2 thoughts on “Knowle redevelopment: the imagined and the real”

1. As far as I know, the plans are what are approved formally and are what the developer can be held to account on (though in practice developers have some ability to vary plans up to a point) – an “artists impression” is only there to give some idea to the planning committee what it will look like and is not something that you can hold developers to account on.

   Ideally, the artists impression should be firmly based on the plans that have been submitted, but there is no guarantee that this is the case, and of course if they aren’t then the artists impression is a false one.

   Unfortunately, councils do not usually have the resources to verify that the “artists impression” matches the plans, and unscrupulous developers – or should that be simply “developers” ? – can easily take advantage of this to mislead the planning committee about the visual impact that a development will have.

   A current example is the Sidford industrial park – you would never guess from the “artists impressions” that the building could be up to 15m high.

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2. The artist’s impression above is the image presented in PegasusLife’s original planning application and in “public consultations”; images such as this are described by the Design Review Panel as “excellent visualisations” to justify approval of PegasusLife’s plans. The photomontage, later released by PegasusLife itself, is based on an actual photograph with true measurements of proposed buildings imposed.
   Incidentally, the buildings proposed at Knowle are much higher than 15 metres and will dominate Sidmouth’s skyline and dwarf surrounding properties.

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