The council has made great play of the Go Ape consultation in which it invited responses from local people and organisations. However, the process was missed by the majority of park users, leaving them alienated and angry. The council should have stuck to the tried-and-tested planning notices. It is a legal requirement of applications that they are displayed in the vicinity of the proposed development for 21days. I use Pollok Park two to three times a week and I never observed any planning notice for the creation of the Go Ape facility.

The council has made great play of the Go Ape consultation in which it invited responses from local people and organisations. However, the process was missed by the majority of park users, leaving them alienated and angry. The council should have stuck to the tried-and-tested planning notices. It is a legal requirement of applications that they are displayed in the vicinity of the proposed development for 21days. I use Pollok Park two to three times a week and I never observed any planning notice for the creation of the Go Ape facility.

Under a Freedom of Information request, I discovered that only a single planning notice was placed on a lamp-post outside the park on November 9, 2007. The planning department admitted in the FOI response that it had no idea how long the notice remained in position. Despite frequently passing the lamp-post I never saw it and must conclude that it remained in position for only a very short period.

If the council had been serious in its attempts to inform park users of the planning application, rather than the flawed consultation, it should have placed notices on the noticeboards located at the park entrances, the Burrell and Pollok House car park. It could be interpreted that it was trying to expedite the application by minimising the information being given to the public to reduce objections. Had proper notices been placed in prominent positions, it is likely many more would have been aware of the proposal.

Bob Downie, Glasgow.