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RIVERLIGHTS EXHIBITION
(Click on
picture for larger image) |
Having
spent some time studying the Riverlights
exhibition, one is left wondering how Derby City
Council can call this process a consultation
exercise. When confronted on specific questions
concerning the proposals, although very polite,
the council officers on site either could not or
would not answer, and the |
representatives for the developer
were intent on selling the whole sorry mess to
the public and totally ignored any difficult
queries. The model was about the size of a
Christening cake and too small for people to be
able to understand what the plans involve. The
artist's impression could have been done on my
home computer and printed on a cigarette packet
for all the detail it showed. Due to the
importance of this development, there should have
been senior planning officers present to answer
questions.
When it was pointed out that the proposed
high-rise buildings proposed would create a
canyon of pollution all around the new bus
station, I was told: "This exhibition is not
about the bus station, that is already
decided." Yet, one third of the information
sheet is purely about the proposed new bus
station.
A representative of the developer actually
admitted that the view on the front of the
handout leaflet was not how the finished
development might look. Looking at the image and
reading the corporate blurb, there should be at
least 19 retail outlets, but the developer
admitted that this was very unlikely to happen
and that the vast majority of the site would
probably be taken by upmarket housing.
Isn't that marvellous? - yuppie homes built by an
out-of-town firm for wealthy out-of-town people
on one of our city's few green open spaces. The
other point is that I do not believe that the
income from the new bus station will be enough to
maintain the building in future years as
inflation increases. Who will pay for the extra
police when and if all these new bars are
developed?
If councillors truly want Derby to make progress
as a city, they should throw this whole sorry
mess out before becoming the laughing stock of
the East Midlands. If not, the only hope is that
the developer will not be able to sell all the
buildings, in which case the scheme will implode
upon itself. (Source: Derby Evening
Telegraph) |
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