some 2 years ago. A reasonable overview one would be the “LANDSCAPE” one but note it only shows ground floor of buildings as taken from a view looking down.
Where to send objection letters:
Ian Briggs, Planning Officer
Development and Regeneration Services
Glasgow City Council
231 George Street, Glasgow.
G1 1RX
or email objection letter to : planning.representations@drs.glasgow.gov.uk
or follow the Council guidance from the link above. You may have to register but it only takes a minute.
We’ll add more on the list of objections in due course.
North Kelvin Meadow 