from: Robert Bowcock
re: Twickenham Riverside - Call In 29 May 2002

Dear Sir,

The news that the Dawnay Day proposal has been called in for a third party public inquiry demonstrates what the working parties were telling the developer and the former Council nearly a year ago when the over-developed scheme was first shown at a liaison meeting, i.e. it risked being called in. They chose to ignore that advice along with many other professional recommendations embodied within the working party reports. They cannot say they were not warned. Subsequent "tinkering at the edges" only served to annoy their unpaid community professional advisers and 2nd May saw the consequences unfold.

Councillor Williams is reported to have asked "what is right for this site so that the council can get on with it". The answer was and still is the 100-or-so page Inspectors Report from the 1992 Public Inquiry, together with the Thames Landscape Strategy which arose from that process. These documents have been quoted as being "stepping stones", "keystones" and "fundamental" by developers since the inquiry, yet, quite uncannily, studiously ignored when it came to producing a business plan - I'm sorry I meant "design" - for the site. Maybe Councillor Williams should have had those documents as his bedtime reading rather than Machiavelli's biography.

Over the intervening years since 1992, many of us have called for an Urban Design Study for central Twickenham and the Riverside. The study will focus attention back onto the key planning issues not the quasi-political ambitions of achieving a false result for the purpose of the ballot box. This fell upon deaf ears, maybe now someone will listen and institute such a vital document, so that we can avoid the alleged continued dereliction of both the riverside site and the centre of Twickenham.

Yours faithfully

Robert A Bowcock

These letters pages provide a platform for all members of the community to express their views. Online Communities Ltd and its agents neither endorse nor condemn the views expressed on these letters pages.