A Special Committee
by Judith Robinson
Of all the many topics the Society is concerned with e.g. wind farms, Cut the Clutter campaign etc., one of the most important Committees meets once every six weeks to discuss and comment on planning applications for the conservation area and listed buildings within the City and the surrounding area north east to the coast.
The applications vary from those which horrify members of the Committee to those, fewer in number, which are happily agreed. Members all express their views and the Chairman consolidates the comments into letters to the various Planning or other Authorities concerned. A telephone call to personal contacts for clarification and comment often saves a letter. Many applications are too complex for the Committee, to deal with and these are passed to NCAP (Newcastle Conservation and Advisory Panel). Two members of the Committee also sit on this panel so can add to the discussion over complicated applications.
The preservation of the Conservation Areas, from Newcastle to the coast (north of the Tyne) and the treasure of listed buildings is so important as the need to be protected from some wealthy businesses, with their own money making agendas, who do not care for the environment, unlike the Northumberland and Newcastle Society.
Many Society members will have seen the new library, the new building at Newcastle University, the new Haymarket Metro Station. These are very obvious and have been commented on in each case by the Committee, some good, some bad, but the record is there. Other less obvious planning applications for extensions to houses have been successful, often with help from NCAP, in being refused until a more suitable plan is produced or withdrawn altogether. Inappropriate signs, lighting, billboards, shop fascias, windows, doors, internal alterations, external alterations, rubbish in the stream on Nuns Moor, the Committee discusses and comments. The list never ends. Further afield, Walbottle, North Gosforth, Wallsend, North Shields, Whitley Bay and Tynemouth, all come under the scrutiny of the Committee.
There is always much to consider and delight in when areas are preserved and used - think of the Ouseburn and the Quayside. Society members may think of others near to where they live. As on all Committees members sometimes agree to differ, but commenting and listening brings agreement closer. Discussion is lively and members who have chosen to live here can be as vociferous in protection as those who were born here and have the background knowledge and memory of the old buildings and areas which have gone forever.
City and County
November 2010
