Reader letter: What about promises?

When planning permission was originally granted for the building of properties on the Smithurst Estate, it stipulated that a condition of the planning permission was that land be provided for a school, a community centre and a pub.

The pub never occurred, and the land was sold off for building houses on.

Later the land designated for the school was sold off for building houses on, which meant that we didn’t get the school.

The promised community centre had a chance while the land was still available, but have a guess at what land has just been put up for sale?

So three promises were given by the council to help get the Giltbrook community to accept the building of houses on the Smithurst Estate plot, but once those houses started being built, those three promises have gradually disappeared.

The Giltbrook community has missed out and all those amenities are now lost.

If anyone reading this is on Greasley Council, perhaps they could explain why this has been allowed to happen, and would planning permission have originally been granted without the promises for the school, the community centre, and the pub, being agreed to by the original developers?

We seem to have been left with nothing, the council appears to have kept the land from the developers for the provision of amenities, then this has been allowed to be sold off for housing.

-Gavin Gillespie

-Turner Drive, GiltbrookR