I OBSERVE from the What's Being Built Near You? page that nowdays applications for planning consent are frequently being submitted for conversions of garages into habitable rooms.
I would not mind betting that such conversions take place anyway, behind closed doors, whether or not planning permission is sought. Surely, if a house, whether old or new, contains garaging space, that is the purpose for which that space should be used and enforced.
Our roadways are more and more clogged up with vehicles parked up on them and the practice needs to be actively discouraged. Kerbside parking obscures sight lines, makes for more wear and tear on the roads, obstructs free-flowing traffic on our narrow roads, which are not designed to carry parking, and is dangerous where traffic-calming cushions have been laid and cars are parked on or near them because it forces moving traffic out into the middle of the road.
Cars should be parked in garages, where they are available! I hope Harrow Council's planning committee takes that on board.
On a different point, I really despair from reading Lynda Adamson's silly gripe in last week's Letters. How on earth she can compare the efforts of her individual newspaper boy and postman foot-falling their way to her door in the snow, against the major problems of multi-ton rubbish collection vehicles manoeuvring on deeply iced side roads and finding the manpower to grit often hardly used pavements, is beyond me.
She just happened to be lucky her newsboy and postman could make it out; my postman didn't chance it. Anyway, the council men were devoting their time to the more important business of gritting the main roads, and shame upon those of us public who didn't accept that and adapt ourselves to the circumstances of having to wait for our rubbish collection for longer than usual.
And on the same subject, Councillor Stephenson's letter last week also was pretty disgracefully trying to make political capital about the non-gritting of side roads and pavements whereas Councillor Hall's letter succinctly set out the problems the council had had to face up to. Councillor Stephenson, placed in her position then, would no doubt have ignored all the facts Mrs Hall stated, regardless of practicality and regardless of expense.
ANN NODES Stanmore, Middx
