Simon__200 wrote:Lyndon wrote:This is excellent news, and I hope the Charles Street project is approved in the next couple of months too.
Iona Gordon really is beyond a joke, why did she want to be on the planning committee if she is opposed to virtually all development? The sooner the Riverside ward returns to Plaid Cymru the better

Strange attitude again. Of course the very place she would want to be with those feelings is on the planning committee.
I don't know what people's problems are here. We might disagree with the Luddite attitude and legitimately call her on it, but her views do represent a significant portion of the electorate, and it's fine to have them heard. This proposal was always going to pass approval comfortably. What is your probably with a few dissenting voices? Unanimity isn't necessary. Would you propose filling the planning committee with a bunch of cronies with a single mind. That's not the role of councils' committees.
You seem to have judged the situation wrong. It's not the fact she doesn't like tall buildings. That's just a personal opinion. If you had watched the webcast you would have seen her try everything in her power to not only stop this development, but stop any future development of a tower of any kind. This level of bias does not allow the planning committee to have a proper discussion on the individual applications presented to them, as there will always be one councillor against the plans, regardless of the benefits the application brings.
On the other hand, yes, it's also bad for the committee to be the complete opposite and approve any tower just because it's over 100m, but this is not the case and wasn't part of this discussion. Garry Hunt spoke out in favour of tall buildings, that's true. However, he also mentioned that he didn't want student accommodation creeping into the centre - tower or no tower. So he actually judged the individual application. Iona Gordon did not. She threw it out solely because it is a tower.
It's not just us that are concerned either, the chair didn't seem very happy with her.