The issues which have been raised by residents living near the new hotel being created in South Parade include:
- Access to property
- Safety
- Loss of parking
- Unnecessary obstruction of the highway
- Anti-social behaviour
- Noise and dust
- Early and late working on the site
- Loss of trade
- Completion timescale being grossly overrun
- Site traffic management
- Lack of information
All these need to be addressed as a matter of urgency and we are pleased that our local MP has committed to making that happen. However, this situation highlights systemic problems in the way permission for significant development in the city centre is given and the way in which compliance is monitored and enforced.
In granting planning permission much more attention needs to be paid to the likely impact on the local community and conditions and guidelines put in place to minimise them.
BANEs needs to be much more proactive in monitoring and enforcing conditions and BANEs officers should routinely be talking to neighbours about their experiences and encouraging developers to do the same not just waiting for them to register complaints.
We are facing over the next few years unprecedented numbers of development projects in the city centre and it is vital that BANEs gets better and managing them in a way which minimises disruption to communities and ensures that they are fully informed about what is going on.