The week that ended ...25 November 2012

This week has been another reasonable busy week. At the beginning of the week I attend the Places Committee meeting that I sit on. Nothing to much to report from that meeting.

Tuesday saw the planning committee meeting and pass two different applications for two more takeaways in Standish. Both of these takeaways will be sited on the former ATS site on Market Street. I was against this for a number of reasons.

• We have enough takeaways in Standish and I think the residents of Standish have a good choice to choose from and two more pizzas or kebab shops will not make the village centre any better.

• Also since the closure of ATS the council have installed a zebra crossing on the road in front of the site. With vehicles accessing the parking spaces that will no doubt be in front of the shops it will make it a reality that residents on the crossing will be placed in more danger and this crossing was there to stop this.

It is a great site and it is a shame that no other business thought it was suitable for them to rent or buy.

Later in the week I was sent an email from Morris Homes indicating that they intend to put in a planning application for 250 new homes on the former site of the Golf Course along with what they are calling state of the art leisure facility's. This is a great worry for a number of reasons.

We have just had the core strategy and it was deemed that the  site was not needed for house building but yet the developer still goes ahead with the application.  Another worry about this story is the fact that at the beginning of the year it was this developer and this site that was being discussed with the Council about moving the pitches from Ashfield to this site. The Council once rumbled said they had stopped talks with the developer about the proposals, although I had been told that the Council where meeting with the developers off site so no one could gain the minutes of the meeting under the FOI rules. I smell a rat here.

On Tuesday the developer is holding a consultation at the Owls on Rectory Lane where residents can go and see the plans. We are asking residents to turn up at 6.30 and we will all turn up together and go on mass to show the level of support that we want to stop this ridiculous application. I hope to see many of you there.

Finally had a busy surgery yesterday at the Library. This is for an hour but yet again because of the number of residents I had to extend this the surgery by 30 mins so I could see everyone and I would like to thank those that waited patiently. The concerns where from the house building mentioned above through to anti social behaviour to people wanting to apply for some of my brighter borough funding.