Who knows how it will turn out? I go from positivity to negativity quicker than a magnet and I really couldn't read the mood. Today our barrister seemed to make some good points and the other lot droned on and on with very little variation. If I had been the inspector I would have awarded us the win due to total boredom! However, in this system that's not how it works. It was hard to see what does work to be honest because interventions were prohibited in the main and it was all very legal-speak. Common sense and plain truths were not the order of the day and it made me think that opinion or judgment is very transient and ethereal. Really, you can make any case at all and fly in the face of reality. One example was the "rurality" of Manor Road and the adjoining Manor Farm and the field in question. Ironically, as we completed the site visit a pungent smell of manure drifted around our nostrils and as if to amplify the point a cow mooed very loudly! I could not help but comment that the cow must be an urban cow-then adding that I was in no way trying to influence the decision!
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| Urban cows at Manor Road
So much energy, effort and angst over one small field. But that's the point-it is the last field and it provides a buffer between old and new. Yes, its close to schools and a road and power lines-but it has the effect of calm and tranquility as soon as you cross its threshold. The ambiance begins as you walk down the lane and the 21st century recedes into the background. And No, Mr Lancaster it doesn't happen once you go through the 13th century gateway (insignificant though you deem it to be). The whole journey builds the anticipation and the pleasure of the final reveal of the magnificent abbey and this will be diminished by the noise of an urban estate just metres away. Yes we can see the blank brick wall of the Sixth Form College, but this is way out in peripheral vision-38 houses will be within a stones throw and I won't be able to miss them. Peripheral they are not!
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| Courtesy Story Homes-this will cause less than significant damage to the heritage approach apparently |
But when the tale is told... yes by idiots (because they can't see the value of what's in front of them), the sound and fury means nothing! They can't tell me -or you how to feel, when to feel it or whether it's important. They can't convince me by repeating the same quotation from English Heritage that there will be "less than significant harm" done to the heritage asset (Furness Abbey to you and me). In my book-less than significant harm means that there is some harm! With a nationally important Grade 1 Listed building should we allow ANY harm at all? What of the local appraisal of "harm" and protecting this much loved heritage environment? Over three thousand people objected-this was mentioned only once and pooh-poohed by the appellant's barrister as insignificant. So, if we have a system which goes to public consultation-that would mean they want to know our views wouldn't it? But then to dismiss it at stage two as irrelevant is incongruous and unfair! Granted our merry little band got a limited hearing-but it's not representative is it?
At the end it comes down to power-power derived from money-of which Story Homes have shed loads. They can go the course-and sit with an expensive criminal lawyer, two experts and a consultant and secretary-all beavering behind the scenes (quite noisily sometimes too) to refute, argue and contradict. Our little hard pressed council have the Planning Officer, barrister and solicitor and one expert-not present today. So its David and Goliath all over again! And I'm afraid I'm a sucker for the underdog... aren't you?
Manor Road and the West Gate
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