THERE is frequently discussion in Crow Postbag about why the people of Royston seem to be so apathetic. Well, the latest set of plans for 16-20 Green Drift, Royston, were submitted to North Herts District Council on June 17, and were registered/validated

THERE is frequently discussion in Crow Postbag about why the people of Royston seem to be so apathetic.

Well, the latest set of plans for 16-20 Green Drift, Royston, were submitted to North Herts District Council on June 17, and were registered/validated on June 29. Letters were sent out to interested parties on July 6 and it went before the Royston Town Council's planning committee on July 16.

And all before the plans went online on July 17.

Anyone who had to go to work during office hours or was out of the country on holiday had no way of inspecting them. Words fail me.

When these new plans were finally available and could be printed off and studied at length it was immediately obvious that although the developer has reduced the overall number of houses by three, it is now higher, wider and deeper than they were before.

They are also slap bang up against the houses in Mallard Road and some now look directly into the rear gardens of Mallard Road, there are still too few parking spaces shared between houses without garages and visitors and this part of Green Drift along with Tannery Drift is still not being treated as the through "rat run" it is.

The developers, Croudace, must be absolutely laughing their heads off, due to the fact our councillors didn't notice any of this.

One could be forgiven for thinking this particular application had been "fast tracked" due to the indecent haste with which it is moving through the planning process.

Consider also that one of the most telling comments from some (not all) of the councillors was: "We can't keep turning these plans down". I have to ask: why not? Using that argument it is simply a matter of presenting plans a number of times and they will get through because "we can't keep turning these people down".

Sadly there would seem to be a limit to the number of times our large group of energetic objectors can speak out in an effort to preserve the charactersistics of our town

ELIZABETH HALE

Green Drift, Royston