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Roundhay blazes a trail in efforts to protect local environment
Roundhay residents are leading the way for the rest of the city in their efforts to protect the local environment. Click here for more details.
Members of Roundhay Planning Forum are producing a Neighbourhood Design Statement - the first of its kind in Leeds which covers a whole ward.
If accepted by the city council as a Supplementary Planning Document it will have to be taken into consideration when dealing with any planning applications.
Forum chairman, Mike Fox, said: "It is a trailblazer - a blueprint for wards across the city. It really is exciting. We are looking not only at the built environment, but transport links, leisure facilities, the cultural environment and green spaces."
Members have already spent a lot of time touring the ward taking photographs of properties and green spaces which they feel it is important to protect and are now holding a public consultation meeting at Kerr Mackie Primary School on Wednesday, September 26 (7.30pm) to get more local people involved.
"There are still areas we have not covered andwewant volunteers to help by taking photographs and notes," said Mr Fox.
"We will then collate all the information into a draft Neighbourhood Design Statement - probably around January - and then it will be available for further consultation before it is formally submitted to the city council next May."
The Planning Forum was originally formed in 2004 in an attempt to get a more carefully managed approach to planning issues in the area.
"We were becoming alarmed at the number of appplications for apartments, usually involving loss of gardens, and even large houses, to accommodate these applications," explained Mr Fox.
"In addition, properties were being extendedwilly nilly having no real concern for the immediate built environment.
"We felt we had an impossible situation on our hands in trying to fight individual applications and that a more strategic approach was required."
However, much of the Forum's work had to be re-donewhen the government changed the rules on how these design statements were to be developed and it was given a 10,000 grant from the North East Inner Area Management Committee to pay for additional professional help.
Mr Fox said: "I am grateful to the committee who accepted that Roundhay does need this document. I also want to pay tribute to my colleagues whose single-minded dedication has seen this through."
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Wednesday 08 February 2012
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