ANGER and disbelief has greeted the news that the council may abandon two of its planned objections to a controversial apartment block plan on the old Imperial House site in Alma Road.

The Royal Borough’s planning councillors turned down the plan by Salmon Harvester to build 217 apartments in a seven storey block covering 146 square metres, plus a five storey office block covering 16,389 square metres. They agreed three objections to site at a planning inquiry if the company appealed against their refusal.

But at next Wednesday’s (January 30) meeting of the council’s Windsor urban development management panel at the Guildhall, councillors will be asked by their officers to drop two of those objections - the ones which state ways in which the apartments would undermine the new Borough Plan that classifies the site as a business area. This leaves only one objection, relating to the detrimental affect such a dense development would have on the area.

Furious resident David Eglise, one of the leading opponents to the proposed development, is furious with the council. He said: “I really don’t know what the council is doing. It is unbelievable.

“I suspect it’s because of the poor progress the Borough Plan is making at getting the approval of the Government that they are being advised to drop the objections. He said a 1,000 signature petition prepared last August by opponents of the plan tstill had not been debated at a council meeting. He called on opponents to the Salmon Harvester plan to turn up at the Guildhall next Wednesday.”