Is the Ballymore development past its best before date?
With news today of yet more High Street retailers heading towards collapse including more bastions of British Retail a sign that the Brentford Development is a disaster waiting to happen?The anticipated High rents, rates and expectations of blue chip retailers coming to Brentford must now be nothing more than a rose tinted pipe dream.Developments with limited parking, lack of infrastructure, a lunatic decision to move an arts centre in a unique position with no more than a bunch of trustees with very little idea how to achieve viability, overdensificaction and not a single infrastructure improvement or protection of existing open spaces and facilities for elderly, health or recreation, inability to maintain what exists are hardly going to make this an attractive area.So should the plans for the development not be reviewed with urgency to incorporate facilities and housing for older citizens, better infrastructure and flexibility to counter the massive reduction in retail and catering businesses.?It's been looking dodgy for a while now but the shrinkage in retail is far more sever and rapid.Government needs to sort out the debacle of business rates permanently. As with the Morrisons site, the initial approval for a massively risky and damaging proposal, ( recommended by LBH planning ) is indicative of the recklessness playing into the hands of developers has become and the willingness of LBH elected representatives and officers to cosy up to such types in places like Cannes really ought to be fully investigated.
Raymond Havelock ● 2707d0 Comments