Planning panel are blinded by colour

8:49am Thursday 17th July 2008

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They are at it again! The members of the Keighley Area Planning Panel have excelled themselves yet again with the lack of depth of their thinking.

They have deferred the application for a new Greenhead High School and a special school, to be called Beechcliffe, mainly because they don't like the colour scheme They have also thrown their teddies out of their prams because no one had responded to the planners' request for samples of building materials.

Obviously, these are matters which have to be considered and design and colour and the use of materials are important.

But there are major issues which have been raised by our readers in print and online which seem to have passed them by. But, of course, they have nothing to do with the colour of the walls.

Chairman Greaves has also taken umbrage at comments made by Greenhead's head teacher Trish McCarthy which implied the development would definitely be going ahead. It is doubtful the head would have made that comment had she not been told that was the case.

The future of the Greenhead school site is far too important for such shallow and ill-thought out comments, which are an insult to the intelligence of those who are both for and against the plan. They deserve informed debate.

That said, the cynic could be forgiven for thinking the colour card has been played to mask a hidden agenda.