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Carraghyn House 5 The Castleward Green Douglas IM2 5PS
Secretary of the Planning Board Planning and Building Control Department of Infrastructure Murray House Douglas IM1 2SF
29 June 2015
Dear Sir
Re: PLANNING APPLICATION IN PRINCIPLE 15/0536/B
We apologise that our Submission reaches you out of time. We would like to explain the reason for this.
Hartford Homes correctly displayed their Notice for Planning Application 14/01298/A earlier in the year around February. We noted it and sent in our Submission.
On 20 February we were notified that this application had been withdrawn. Days passed, weeks passed and still the Notice remained on the telegraph pole where it had been nailed. Very often when passing in the car we commented on its display, believing it should have been taken down within a certain time frame as all temporary notices are required to be. At one point I even suggested to my husband that I might remove it but he told me it was not my property and so it remained. We, therefore, did not realise that it had been changed in favour of the above new Application and by the time we noticed it we were out of time to send in our submission. I do not know if our neighbours are aware of the situation as we had no time to inform them. Our Submission has not had the amount of care and thought put into it that we might have wished for but presented nevertheless.
We, therefore, respectfully ask that it be considered by the Planning Board at the appropriate time.
Yours faithfully
Elaine Moore
This is the second application by Hartford Homes for 2 houses on the site known as “The Green”, the plot of land which gave its name to Castleward Green. Information given to us has always stated that when Mill Baldwin sought permission to build 11 “substantial” houses in Castleward Green of “lower density which is more appropriate on the edge of town”, a piece of undeveloped land, (The Green), was required as a condition for building the 11 houses and this space has been described in our last submission over what must have been a period of close to 30 years.
We regard the homes built by Hartford Homes of being of excellent quality and so have no fears in this regard. However, on reading this second application, we noted with deep concern that the access to these 2 houses would be from Castleward Green itself and not from Ballanard Road. This now is an application to extend the number of houses within the estate from 11 to 13. In our view, the proposed houses would not blend harmoniously with existing properties and would change the nature and ambiance of The Castleward Green. The proposed houses are larger than the existing ones and built on smaller plots, materially affecting the sympathetic layout and landscaping achieved by the original builder. Therefore, we feel that the proposed site is too small for 2 houses to preserve the integrity of the estate.
We do not accept that The Green should be built on at all, but if planning consent was to be given, we feel that one large house on the site would be more acceptable. Having read the General Policy 2 of the Strategic Plan we feel that this application would fail to satisfy all the principles within (b), relating to size, scale and spacing.
As stated in the last Submission, sales of houses in this area are very slow. 2 The Castleward Green has been on the market for about 4 years and another house for 2 years. Sales of luxury homes in Ballanard Woods are slow, to say the least, selling 4 we believe since planning approval was granted some 8 years ago, out of a potential of about 16.
The Applicant mentions foot and cycle journeys along Ballanard Road as favourable and so we feel justified in addressing this assertion. Much has been written on this subject in former submissions and Inspectors' Reports. For example, dealing with the road system in the Conclusions to reject the Planning Application 07/023583, the Inspector recognized that the road hazard, with its already narrow carriageway, complicated by parked vehicles, poor visibility for people driving from private driveways onto the main road and poor footway provision would make cycling dangerous and walking a bit difficult. We have lived here for 16 years and can vouch that cyclists are extremely few and have observed that some walkers and mothers with prams prefer to walk in the road in parts, (as we do ourselves), in preference to walking on the narrow pathways.
In conclusion, we would respectfully ask the Planning Committee to carefully consider this Submission to retain the integrity of the current sympathetically landscaped nature of The Castleward Green and reject the Application for these additional 2 houses.
Dated this 29th day of June 2015
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