You may remember just over a year ago, Crest Nicholson the developers appointed by the Arborfield Garrison Landowners Consortium to bring forward the northern part of the strategic development location appointed a consultancy called Curtin & Co to handle the consultation with local residents and interested parties. We were less than impressed as the reputation of Curtin & Co precedes them, and they are specialists in getting contentious developments through often over the objections of local residents, who like in Arborfield and Finchampstead consider the scale of what is proposed to be inappropriate, with poor mitigation for the obvious traffic problems that will be generated, and as we have discovered, existing community amenities being lost. The head of the consultancy Tom Curtin and one of his colleagues had even penned an essay discussing localism and rural “NIMBY’s”. You can read our thoughts at the time here.
Moving forward, over in Caversham, much like here in Wokingham there is a crisis over school places, and there is a long running battle over the location of a desperately needed new school, a school which for the moment has had to open over two miles away from it’s intended catchment area. The education authorities have considered other sites but eventually settled on a 1 acre residential site, that has been thrown up in the air again, but with big names like Sir John Madjeski defending other potential sites.
The campaign against the free school location is spearheaded by an organisation called Caversham Residents Against Inappropriate Development, whose aims are pretty similar to ours – basically residents are frustrated at the apparent lack of consultation, the selection of what they regard as an inappropriate site, and a clear failure to consider traffic impacts and numerous other issues related to the proposed site. However things get a bit more interesting when you take a look at the list of people behind the group. Second on the list is Tom Curtin who “runs a public relations consultancy in London”…
Watching Meridian News last night there was a report with campaigners outside the proposed school site, and about 38 seconds in a local resident is interviewed. Take a look and then look at the staff at Curtin & Co the specialists in getting contentious developments through, in particular Tom Curtin himself…
At the very least it’s quite ironic, that the man in charge of an organisation that is hired by housing developers across the country to push through contentious and inappropriate developments, and has clearly expressed his views on “NIMBY’s” in the past is now doing much the same thing he has criticised residents elsewhere for in the past.
On his profile on his own website he says he is most proud of this:
Consistently delivering some great successes for our clients often on very difficult and contentious projects.
The current problems have been building over years and years of inappropriate development, the kind of developments that his organisation helps push through. Caversham is just another area that has had loads of housing developments over the years but without a similar investment in required infrastructure. So is it ironic that he’s now fighting what he sees as inappropriate development in his own community – or is it just blatant hypocrisy?
Hypocrisy?
You may remember just over a year ago, Crest Nicholson the developers appointed by the Arborfield Garrison Landowners Consortium to bring forward the northern part of the strategic development location appointed a consultancy called Curtin & Co to handle the consultation with local residents and interested parties. We were less than impressed as the reputation of Curtin & Co precedes them, and they are specialists in getting contentious developments through often over the objections of local residents, who like in Arborfield and Finchampstead consider the scale of what is proposed to be inappropriate, with poor mitigation for the obvious traffic problems that will be generated, and as we have discovered, existing community amenities being lost. The head of the consultancy Tom Curtin and one of his colleagues had even penned an essay discussing localism and rural “NIMBY’s”. You can read our thoughts at the time here.
The campaign against the free school location is spearheaded by an organisation called Caversham Residents Against Inappropriate Development, whose aims are pretty similar to ours – basically residents are frustrated at the apparent lack of consultation, the selection of what they regard as an inappropriate site, and a clear failure to consider traffic impacts and numerous other issues related to the proposed site. However things get a bit more interesting when you take a look at the list of people behind the group. Second on the list is Tom Curtin who “runs a public relations consultancy in London”…
At the very least it’s quite ironic, that the man in charge of an organisation that is hired by housing developers across the country to push through contentious and inappropriate developments, and has clearly expressed his views on “NIMBY’s” in the past is now doing much the same thing he has criticised residents elsewhere for in the past.
On his profile on his own website he says he is most proud of this:
The current problems have been building over years and years of inappropriate development, the kind of developments that his organisation helps push through. Caversham is just another area that has had loads of housing developments over the years but without a similar investment in required infrastructure. So is it ironic that he’s now fighting what he sees as inappropriate development in his own community – or is it just blatant hypocrisy?
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