PIP

City of Portsmouth Civic Offices
©APE

DRUM Housing Association buying site

The site located at 112 Copnor Road has been purchased by the DRUM Housing Association located in Petersfield.

21st August, 2010.

A series of ad hoc inappropriate decisions by Portsmouth City Planning Committees have created serious amenity and parking problems in a large area of Portsea Island. Recently decisions by the Planning Committee threaten to exacerbate this state of affairs along the East side of Copnor Road, centred on Coniston Avenue. In 2008 the Planning Committee asked for comments on a proposal for a high density housing proposal with seven houses in an equivalent space currently occupied by five houses and with no on-site parking provision for the site 112 Copnor Road. This proposal was completely out of character with the immediately adjacent properties on Eastern Copnor Road and Coniston Avenue and because other local projects all had some provisions for on-site parking. Coniston Avenue is a secluded location with all of the houses facing a continuous high wall on the opposite side of the road from the houses. It therefore has a pleasant "close" character. The proposed house construction in this plan will back onto the fronts of the houses in Conistin Avenue and in addition open up back entrances into Coniston Avenue when at present there is a continuous wall. The seclusion with "close" character of this environment will be destroyed by the planned project. As a result it would exacerbate a deepening community crisis of destruction of the amenity currently enjoyed by the residents of Coniston Avenue and worsening the existing parking crisis. Parking in Coniston Avenue is fully taken up by Coniston Avenue residents and because of overflow from other locations, Coniston Avenue residents sometimes have to find parking elsewhere. Similarly, at the end of the day, residents living elsewhere are able to park their cars in Coniston Avenue if all of the spaces have not been taken up.

The residents of the immediately adjacent properties to the site in Copnor Road and the whole of Coniston Avenue signed a unanimous petition expressing their concerns. The main points were:

Housing density - the proposed housing is not in keeping with the sizes and types of properties immediately adjacent (Coniston Avenue and Copnor Road on the side adjacent to Coniston Avenue) and as a result will give the impression of over-development (cramming too many properties, that is, seven houses into a space that would hold 5 or less of the surrounding houses, into a limited space)

Amenity - Coniston Avenue will be changed from a scheduled road to which access is via the front gardens of houses to one which will become a mixture of front and back entrances. This has many implications including attendant issues of wheelie bins and waste sacks left out. Experience with this sort of development in Portsmouth crerate s "back yard" apprearance and depreciation in amenity

Parking - the development will effectively remove 7 parking spaces and yet increase the demand for a least an additional 7 parking locations associated with the proposed houses. Since Coniston Avenue, at the moment, has enough parking space for residents the development will create a deficit of about 14 parking spaces affecting everyone in the Avenue

Domestic economics & finance - the combined outcome of the above facts is that properties in Coniston Avenue will suffer a fall in value over and above those associated with the current credit and mortgage crisis

The Planning Committee never addressed the substantive issues raised and essentially ignored the petition. In the follow up the Planning Committee and officials continued to refuse to answer the substantive issues raised. This cavalier and somewhat distasteful treatment of the residents in this case created a substantial decline in the confidence of a wider range of the constituency in the competence and integrity of the Council. Indeed, because of this erosion in confidence in the City services, greatly encouraged by the behaviour of the Planning Committee, it was concluded that an official complaint would not be handled in an impartial fashion.

When constituents analysed the spill-over effects of the Planning Committee's recent history in approving a string of high density proposals it became apparent that this is one of the main causes for Portsmouth's deepening traffic chaos. The regrettable conclusion drawn is that there is a high level of incompetence in the areas of Strategy and Planning.

For this crisis of falling amenity and increasing traffic chaos to have been forced onto the local population through bad decision-making by its own Council, only undermines the already low esteem with which politicians and political parties are held. As in the case of the expenses scandal, denials will occur, and clarity is only achieved by pushing back against such protests until the truth is revealed. We all know that this question cannot be resolved on the platform of "debate" and partisan banter and political party news sheets. It has to be resolved on the basis of a dispassionate analysis to ascertain the motivation and mechanics employed in taking inappropriate decisions that encourage so much troublesome socially-devisive enmity. Therefore, the first step in this process is to explain in a simple fashion the implications of the unfortunate experience of the residents in Coniston Avenue to the other residents on Portsea Island. This section of PIP will provide access to information on the events surrounding the Coniston Avenue Petition (CAP) affair to serve as a case study. This case study is not to demonstrate the application of high standards but rather to serve as an example of poor practice in planning decisions. It also serves as an illustration of how British constitutional provisions are abused in practice at the hands of politicians. This will be prepared to serve as instruction material for university students as an example of poor practice within the ambit of town planning, demography, constitutional economics and local democracy. It also contains some lessons on the negative economic and financial impacts of bad planning decisions.

The CAP affair remains work in progress as lessons learned are converted into proposals for reform.