Mepa has put out a document for public consultation called ‘Height Limitation Adjustment Policy For Retirement Homes’.

Its hallmark is virtually the total discretion enjoyed by Mepa in the evaluation of whether proposals fit in with the mostly elastic parameters set out in the document.

The original proposal contained a mandatory exclusion of height increase in urban conservation areas.

Evidently the powers that be thought that this was an inconvenient restriction on Mepa.

The current proposal has been revised so that a height increase, even within an urban conservation area, will be considered on a case by case basis.

The question is, are we comfortable with entrusting such near-total discretion to an entity whose credibility has repeatedly been called into question?

I, for one, am not.