I find that astonishing.The traders of Portobello have come out opposing the delivery of 100's of new clients to their doorstep?Marya wrote: As far as I'm aware, all comments so far, have been from local traders (including one communication from the Chair of the Traders Association) all urging that the CC oppose the proposal.
Yes, there was such a post, Franck, but as far as I am aware that email has not been circulated as yet to CC members. I have asked the chair of PCC, whether all emails received to date have been circulated. If it has been 'lost in the post' I'll make sure that it is delivered.Franck wrote:I find that astonishing.The traders of Portobello have come out opposing the delivery of 100's of new clients to their doorstep?Marya wrote: As far as I'm aware, all comments so far, have been from local traders (including one communication from the Chair of the Traders Association) all urging that the CC oppose the proposal.
Come to think of it, did someone on here ( a trader?) not post something endorsing the proposal?I hope it's not been 'lost in the post'
I totally agree Wangi. Joe Findlay is a decent bloke that runs a very good business. Over the years he has seen off the most of the of the direct competition on PHS. He diversifies, develops his own products and offers great service. All of these elements allow charging a premium price for his products. Joe has been in competition with Supermarkets for the last 40 years. The percentage of his customers that also shop in Supermarkets must be close to 100%. It is natural that he wishes to protect what he has but it is by no means certain that the additional residents and Waitrose will have a detrimental effect on revenue.wangi wrote:I have a bit of trouble with this air of "entitlement". No shop deserves special treatment or a monopoly position. They are more than capable of competing on quality and service.Bob Jefferson wrote:Let's take a common-sense look at this. If a Waitrose up the road has a meat counter, is Findlay's going to sell more meat or less meat as a result?
Put it like this - which of your mythical meat counters would be willing to let me buy from them at 7:30pm?
Increased competition doesn't necessarily mean a reduced cut for the incumbents. It can result in an increased market - a more vibrant High Street that draws in more people because it offers more. If you want an example think about the deregulated airlines / airports in Europe.
There's a few things that stand out here. It seems to me: Firstly, someone at PCC is making representations that were not agreed by the body of the kirk. Not only do they not seek the views of the community, he/she/them actually misrepresent the views put forward by their own members. At worst this is dishonest and best it is careless. Secondly; Planners decided the last BL plan was compliant with the NWPDP. It is extremely doubtful that many PCC members have the requisite skill and knowledge to measue whether the scheme complied?seanie wrote:
As I pointed out when the last draft was circulated, I do not recall the PCC agreeing to this and if the proposition had been put forward as our position, I would have insisted on a vital caveat. Whilst the NWPDB is an important consideration, the overriding duty of the Community Council is to represent the views of the community it serves. That is a far more important consideration than a planning document drafted by the Planning Department, particularly when such documents are always open to interpretation.
I considered the previous application to be broadly compliant with the NWPDB. More importantly the Planning Department considered the previous application to be broadly compliant with the NWPDB. And yet the PCC vehemently objected.
Many on the PCC thought the last proposal did not comply, but it's worth remembering that the NWPDB was written by the Planning Department. If there is disagreement over the interpretation of the NWPDB any fault in understanding may not necessarily lie with the Planning Department.
I fully support Marya's suggestion that you email the PCC. However you may take the view that your email might get lost in the post or ignored.Makaveli wrote: Is there anyway that we can show our support for this development (and I don't just mean via this website) as I know alot of people that would like to give a big fat 'yes go and build it' to this development. Is there a chance to get some sort of petition or letters sent to the PCC to let them know that the wider community want this and that just because they don't that should not be the end of it?
Please let me know how I and others can register support.
Seanie's quoted that the PCC wrote: *
“The community council also feels that any revised planning application which BL submits must be in agreement with the development brief for the area, the North West Portobello Development Brief. The NW Portobello Development Brief represents a clear indication of the views of local residents and this has to be acknowledged by the community council in determining its stance on your revised proposals.”
Seanie wrote:As I pointed out when the last draft was circulated, I do not recall the PCC agreeing to this and if the proposition had been put forward as our position, I would have insisted on a vital caveat. Whilst the NWPDB is an important consideration, the overriding duty of the Community Council is to represent the views of the community it serves. That is a far more important consideration than a planning document drafted by the Planning Department, particularly when such documents are always open to interpretation.
I can confirm that no vote was taken at the meeting regarding the PCC's position on BL's revised development plans in the context of the NWPDP, although the NWPDP was alluded to by some members. Certainly at previous meetings Seanie has pointed out that the Development Brief is a set of guidelines so I have no doubt he would have done so again given the opportunity.Porty wrote:
There's a few things that stand out here. It seems to me: Firstly, someone at PCC is making representations that were not agreed by the body of the kirk. Not only do they not seek the views of the community, he/she/them actually misrepresent the views put forward by their own members. At worst this is dishonest and best it is careless. Secondly; Planners decided the last BL plan was compliant with the NWPDP. It is extremely doubtful that many PCC members have the requisite skill and knowledge to measue whether the scheme complied?
The author of their initial response is the Chair so he either went along with the misreprentation or was responsible for it.( That's if one accepts what Seanie says and maybe Marya or someone else could back him up?)
"The majority of the community council also feels that any revised planning application which BL submits must be in agreement with the development brief for the area, the North West Portobello Development Brief. The NW Portobello Development Brief represents a clear indication of the views of local residents and this has to be acknowledged by the community council in determining its stance on your revised proposals.
So that begs the question how are they going to go about gauging the communities opinion?Marya wrote:[
I do think, however, the PCC will need very strong evidence that the majority of the community are supportive of BL's new plans, in order to over rule previous community consultation
mcdryburn wrote:Can one of the Admins tell us how many registered users there are on ths site/forum. I wonder what proportion of the regular posters are on the PCC? I'm quite surprised by some of the numbers I'm seeing (39 people have voted on here in total re the proposed development on the SP site, Phillip M mentions 100 people turned up at the drop-in sessions.
The trouble is trying to get folk interested. It is easy to make allegations of a closed shop but anyone can get themselves elected by filling in the form and being prepared to take part in an election. The sad fact is that there have been no elections, not because membership is a 'closed shop' , but because of lack of interest from the community. Most of the time, CC meetings deal with the minutiae of life in Porty - cycling on the Prom. dog dirt on pavements, signs being vandalised etc. However, recently Portobello seems to have been at the centre of several big planning developments and suddenly more folk take an interest and well, accusations start to fly.It seems from all I hear that the CC is a 'closed shop' and I don't think I've heard one positive thing being said which I'm sure must be an unfair reflection - Portobello needs a strong community council who really engage with the wider community to understand their needs in order to be taken seriously. The difficult part is coming up with a framework to achieve this with limited resource/time.
All good suggestions. We do use 'The Porty Reporter' to try and keep in touch with local residents and there was a proposal to produce a newsletter. The stumbling block was shortage of time and money. Not easily overcome.Could the CC perhaps build up an email database of local residents and send a monthly newsletter / update / minutes? This could also be a means of garnering opinion? Could they set up a Facebook page to get views and that way Porty people could invite porty 'friends' to join.
As the sole admin... We have ~700 registered users; ~1400 absolutely unique visitors in the last month. Also remember the 90-9-1 rule... Of those participating in this thread you have at least two members of the CC.mcdryburn wrote:Can one of the Admins tell us how many registered users there are on ths site/forum. I wonder what proportion of the regular posters are on the PCC?
Nothing personal against the Chair, he's a nice chap. I'm purely concerned with the lack of understanding of planning and the recent track record of objecting to applications that are acceptable to planners. I was on the receiving end of one of the PCC objection letters, for a small development we were doing in Porty. They wrote to object that there was no material change from our previous application- we had reduced the footprint by 30% which he/they failed to notice.mcdryburn wrote:
Porty your comments are quite strong about the PCC and the Chair (of course I don't know if you have reason for them to be so). I do agree with your general thoughts though.
In my defence I may have failed to notice the difference as, to my mind, the change makes no material difference to the sentiment expressed and completely fails to address the point that I was making. Namely that;"The majority of the community council also feels that any revised planning application which BL submits must be in agreement with the development brief for the area, the North West Portobello Development Brief. The NW Portobello Development Brief represents a clear indication of the views of local residents and this has to be acknowledged by the community council in determining its stance on your revised proposals."
vs“The community council also feels that any revised planning application which BL submits must be in agreement with the development brief for the area, the North West Portobello Development Brief. The NW Portobello Development Brief represents a clear indication of the views of local residents and this has to be acknowledged by the community council in determining its stance on your revised proposals.”
Splitting hairs indeed."The majority of the community council also feels that any revised planning application which BL submits must be in agreement with the development brief for the area, the North West Portobello Development Brief. The NW Portobello Development Brief represents a clear indication of the views of local residents and this has to be acknowledged by the community council in determining its stance on your revised proposals."
I don't think I am. But please don't pretend that you are doing all this entirely out of the goodness of your heart. Presumably these free lets advantage you in some way, and not just in PR terms. I'm sure the groups concerned are grateful and I know how long, for example, the rowing club spent looking for workshop space but, let's face it, it would just have lain empty otherwise. It doesn't even have an electrical supply.philip myerscough wrote:Just to complete the picture Out of the Blue have been occupying buildings on our site rent free for the past 3 years. Sparta Boxing Club who do fantastic work with young men in our communities also occupy space rent free. Before they came to Portobello they occupied a building we owned rent free at Meadowbank. Before that they occupied buildings at our site at Shrub Place Leith Walk for 2 years rent free. They came to us when they were thrown out of their McDonald Road premises which they had occupied for years by someone who wanted to develop the site.
The Porty Boat Club have been using premises at our site rent free for the past year to build their famous boat that you will all know about. I think they are presently building another. I met today with Tom Black who is looking for somehere to store stuff associated with the very successful Brighton Place market. Not a problem.
So please don't question my integrity
The NWPDB represents the considered view of the Planning Department, following a consultation with the community AND other parties, INCLUDING developers.wangi wrote:I don't get how "the NW Portobello Development Brief represents a clear indication of the views of local residents". Surely asking the residents would be a better approach?
Aha! So now it becomes clear why the NorthWest Portobello Development Brief has suddenly become the Bible. It has something to say about retail!Marya wrote:I do think, however, the PCC will need very strong evidence that the majority of the community are supportive of BL's new plans, in order to over rule previous community consultation i.e. the NWPDP. I know that some planning phrases such as 'modern density levels' are open to interpretation, but the section on retail seems pretty clear.
It's a guide, and an important one, but it's not set in stone. And as with any planning document there is a degree of interpretation.1.3 The purpose of this Development Brief is to provide a general framework to guide and co-ordinate the development of North West Portobello over the next 15 to 20 years. It is however intended to be flexible, and will be expanded as required as specific proposals, additional sites, or development pressures come forward.
Not being envisaged is not the same as being prohibited. The planners approved the previous retail-less scheme but that's been knocked back. They'll recognise that any new proposal will have to address the reasons given for that refusal; height, density, traffic. An enlarged retail element, in return for the reduced height and density, is the kind of flexible approach the Planners will at least be willing to consider.Retail
3.8 Other than a possible purely local “corner shop” facility within the development, perhaps as the focus of a local centre or at the seafront, no new retail provision is envisaged within the area.
This is one of the issues at the heart of the matter for me and is graphically illustrated by the PCC position on the recent Bellfield Planning Application. The letters of support for the application outweighed the objections by a ratio of around 3 to 1, yet the PCC still saw fit to object.philip myerscough wrote:....The job of the PCC is to reflect the views of the community not to interpret planning policy.
In other words, rather than leading to spin-off shopping, edge-of-centre has the potential to produce ‘spin-away’ effects, where shopping is drawn away from the existing centre.
An interesting read, and most of it geared toward big supermarkets on edge of town sites. Lets not loose focus of the fact the the proposal here is for a shop of equivalent size to the existing Scotmid.Bob Jefferson wrote:This FOE briefing from 2005 has some interesting things to say about edge of town supermarkets: Good Neighbours?In other words, rather than leading to spin-off shopping, edge-of-centre has the potential to produce ‘spin-away’ effects, where shopping is drawn away from the existing centre.
I don't disagree with that. However can I just point out that at this pre planning application stage the consultation is between B L developments and all interested parties. Once consultation is complete if we choose to submit a planning application we must also submit a report on the consultation. That will contain copies of all representations. It will be at that point that the planning dept will collate all responses and consider them.Bob Jefferson wrote:Those of you who feel strongly about these proposals, both for and against, should be emailing our local councillors with your views. My understanding is that only a handful of people have bothered to do so thus far. If we want our representatives to take heed of what we think, then we have to communicate with them.
No they shouldn't. At this stage that would be pointless.Bob Jefferson wrote:Those of you who feel strongly about these proposals, both for and against, should be emailing our local councillors with your views.
