From Our Files: Clifftop flats ‘precedent’...water safer than cream...cycle apology
50 YEARS AGO
A PROPOSAL of a three-storey block of flats on a clifftop at Friars Cliff would set a precedent for other applications which the local planning authority would have difficulty in resisting, a planning inquiry at Christchurch town hall heard this week.
Criptonia Properties Ltd of Highcliffe were appealing to the Department of Environment against the local authority’s refusal to permit the building of nine self-contained flats with underground garaging on a 0.6-acre site.
The application had been refused on the grounds that the flats would be of cramped appearance and not in character with the area.
Councillor Austin Payne said: “We do not want to see our clifftop become just another ordinary uninteresting seafront.”
Friars Cliff, he added, was the only part of Christchurch to have avoided flat development and the appeal site had remained unchanged since the 1930s.
Mr Robert Wise, the chief planning officer for the council, said he feared approval because it could set a precedent and it could see a stream of similar applications.
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IT was nonsense to suggest that seat belts were dangerous, Lord Montagu told the Lords last week. He was speaking during a debate on an amendment of the Road Traffic Bill which sought to remove the power of the Secretary of State to make the wearing of seat belts compulsory.
Lord Montagu said seat belts had been made compulsory in Australia and New Zealand and there had been no problem of enforcement. “It is nonsense to say seat belts are dangerous. There are thousands of people in this country who could give definite evidence of how their lives had been saved,” he said.
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WATER in the borough of Lymington was safer to consume than cream. This is the conclusion to be drawn from the annual report of the Chief Public Health Inspector Mr R. J. Jenkins for 1973.
Of the 90 samples of water taken during the year and submitted to the Public Health Authority for bacteriological examination all were satisfactory. The samples were taken from various premises in the borough, usually from a dwelling house.
Of 11 samples of fresh cream taken from one producer seven were unsatisfactory and a similar number taken from another producer resulted in three unsatisfactory findings.
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25 YEARS AGO
THE call of a mother to her young is strong. Rarely more so than in the case of Belgian mother Josepha Franasis who recently cycled 363 miles after her daughter Kirsten Dessers moved to Ashley to work as a GP in the Arnewood practice told her she was homesick.
Josepha and her husband Francois embarked on their epic bike ride from the family’s home town of Vliermaal to the New Forest arriving six days later.
An emotional Kirsten said: “I was very proud of them. They were exhausted.” The family enjoyed five days together. Kirsten insisted her parents return home by train.
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HAMPSHIRE County Council has apologised to New Milton Town Council for not consulting it over the creation of cycle lanes from the town centre to Ashley.
The £15,000 Ashley Road project, which was due to commence this week, has been postponed for talks.
The local councilors questioned the point of having ongoing discussions with the highways authority about a town centre traffic management scheme when such works could be considered without any reference to the town council.
They are worried that a reduction in the width of the road, a heavily used lorry route will create an additional hazard, causing more problems than it would solve.
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MEYRICK Estates’s plans for 1,000 new homes at Roeshot Hill and alongside Christchurch bypass have been rejected by the inspector who heard the inquiry into the first ever borough-wide plan.
She has agreed with council planners that the land Meyrick wanted to develop in conjunction with Wimpey is green belt and should therefore remain open countryside.
There were 3,500 objections to the plan under which 500 houses would be built at Roseshot and a further along the bypass.
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BERTHON boat company’s new paint spray booth, said to be the best in northern Europe, has completed the re-branding of Challenge Business yacht 23.
The 67ft yacht was housed comfortably in the large facility for a week before being officially launched
