Mylander - Issue 88

13 Council Reports Planning and Highways Committee Myland Community Council is a statutory consultee on planning applications and as such we receive notification of every planning application from Colchester Borough Council before any decision is made. The Planning and Highways committee is committed to looking in detail at every single planning application in Myland. Planning applications tend to fall into three broad categories :- • Large scale developments involving street layout as well as many dwellings • Smaller household developments such as extensions and loft or garage conversions • Community use buildings such as care homes, schools, sports and community centres We have over the years seen many large scale developments including those on Turner Rise and the former Turner Village as well as developments along both sides of Mill Road and the southern slopes of the hospital. Current on-going developments include the 1,600 home Chesterwell site as well as the development on the slightly smaller former Severalls Hospital site. We have also scrutinised the applications for the Northern Approach Road and the Via Urbis Romanae; the old Rugby Club on Mill Road along with the new Sports Centre north of the A12 at the Northern Gateway. This was of course alongside hundreds of householder applications, with the concerns of neighbours listened to and debated before making our recommendations to Colchester Borough Council Planning Committee. We also aim to respond to all relevant consultations from Essex County Council or CBC. By the time you are reading this we will have responded to one of these consultations – the Active Travel Fund plans for two cycleways - North/South and East/West in Colchester. As the North/South route starts and ends in Myland our comments were restricted to that particular route. Our first concern was that this “brand new” cycling facility contained two sections of “shared- use” on the pavements at North Station Road (eastern side, just in front of Wicks) and also the eastern side of Mile End Road. Both of these sections of pavement contain bus stops and the associated queues along with the usual collection of pedestrians walking side-by-side, pushing prams, trailing suitcases and holding on to toddlers or dog leads! In our view this does not lead to a comfortable cycle ride.