Communities need to be informed over plans

A NEW year wish for our community must surely be that planning undergoes a radical overhaul. The sort that allows residents to understand and contribute to developers’ plans.

If we don’t understand the sociological, political and maybe even economic reasons to change domestic residential properties into houses of multiple occupation in a family-oriented residential area friction and resentment will be fostered.

After-the-fact consultation (after the work has been carried out to change the property) is wrong, corrupt and damaging - emotionally and psychologically.

The consultation period for the property on our street, that has already been adapted into an HMO, finished on December 26.

It is the feared opinion of many of the people who have objected to the application that it is a “shoe-in” that may be modified to ameliorate, quell and pacify but will go ahead to ensure development is allowed and developers are gratified in their desire for profit in at the expense of neighbourly community.

What’s needed for all communities is properly informed consultation periods in which developers, council officers, inspectors and the local community can engage with and discuss the facts and experiences of any such plans to consider the implications and consequences, because communities do still exist and are still battling to be considered.

Will Hodgkinson, Derby