Comment 1 9 Fort William

The Secretary of the Planning Committee Planning & Building Control Directorate Murray House Mount Havelock Douglas, IM1 2SF

Dear Sir,

Ref: Planning Application 18/00519/D – Installation of Signage on Boundary Walls (Retrospective), Factory and Premises, South Quay, Douglas IM1 5AX

I am writing to you as a Douglas Harbour resident of Fort William (Douglas Head Road) with a property boundary on South Quay close to the site of the application. As such I claim interested party status.

I oppose the application.

Three huge signs appeared without warning on the white-painted walls of the property. The signs are unsightly, are excessively and unnecessarily large (9450 x 2692; 5080 x 2490; 3353 x 1016) are visually intrusive, are crude and lacking in visual merit, are unsympathetic to their surroundings, and are an eyesore. They detract from the harbour appearance and are a distraction to drivers on South Quay.

Furthermore the planning application states the signage is: “Temporary - until lease expires”. This is meaningless as no information is provided as to the duration of the lease as the regulations require. Neither does the applicant state that they will remove the offending signage at the end of the lease. What is to say what the owner stated to be “Heritage Homes” will do? If the tenant does not remove them will Heritage Homes just leave them there? There is nothing “temporary” about these signs; they are clearly and indelibly here to stay.

Thirdly I totally object to the effort to regularise illegal signage through the subterfuge of a retrospective planning application. This is just a cynical effort by an applicant to present a ‘fait accompli’ and then hope there will be no or few objections thereby achieving a “planning consent by the back door”.

Accordingly I request that you reject this ugly intrusion on the landscape of Douglas Harbour and require the applicant to obliterate the signs at the earliest opportunity.

Yours faithfully,

J. David Wertheim