Planning Permission Tricks #1: Door-in-the-Face Technique

 

 

 

We’ve all familiar with door-in-the-face technique, in fact most of us will have employed it on our parents during childhood. You make a ridiculous demand, so extravagant that it would never be granted– maybe you ask for a wedge of cake an hour before dinner– and wait for it to be denied (“No, you’ll spoil your dinner.”). You then make a reduced, moderate demand (“Can I have a cookie instead?”) that now seems reasonable in comparison and is granted (“Okay, you can have a cookie.”) But of course, getting the cookie was your plan all along. Had you just asked for it outright the original refusal (“You’ll spoil your dinner”) would have been applied and you would have faced the unthinkable prospect of going a whole hour before dinner without extra sustenance. With this little bit of psychology you can sneak an outrageous proposal past the powers that be.

 

Developers seem to be using the same strategy. Over and over again we see examples of ridiculous plans being submitted, which scare the local authorities and are baulked at by the public, only for the developers to resubmit the plans in a slightly muted form that inevitably gets approved, even when the complaints of the original design still apply.

 

So we have the now-approved plans for three massive ‘urban villas’ (sound quaint? Well they ain’t) to be built down Windsor Road, replacing the row of low-rise early 20^th century housing that currently stands there. Initial plans caused outcry and opposition from local residents who objected to the sheer hulking size (some seven storeys) of the buildings, which are in close proximity to each other and threaten to further overcrowd the Central Ward, an already densely populated part of town. The resubmitted plans reduced the height of the project from seven to a maximum of six storeys (locals had wanted a four or five storey maximum); this was promptly approved by Slough Borough Council, who have been working with the builders Shanly Homes Ltd to buy up property along the road (then board it up and leave it derelict, of course) over the last few years.

 

Local residents still aren’t happy, with one being reported as saying this is the kind of infrastructure you see in “third-world countries where there are no planning regulations”. The architects meanwhile claim to have “listened”, while the Council nonchalantly walks away whistling. So an unwanted, unpopular proposal is rejected for a minimally softened version that appears to have given concessions but in reality hasn’t; the essential question, of whether this type of development is warranted here in the first place, goes unanswered. As in my example above, the question should not have been about the size of the snack but whether the kid should get one at all.

 

 

PS: This development headache was designed, once again, by bblur architecture, who with the ridiculous bus station and out-of-place Curve project seem to be hell-bent in using Slough as a kind of test-ground for insensitive structures that would be better off being banished to insensitive climates.