Permit for hotel

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33066, 6 November 1972, Page 16

Permit for hotel

Sir, —Like J. D. Johnson I am suspicious of the council’s attitude on the question of permits for accommodation. I believe the A.M.P. hotel does not comply, but of course, they did put $lOO,OOO into the Q.E. II Park loan. Newspapers reported the Ramada as having a terrace over the footpath upon which terrace liquor would be served. Both have been openly supported by the Labour Council. Profits from both will belong to overseas companies. When local people try to do something they encounter the bitter opposition expressed by the council before the Appeal Board. Why? Phrases like the mystic “River Precinct” are unusually similar to both Mrs Mollie Clark, chairman of the town planning committee and to the Civic Trust. A Labour councillor and a selfappointed group of busybodies—strange bed-fellows indeed! Let A.M.P. and Ramada proceed with all haste but also support Autolodge and Arlington to the limit. We need them all.— Yours, etc., FRUSTRATED TRAVEL CLERK. October 27, 1972.

[The City Engineer (Mr P. G. Scoular), replies: “The hotel to be built as part of the A.M.P. development was the subject of a conditional use procedure. The developers sought some dispensations and after public advertising and hearing of the applicants and the objectors a dispensation was granted relating to a small intrusion of the hotel through the ‘recession plane.’ The decision of the council committee is subject to an appeal and the appeals will be shortly heard by the Town and Country Planning Appeal Board. The Ramada Inn terrace does not encroach over the footpath.”]