Decision report 201000247

Summary
Mr C lives on a main road opposite a public park. He was unhappy when a planning application was made to build a skate park on an open space in the park, and objected to the application. When the council approved the proposals, Mr C complained to them that the noise assessment was flawed; that there had been material changes in the proposals but the council had not considered them to be such; that there was a conflict of interest of a council officer (who was a skateboarder) working on the project; and that the access provided was not as agreed. We upheld only one of his complaints, however, that the council did not put plants in place to screen the skate park. Although the council explained why this did not happen, we were concerned that this meant that there had been no effective screening to reduce loss of amenity to local residents. We therefore recommended that the council take steps to see if they could resolve this by dense planting.

Recommendation
We recommend that Renfrewshire Council's planning services liaise with the council’s landscaping officer to evaluate whether an effective dense screen of planting can be introduced, compatible with existing trees and shrubs in the park.