The planning application for the St Michaels development has now been posted on-line by Manchester City Council. The colour’s changed from black to bronze, but the rest is the same. Huge! 31 and 21 storeys plus a 10 metre 'crest' on each, looming over the historic core of our city, visible for miles and miles. The developers can’t build lower, they say, as values (the money) won’t let them. It’s now really important that we all make our individual comments to the Council on the proposals. Please grab this last chance make your voice heard - very few people will actually be asked directly for their opinion, just locals and public bodies. Click here: bit.ly/2kOCp8u to see the comments form in on-line application. We're asked for our details but they won’t be made public, so please don’t be put off. It’s to allow the Council to assess whether we have anything to do with Manchester i.e. whether we have a legitimate interest in the plans. You can tell them what your interest is in your comments, of course - it's not just your address that makes your views important. You’ll see that there are 128 documents that make up the whole application. They can all be viewed and downloaded. Maybe a bit easier to see are some animated mock-ups on YouTube showing the towers from different places: Deansgate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0-nKG2Hh2g Princess Street/Albert Square: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z03QCvcHR2c&feature=youtu.be In July, Historic England said very publicly that these plans "would cause a high level of harm" to our city centre. The planning application actually agrees with this! It states that "there are significant outstanding adverse residual impacts relating to heritage and visual amenity", but wants the Council to decide that these are outweighed by benefits. Planning law means that comments like "I don’t like it" or "it’s ugly" mean nothing, so what we say will be important. Our comments should be in our own words - while we already know what we feel, it helps to refer to things that planning law considers important, like these: - the proposals are contrary to planning policies and guidance - the visual impact is overwhelming and unacceptable - permanent, irreversible and serious harm will be done to the setting of important civic and listed buildings - there will be a severe negative impact on the character and appearance of our historic civic centre and surrounding conservation areas - this is inappropriate design and layout for this location - a huge east-west wall of development effectively runs the whole length of the site - design at ground and lower levels is poor - open spaces in almost permanent shade - the south and west streets won’t be improved by blank walls and a single narrow alley - the harmful effects of these plans are NOT outweighed by sufficient positive benefits - insufficient consultation on a strategic site of importance to Greater Manchester and beyond - insufficient regard given to pre-planning consultation results where 70% of people said they opposed the proposals - better design could still contribute to Manchester’s economy through job creation and business rates. Please make your voice heard - we're getting to the last chance saloon now :-( Thank you! Lesley