Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
FOND MEMORIES
Gazette reporter Sean Delaney fondly remembers his halcyon days obsessed with the little pocket monsters.
He said: “Like millions of other 90s kids my life consisted of waiting for Pokémon anime on SMTV weekend Live and endlessly playing the video game on my lime green Gameboy colour.
“But playground chatter with friends soon spilled over into an endless cycle of swapping, sharing and comparing our latest haul of Pokémon cards when the trading game came out a short time later. “There was something tantalising about ripping through those booster packets searching for those elusive “shiny” alternative cards decorated with your favourite Pokémon.
“It eventually led to the game being banned at my primary school and on one occasion I can remember stuffing some of my collection into my school shorts in a foolish effort to conceal them before a breaktime swapfest. “The real trade-off would ultimately be the promise from my parents of more cards in exchange for more productive school reports.”
process of considering planning applications. It is therefore vital that during the preparation of the plan there is full community engagement and meticulous consideration of all of the options available and their consequences. Hindsight is a wonderful luxury but sadly it is the case that local residents did not feel that these criteria were met prior to the existing Local Plan being finally signed off by councillors. Consultation with the community was extremely late in the day and very much in the nature of token process requirement tick box. Despite that, some 7,000 comments were registered, the vast majority of which were plainly disregarded. The prevailing attitude in council debates at the time was one of weary resignation.
The flaws in the plan which had been fairly forcibly pointed out by the community are now self-evident as detailed planning applications derived from it arrive for committee consideration. That said I am happy to observe that this time round the process behind the preparation of the Local Plan seems to be considerably better. Right from the outset, and despite the limitations resulting from the pandemic, there has been the fullest possible involvement with the community and other public services and authorities via the general and subject specific stakeholder events which were very well organised. Views have been freely expressed and noted. This all points to the next iteration of the Local Plan securing a greater degree of collective ownership than its predecessor.
In the Alliance of Canterbury Residents’ Associations (ACRA) we certainly hope so and will continue to play our part. That said, much has changed in the last few years over and above the impact of the pandemic. For example, as well as the need for
‘Any educated person can see the demise of the high street but the council seems to be totally blind to what is happening and ploughs on regardless with outdated developments which will all lose money’
social and affordable housing there are new and demanding standards on environmental protection, sustainable living, energy conservation, air quality, open space and a refocus towards brownfield sites. It is vital that these requirements are incorporated into the new Local Plan as its preparation continues and that the process is not reduced to the over-simplistic “where can we fit the houses in” approach which so blighted the current one.