Council resubmit application for Listed Building Consent
8/2/10Cornwall Council has resubmitted an application for Listed Building Consent for its plans to build a freight and passenger terminal on Battery Rocks beach. The deadline for objections is March 4th and the Strategic Planning Committee will consider the application at a meeting at County Hall in Truro on March 8th.
Listed Building Consent (LBC) is all that stands between Cornwall Council and the implementation of its scheme to build on Battery Rocks beach, wrecking one of the town's most important historic buildings (the South Pier), creating a brutal bunker-like passenger terminal on one of the seafront's most visually important sites, and compromising the future economic regeneration of the area.
The new application for LBC is identical to the previous application that was rejected by the Strategic Planning Committee on December 14th.
Cornwall Council has said that objections to the previous application will be taken into account when considering the new resubmitted application. You may have received a letter from the planning department suggesting that it is not necessary to object again but the Friends of Penzance Harbour are advising people to repeat their objection and to supplement it with a complaint about the process and in particular the Council’s undemocratic decision to resubmit an identical application with no significant change in circumstances just because it didn’t like the planning committee’s previous decision.
The Friends of Penzance Harbour are also asking those who objected last time to recruit someone new who objects but hasn’t written a letter of objection, and help them to prepare and send an objection to the resubmitted application for LBC.
The associated application for a new sea wall has yet to be resubmitted, but the request for LBC makes it clear that it will be amended to include natural stone cladding to the seaward face of the wall.
Cornwall Council is now ignoring all alternatives and insisting that Option A is the only option for Penzance. This is not the case. Viable alternatives exist but have been ruled out by Cornwall Council on grounds that do not take the best interests of Penzance into account. And talk of taking the link to Falmouth is designed to intimidate residents into accepting a scheme that is not in the town’s best interest. The extra distance and associated operational costs mean that a sustainable “lifeline” link cannot operate from Falmouth. Cornwall Council’s own consultants told them this in 2004.
How to help stop Option A : download pdf | view pdf