Posted by Gav on June 29th, 2007
I visited a constituent tonight who is disappointed with the result of a planning application. No formal objections were submitted but now that the building is going up the scale and impact on the property are becoming clear.
A few months ago another application was made in a different part of Shoreham and I considered that the proposal would be detrimental from a particular aspect (being deliberately vague here, I hope you understand why). Once it was finished, it turned out to blend in nicely and to have virtually no impact.
Conversely, looking at the plans for the constituent’s neighbour you’d think that there is no impact and there really is….
As I said to the lady today, if having sat on eleven Planning Committees since my election last year, I cannot predict accurately the impact of an application, what hope have the general public got? Worse, if we cannot accurately predict the impact of an application (and if Officers reassure incorrectly too), who should the general public rely upon for clear advice on whether a Planning Application will effect them?
I am learning more and more that nothing’s as black and white as I’d like.
Posted by Gav on June 29th, 2007
During a week where wild fires have spread across Greece, literally unprecedented rain has affected England and killed four and where Italy and the surrounding area have experienced unusual heat, it is difficult to avoid the suggestion that climate change is having an effect. I still have a nagging doubt, but it’s meaningless to debate anyway in my opinion.
Interestingly, though, June’s Scientific American magazine has a passage which I think presents the barrier to solution quite clearly:
To accomodate the economic aspirations of the more than five billion people in the developing countries, the size of the world economy should increase by a factor of four to six by 2050; at the same time, global emissions of greenhouse gases will have to remain steady or decline to prevent dangerous changes to the climate. After 2050, emissions will have to drop further, nearly to zero, for greenhouse gas concentrations to stabilize.
Assuming the scientific community’s poor understanding of the climate is accurate then it is reassuring that the solution (technology) as proposed by the author (Jeffrey D. Sachs) costs approximately 1 penny per kilowatt hour. That’s on top of a current electricity price of approximately 8.1 pence.
I have long said that environmental-socialism is not the solution and I am heartened to read the technological-solution being espoused.
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