Our warm and welcoming park

August 5. Just £10 gets you annual membership and notification of the film title for each session, where you can book your free seat on Eventbrite or by email.

The Nissen Hut makes for a fun and cosy venue for a film and snack with friends. Email friendsofeastvillepark@gmail.com to join the fun.

Eastville park Bowling club have been running free bowls taster sessions on Friday evenings from 5-7pm. These have proven very popular with locals: so far 37 people have come along and completed the sessions. Further sessions are planned for May 5 and 12, so if you’d like to try bowls, come to the club from 5-6pm to have a fun and relaxing evening session trying out the game.

As excited as we are about the new play equipment for ages 8+ going in later this year, we have received news that the equipment in the sandy play zone for young children is reaching the end of its life. We have less than two years to find funds for the replacement, which is likely to cost around £30,000 or more.

We are planning another bid for Community Infrastructure Levy funding, however it is a small pot this year. If you would like to help, please email us at friendsofeastvillepark@gmail.com.

Nature group Habitat Management Volunteers (HMVs) have been working to remove some of the blackthorn saplings encroaching into the grassland of Redhill Drive Field.

The group spends an hour or two on the last Sunday of each month carrying out such habitat tasks and would welcome any new volunteers who would like to help.

Please drop an email to epnaturegroup@gmail.com if you would like to join a session.

On a sad note, some of the newly planted One Tree Per Child trees in Everest Road field have been vandalised.

However, we are hoping a recent bid to the Bee Bold Pollinator fund will enable us to install interpretation panels in both nature fields. These will explain why and how these spaces are being managed for nature, as well as useful information on how we can all do our bit to address the Ecological Emergency.

n PLANNING MATTERS WITH CHRIS GOSLING Contradictions

SO much in planning is all about making decisions and, while it would be good if each one is the right one, properly weighed up and justified, of course this is not always the case.

Every decision has to be based on planning policy, so that it is rational and predictable but tempered by the local circumstances, and fits the site’s context.

Following the policies alone is not always enough, but if you don‘t follow the policy, there can seem to be little point in having one.

There is therefore a balance to be achieved, a grey area, like much of life, that we call the 'planning balance' - essentially weighing up the pros and cons of a proposal.

Spare a thought for planners trying to make decisions, faced with the contradiction between what does not require planning permission and how to control it where it does.

Perhaps the most glaring example is the government allowing up to five agricultural buildings per farm to be converted to residential use without a planning application.

At the same time, it required most other development to be built in 'sustainable' locationseffectively where occupiers would not need a car to reach any kind of services.

Apply to build a house right next to one of these converted farm buildings and you would be turned down.

If that sounds like "one rule for them", you would be on the right track, because the result in either case is the same - a house in the countryside, most likely in an unsustainable location.

In a similar manner, converting offices to residential use was also taken out of planning control. This was re-examined after an outcry - but only after many large office buildings in urban areas had been turned into often substandard living accommodation, short on space and windows.

You could be forgiven for thinking that the legislation should be more specific when drawn up, but no doubt the temerity of some developers was not factored in.

With no parking having to be provided and no contribution towards affordable housing, this has not been popular. In the first five years less than 50,000 homes were created, with 300,000 per year now needed nationally.

If nothing else, many people have at least now gained some appreciation of what planning is there for.

The dividing line between what does and doesn‘t require an application needs to be drawn somewhere. As a simple example, if you apply to build a 2.2m high boundary wall in your garden, the planning officer needs to remember a 2m high one would not need permission, so the decision is therefore made on the top 20cm. But years of tinkering with permitted development thresholds mean many 'fallback positions' like this are not so clearcut.

Westminster‘s attempts over the last decade to encourage housing provision through different routes have brought results, albeit not on the scale hoped for.

Generally, though, the ends do not justify the ill-thought-through means - and any benefits may have come at the incalculable cost of confusion and lack of trust in planners to protect the public from the impact of development.

Chrisgoslingplanning@gmail.com