What's that at the bottom of the garden?

The phrase "not in my back yard" is well used in letters of complaint from householders to Planning Authorities where a particularly contentious development  proposal or scheme galvanises a local community into action.

There is nothing more motivating to a normally benign and passive neighbourhood than a perceived threat on the value of properties or to affect demand and saleability. 

This could be a Planning Application for a fast food takeaway, the setting up of an accommodation hostel for the homeless or troubled or a waste incinerator. These are very local issues. On a national scale the publicised route of the HS2 High Speed Rail Link has blighted large areas of housing and land. 

The Planning process in England does invite public consultation and a well organised campaign of objections and challenges can sway the decision makers as long as the arguments are backed by bona fide references to policy and practice rather than just being knee jerk and vested interest grounds. 

I came across a very interesting case just this week in the suburb of a large and prosperous City in the Yorkshire Region. 

The origins of the case go back to the 1940's when a rural area, then some 3 miles from the City Centre, was established as a wartime airstrip. Large and cavernous buildings or hangars were constructed for the repair and maintenance of heavy bombers alongside a base in active service in the war effort. 

These were serious structures and in the hard earned peace of the post war era they had an ongoing suitability and therefore value for the storage of grain.

As the City expanded in what was a major period of affluence the landed areas up to and around the hangars were developed  with, at that time the focus being on manufacturing and heavy industry. The City itself was foremost in the UK for railway engineering , chocolate and confectionery with a number of global brands present. In the late 20th Century these traditional employers gave way to service industry with the siting of business parks, a shopping district and the proliferation of showrooms and workshops for motor vehicle sales and servicing. 

Large areas of the suburb were Zoned by the City Planners for different uses and inevitably this included the release of tracts for residential estates. 

As part of the natural expansion of the City the first estates in the 1990's and early 2000's simply attached themselves to existing streets and avenues. However, the desirability of the area and good levels of employment saw ever increasing demand for housing land and gradually the less attractive parcels came up for development. 

The hangars, originally out in the countryside but now firmly suburban, were now surplus to requirements and Planning Permission was granted for their demolition and with the release of land  as a mixed scheme of commercial, retail and yet more residential development. 

One of the hangars made way for a supermarket and car park. Beyond the space previously occupied by two other hangars area a National House Builder commenced a nice estate which was massively over-subscribed by prospective buyers, so much so that the majority of plots were sold "off-plan" as in before even any ground-works had begun. 

The glossy marketing brochure and slick Sales Suite at the entrance to the site showed the proposed phases of the estate and vague references to possible future development on the adjoining sites not in their ownership. 

The mixture of house types appealed to all aspirations from large detached through to smaller town houses. Although somewhat above the regional pricing average there was no shortage of willing buyers, either for their own occupation or for a rental investment. 

The area had changed dramatically in its identity in just a handful of decades. 

I was inspecting one of the end terraced houses just yesterday. 

It was close to the main road and some 200 metres from the supermarket premises in a pleasant street-scene of neatly trimmed lawns and regimented parking bays. 

What troubled me, however, was what was emerging out of the ground immediately behind the houses. 

On the broad former footprint of one of the hangars and directly in view was the structural steel skeleton of what was clearly going to be a huge building. The homeowner I met was not at all phased by the looming elevation but then again she wouldn't be as she was in the process of selling up and moving away for work. 

The steels were about 10 metres up and allowing for the slope of the roof perhaps another 2 or 3 metres more. 

The homeowner, in seeing my shock, remarked that when completed it would be illuminated and therefore deter crime. I was thinking more along the lines that, facing west, it would reflect and intensify the sun to a state of painful glare in the longer seasonal days of the year.

Upon consulting the Council Planning File on my return to my office it appeared that some 140 of the estate residents had written in with strong objections. These were firmly united in the use of the phrase "not in my back yard".

The building was, irony upon irony, to be for Self Storage which is a relatively new phenomena arising from modern houses shrinking in size causing chattels and goods to require somewhere to be kept. 

The Planners had originally sided with local opposition to reject the development but they had been powerless to argue against National and Local Zoning and infrastructure requirements. 

Yet more irony was that the success of the housing estate had actually paved the way for what was seen as essential complimentary land uses of this type.

I did feel a bit sorry for the homes directly affected by the edifice of storage central but at least they would not have to walk very far to visit their personal belongings. In a win-win situation they could even benefit to some extent by the windbreak effect of the massive clad monster.