|
News Articles: January 2006 Click on link to go directly to article or scroll down the page |
|
|
|
Renfrewhire Council - Planning Board Meeting 8/01/06
The Renfrewshire Council Planning Board will be meeting on 10/01/06. Here is a link to the report on current round of consultations, which Officials will present to the Planning Board. Structure Plan Alteration Report
Bishopton Action Group are currently going through the report in great detail.
The agenda for Planning Board Meeting can be accessed here
|
|
|
|
Planning Board - BAG E-mails Planning Board Members 10/01/06
BAG e-mailed all the Planning Board Members prior to meeting on 10/01/06. Read notes e-mailed to members here.
|
|
|
|
BAG's Objection Letter (Round 2) 11/1/06
We have experienced technical problems with BAG's objection letter, which was submitted during second round of consultation. However we have finally put the letter up on our site. Read BAG's objection letter here..
|
|
|
|
Planning Board Meeting - BAG's Report 11/01/06
The Renfrewshire Council Planning Board Meeting was held on 10/01/06. Despite being provided with notes by BAG, eight Labour Councillors could not think up a single question to ask about the proposed ROF development or the report on the Structure Plan consultation process. Read BAG's report on meeting here.
|
|
|
|
Evening Times - Fears for homes on chemical-ridden site 16/01/06
Developers urged to postpone plans to build 2300 houses on the ROF site. Click here to read article.
|
|
|
|
Scotsman - Bishopton's Battle makes Political News 17/01/06
News of Bishopton's battle against proposed ROF development spreads to the political world. Click here to read article, which appeared in the Politics section of the Scotsman 17/01/2006
|
|
|
|
Structure Plan - Creative Counting 29/01/06
In the report, which the Structure Plan Manager will be presenting to the Joint Committee on Monday 30th Jan 2006, this is how he tried to diminish the deluge of responses from Bishopton:
"138 Responses have been received; this includes the Bishopton Residents' 1,632 Standard Responses plus 587 Standard Responses with additional comments"
1632 + 587 + other responses = 138 ?
If you are wondering how this mathematical mystery can be solved, all will be revealed:
1632 + 587 = 1
Still mystified? Well looking at the table provided, all Bishopton's responses are treated as one response. This is despite the fact that some of these responses were very detailed and raised important issues.
During the last consultation round 2471 objection letters were counted as 0 and were not even listed in his list of respondents. The Structure Plan Manager obviously has a problem with figures.
Why are the responses from Bishopton being treated and recorded differently? All responses should be recorded in the same way. Even Renfrewshire Council managed to admit that "The Structure Plan Manager received 2253 representations".
If the Structure Plan manager cannot list the number of responses correctly, do you think we can really trust his figures for population forecasts or do we have to re-interpret them too?
|
|
|
|
Structure Plan Manager's Report?- Poor Effort 29/01/06
Read extract from Structure Plan Manager's report here.
|
|
|
|
Renfrewshire Council - The Real Questions 29/01/06
According to the Final Alteration to the Structure Plan there will be two urban expansion areas in Renfrewshire. (NB These areas have been renamed community growth areas, probably because the public in their objections pointed out that they are not actually urban areas) The two areas are Bishopton and Johnstone. It is proposed that there will be a 500 house development at Johnstone and a 2500 house development at Bishopton ROF. However Renfrewshire Council proposes to handle these developments in different ways.
They propose to process the Johnstone development through the Local Plan and Bishopton ROF through an Outline Planning Application. If the public object to Johnstone proposals in the Local Plan, there will be an inquiry. However if Renfrewshire Council ignore the public's objections to proposed ROF development and grant outline planning permission, the public will not be able to appeal and there will be no inquiry. The developers will have a right of appeal if they are not granted planning permission. BAG believes the process being proposed for Bishopton is biased in favour of the developer and totally unjustified.
At a recent Community Liaison Group meeting Mr Darracott, Director of Planning, explained why different planning processes were being used for Johnstone and Bishopton. Apparently according to him Bishopton has already had its Local Plan inquiry about the proposed development at Bishopton ROF.
If Mr Darracott cares to examine the Local Plan he will see that it does not detail a 2500 house development at ROF. Were Bishopton residents meant to be psychic? How were they meant to know?...Think again Mr Darracott.
Bishopton will fight this all the way.
MSP Annabel Goldie has already begun the assault by writing to Scottish Minister Tom McCabe and requesting him to "direct that the Renfrewshire Local Plan shall not be adopted until further notice or shall not have effect unless approved by Scottish Ministers."
We now know that Renfrewshire Council planners were in discussions with BAE Systems for many years and knew the proposed scale of development at Bishopton ROF. The Local Plan seems to have taken years to be produced and has still not been adopted.
The real questions here are:
Why did Renfrewshire Council not give the details of the scale of the proposed development in the Local Plan?.... They had the information.
In whose interest are they operating? Is it the public's interest or BAE's interest?
|
copyright: Bishopton Action Group || design and support from 3dc.org.uk via InBishopton.org.uk
