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Thin edge of wedge
• THE Mansfield Conservation Area has now suffered the sixth, or is it the seventh, application from a developer so keen to squeeze every last penny out of an awkward site in Estelle Road that he produced a proposal for an intrusive, wedge-shaped building, which was rejected by a previous council planning committee, both for its insensitivity to the area and its invasive effect on the privacy of residents.
He has now resubmitted a virtually identical proposal. The facade of this peculiar and unnatural structure is a cynical, two-dimensional pastiche of the Victorian features of the Mansfield area terraces, blocking off one of the sightlines and setting a precedent for crude infill development – in every sense the thin edge of the wedge.
The planning officer, having been advised by a professional architect that the proposed plans were unbuildable, the developer has been obliged to submit further new drawings – clearly dashed off in a rush, as we are advised by the same architect that the “new” drawings are still unbuildable.
How much more public money and planning department time is to be wasted before the developer understands that he will continue to encounter united opposition?
Chris Fagg
Chair, Mansfield Neighbourhood Association
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