We objectors to tennis club plans unfairly marginalised by officials
GLASGOW City Council’s decision to grant planning permission for housing on Partickhill Bowling and Tennis Club’s neglected tennis courts raises important questions about the planning process and local democracy (“Anyone for tennis? Not any more”, The Herald, January 14). The development is contrary to the presumption against building on designated green space set out in Glasgow City Plan 2. The 98 objections to the proposal described in detail on how the proposal contravened other planning policies.
The planning officials’ assessment of the application, which recommended that the council grant permission, accepted without question the arguments lodged by the club. When the objectors were eventually mentioned, their arguments were casually dismissed, including those of Friends of Glasgow West, two councillors and an MSP.
The presentation had the tone of a sales pitch on behalf of the developer. The council accepted a well rehearsed argument that the club’s financial needs were sufficient grounds to allow the permanent and irrevocable loss of the green space and recreational facilities. Apart from financial matters not being material planning considerations, we have to question the wisdom of believing that a bowling and tennis club that has presided over the decline of one of its prime assets – tennis courts – is capable of devising and executing a plan to secure its future and safeguard the remaining green space in its stewardship.
It is unfair that developers have protracted discussions with planning officials to devise a proposal that has the best chance of overcoming planning obstacles. When the report goes to the Planning Committee, objectors may attend but may not speak. There is thus no opportunity to challenge questionable or debatable assertions.
A more open system would have allowed the objectors in this case to challenge the assertions that the proposed community hub has local support and that allowing the club to raise capital in this way will in fact secure its future. This decision continues an alarming trend of salami slicing open space in the city, in which the interests of private clubs and property developers outweigh carefully considered and formulated policies designed to safeguard the interests of the wider community. Ian Watson, Chairman, Partickhill Green Space Association, 8 North Gardner Street, Glasgow.