Allestree Preservation Group – Annual General Meeting 18^th November 2008

Chairman’s Report

Welcome to the first Annual General Meeting of Allestree Preservation Group which came into being a little over twelve months ago.

The group, as with many opposition organisations, was born out of a need to try and redress the inept administration of a bureaucratic council, supposed to serve the needs and wishes of the people, and the unbridled greed of commercialism. Both of these influences combined to present a detrimental threat to the future of Allestree and its established and mature character.

APG was formed as a result of the initiative shown by one founder member, John Harris, whose home and its delightful gardens were to be threatened by developers wishing to demolish two houses adjacent to him on Duffield Road and to build two blocks of apartments and five town houses. Residents on Lambourne Drive were also to be invaded by an overbearing and intensive development right at the end of their gardens where currently hedges, trees and gardens divide them from the houses on Duffield road.

The pivotal action by John in alerting many nearby residents, myself included, to their lack of awareness of what was to unfold in their neighbourhood, inspired several of us to form an action group to fight against the potential destruction of the character of Allestree.

The events also demonstrated the minimal notification, legally required of Councils, to advise nearby residents of potential developments, which could take place within their immediate locality. This was demonstrated with the application for the Palm Court site whereby many local residents were unaware of permission being granted for an apartment block until it had been.

Prior to the inaugural meeting of APG it became apparent that residents of Kings Croft were facing an even larger development threat and so we combined our resources in recognition that this was not a Duffield Road, Lambourne Drive or Kings Croft issue, this was a problem for everyone who cared about their future quality of life in Allestree.

Our group would not have achieved the recognition that it has without its members who rallied to the objection cause against both of these developments magnificently. Numerous eloquent and well structured letters objecting on good planning grounds, many by our members, were derided by the Principal Planning Office as being thought to be copied from a common authorship pool. We proved his comments were unfair and unfounded. The sheer number of objections may not have changed an obstinate and uncaring planning committee, but it certainly did not make the passage of the applications as straight forward as they, or the developers, had hoped.

We have doggedly stuck to our principles of professional, persistent and unyielding objection. We have lobbied Councillors and Government Ministers. We have been in contact with other similar groups throughout the country and gained very good advice from them. We have been indeed fortunate to have had Peter Steer serving as a consultant to our group. Peter has enormous experience of Derby City Council as well as a lifetime as a distinguished structural engineer. It is with grateful thanks to Peter and his friend a leading Barrister, to whom we extend our gratitude for so much legal advice saving us many thousands of otherwise unaffordable pounds.

Despite our most valiant efforts we were unable to prevent the granting of planning consent for Duffield Road or Kings Croft. What we have achieved however is an apparent lack of willingness by the developer to proceed at present on Duffield Road as a result of the pressure and welter of our objections. We also know one of the donor houses which were to be demolished has since been placed on the open market. In particular we feel we may have delivered a killer blow when several of us wrote to Roxdan Developments, as individuals, and threatened that we would enforce the restrictive covenants within our title deeds if they insisted on proceeding with their development.

The Kings Croft situation is less clear but Sandstone Group are trying to get the house owners, to whom they were offering inflated values, to delay their contractual purchasing for twelve months. They have still not negotiated with the Council their contribution to local infrastructure by way of a section 106 agreement. Both of these situations are by no means final and we would not wish to be complacent but Sandstone has, we know through our useful contacts, been unsuccessful in selling on the site. They are not developers but purely speculative land acquisition agents. We hope one of the few benefits from the current economic downturn may be that they have burnt their fingers and will pull out of the deal.

Kings Croft will remain an issue whether it is through the current unpopular application ultimately proceeding, or with more amenable and acceptable developments taking place which would not involve demolition of existing properties or the loss of character of the area and the delightful green corridor into Allestree Village that Kings Croft provides. I imagine most people would accept this option.

One of our major concerns has been that our Council still does not have a mature suburbs design policy, despite a report from its own scrutiny committee having recommended such a necessity being implemented. This gives developers almost carte blanche to proceed with overly intensive and over bearing developments like the Duffield Road and Kings Croft applications. This along with our desire to see Allestree Conservation Area extended remains our two most important objectives.

We are seeing much feet dragging by the Council to proceed with either of these measures. There was an undertaking by Cabinet Leader for Transportation and Planning Cllr Banwait to move forward with the start of a mature suburbs policy by September 2008. To date there has been no action. As a member of the Allestree Neighbourhood Board I proposed that the Allestree Conservation area should be extended at the July 2008 Board meeting. The proposal was unanimously accepted by other Board members and a formal application was made by Roy Webb, Ward Councillor, to Jonathan Guest the City Council Director responsible. To date there has been no response whatsoever and which is a disgrace.

APG has continuously criticised the planning officers for their lack of consultation with Allestree residents prior to and during the planning process. Somewhat belated, but better late than never, we have obtained agreement that Richard Williams Assistant Director of Community & Regeneration and Paul Clarke have agreed to meet with the people of Allestree which is scheduled for the 2^nd December 7.00pm at Woodlands School. I hope there will be a high turnout of residents in order to vindicate our campaigning and determination to give local people a voice on local planning issues.

APG has for many of us as committee member’s been very time consuming and demanding. If anyone underestimated just how much time this type of activity absorbed then it was me. At times we have all become a little disconsolate and tired but we have throughout supported each other and remained steadfast and resolute that we would not give in whilst there was a battle to be fought. As a result of the camaraderie within our committee, which has sprung from our campaigning together, we have all gained strength and wisdom and the certain knowledge, that none of us should ever again take for granted that those who we choose to elect, as political leaders, will necessarily be working in our best interests.

It would benefit the group if we could enlist some new committee members who, like our existing team, can bring to the group additional complimentary yet disparate skills; skills such as planning, highways, drainage or legal experience. If anyone has these skills and would be interested in joining us, but uncertain of what is involved, I would be delighted to give you a synopsis of what being a committee member entails.

Committee members have always been conscious that they should conserve funds, sometimes to the detriment of personal finances, but as we live in an uncertain world it is impossible to anticipate what lies around the corner and a future campaign my fail or succeed as a result of availability of funds.

We hope therefore that for a contribution of only £10 a year, members will see the value of us being formed together as Allestree Preservation Group to resist what we all feel is unacceptable development of our Area. No doubt we all recognise the line between progress and regression can be a very fine one and that we cannot always have one without accommodating a certain amount of the other, but we surely do not, in the process, wish to loose the character and unique identity of Allestree, built up over several hundreds of years.

The continuing aims of APG remain as simple as the way in which they were created. We wish to preserve what is around us and that belongs to the people of Allestree. We ask that your ongoing support is to be borne in this message.