PLEASE SHARE. Esplanade tree felling – Planning respond to your complaints – No action to be taken! Are you surprised? Sadly, we aren’t at all.Read on to see what happened.
We have complained on your behalf and are sorry that the SOJDC is not to be prosecuted or even, it would appear, reprimanded in respect of their breach of condition.
The reason given for this is partly that your evidence was considered insufficient (!) and that you should have measured the sound that was created and, indeed, that Planning was not really convinced that there had in fact been any noise or disturbance. Click here to read and download their parlous response.
The actual permission as to whether or not the trees were felled or the site clearance undertaken legally at the time in question is being followed up separately by SOSJ with another Planning sub-department by since we are clear that it was not.
How is it that a States’ quango can act in this way with impunity, having previously signed a Covenant with the States, guaranteeing that they will give 28 days’ notice to the Planning Department (following signed pre-lets on the buildings) before ANY work commences?
Bear in mind Planning recently confirmed to the Corporate Services Scrutiny Panel that development has already commenced though no pre-lets have been signed let alone the 180,000 – 200,000 square ft of office space that Senator Ozouf pledged must be signed up for.
It was also stated that, as the trees had already been felled, it was too late to do anything about it (which of course was the very reason for SoJDC attempting to create a fair accompli in the knowledge that was it to make a pre-announcement the public would create undue fuss).
Anyway, Planning do not seem to consider that noise made by chainsaws, the toppling of trees and the noise of site clearance machinery are capable of causing any harm or noise out of hours and thus see no point in taking any action – especially against a States’ owned company working to keep a low profile and avoiding political challenge.
Please look forward to such regulations being broken again when it suits the interests of a few powerful States Members.
…But don’t attempt to raise your voice or run your lawnmower in the back garden on a Sunday.
Planning’s desultory and disastrous response to Esplanade tree felling complaints is available here to read and download.
More posts about the Esplanade development