The “Community Engagement” meeting on Slessor Square will take place at 7-9pm on Monday 23 April 2012 in Halls 3 and 4 at the Community Centre, Doug Duncan Drive, Newmarket.

Marion Plaunt, the Town’s senior planner in charge of the Slessor file, tells me the developer will be reporting back “on all the questions and issues” including the question of height and the viewshed work.

I am told the Town will not be live streaming the event nor doing a YouTube of the presentation and Q&A afterwards – as we had requested -  because of “privacy issues”.

Pity. This is a great opportunity to reach out to the wider public who, for one reason or another, may not be able to get along to the meeting on Monday.

Time to state the obvious.

It is important to get as many people along to the meeting as possible. Numbers matter.

Councillors and, indeed, Town hall staff, count heads.

If half a dozen people turn up, the developers will breathe a huge sigh of relief.

We've got to keep focussed on the issues the developers don't want to talk about.

Generally speaking, they prefer to deal with small manageable groups of people. It makes the process of getting planning approval much less fraught than it otherwise might be.

If the viewshed work becomes available before the meeting (fat chance!) I shall post it here on ShrinkSlessor.