Home › Forums › General Discussion › Greenland Dock – an Olympic Marina › Re: Re: Greenland Dock – an Olympic Marina
All, I strongly urge you to read the planning officer's report.
It seems to me that Council has pretty much dismissed all of the objections and sided with the Sail Greenwich (somewhat disappointed but expected). The planning officer has taken Sail Greenwich's words that yacht occupants will be families, they will have very few visitors who will need to park cars. Frankly I think these are complete jokes. Will Sail Greenwich turn away customers that are not families? Will Sail Greenwich ban visitors?
The planning officer also thinks there can be effective measure to enforce silence after sunset (claimed by Sail Greenwich). Although there is some mention of some sort of quietness being written into the yacht occupancy agreement, but how on earth will they enforce it? Unless Sail Greenwich is prepared to kick those who are not silent after sunset out of Greenland Dock or impose a heavy fine, quietness simply cannot be enforced. The truth is a business enterprise's objective is to maximise profits and it is as simple as that. Sail Greenwich will not care who the occupants are nor will it care whether local residents' life will be severely impacted – even more so if this is indeed a temporary project.
The planning officer also agrees that it will only take 30mins to for 50-100 yachts to move between Greenland Dock and South Dock Marina (that is 3 boats every minute) and that the draw bridge sirens as early as 7:30am on Saturday/Sunday mornings will not disturb life. These are simply lies.
The way that Council's planning officer has argued for Sail Greenwich, especially how this temporary project fits the Council's long-term strategy (e.g. re Borough Open Space, Sustainability, Equality), is extremely concerning. I can't agree more with Tom that this temporary project is a test case to set a local planning precedent for something permanent.
So please read the planning officer's report before you make up your final mind. I know it's a bit long but it's worth the time.