Yet more planning bollocks

It's just got to the point where I'm not even surprised to see this in the news.

I remember when the National Trust were on 'Spotlight' last year trying to promote the scheme. It's very rare that any kind of development is proposed that will actually benefit wildlife but naturally the N.I.M.B.Y.'s had to strike again saying it would ruin an area of 'Outstanding Natural Beauty'.

The fact that it would turn the area into something unique and of national significance is beside the point, it's what it looks like that counts.

No-one seems to care when land is reclaimed from rivers so why can't this be allowed. More importantly why should the intentions of someone that owns some land be anyone else's business?

Next thing you know, farmers will have to put in planning permission to have a cornfield turned into a grazing field because it'll change colour.

Does this mean that every time someone has a flood, they can get done for not having planning permission for their new water feature?

So to recap some recent planning decisions in the south west:

You can't build houses anywhere (not even in a residential area)
You can't build any kind of green power facility (but nuclear seems to be ok)
You can't build a nature reserve next to a river for river wildlife
You can't demolish a derelict building that hasn't been used for 30 years because it is 'listed' - meaning some prat with a clipboard thought it looked nice/old so it has to be kept regardless of its historic value. Shakespeare's birthplace is of historic value, an old ambulance bay is not.

You can build as many new casinos or nightclubs as you want in the Plymouth area, regardless of how many other casinos or nightclubs are already struggling for business.
You can knock down a car park and build a Travelodge in its place (with no parking facilities)
You can fill in subways and bulldoze roundabouts and install pedestrian crossings and traffic lights in their place*. Despite creating immense road congestion (rename it 'traffic calming measures' to make it sound better)

* I should clarify that it wasn't deemed sensible (by planners) to combine the traffic lights with the pedestrian crossings, like you tend to see everywhere else. Plymouth city centre now has four pedestrian crossings and a seperate set of traffic lights covering approximately 200 metres of road. In a seperate location, a rather nice subway (yes there are some nice subways) that was tiled with illustrations of Plymouth's history has been filled in and replaced with a pedestrian crossing. The road was too wide for a standard crossing so they've had to create a bottleneck to enable the pedestrians to cross. This has also significantly increased road congestion. There are now rumours that Plymouth City Council plan to introduce a congestion charge to help combat this.