Whilst i constantly seek to focus mainly on Lewisham as this is the area People before Profit is most likely to Win Council and Westminster seats in next round of electionms, What is going on with Planning proposals and the way in which local people are being priced out of the area they call home, the way views of local people are ignored as local party Politicians and in this case a Labour Council continue to put big biusiness interest before local residents. I hope when you read this , you think about putting yourself forward as a People Before Profit Council Candidate at the next local elections. We can put a stop to this, but we need to change the way we all vote to stop this abuse of public offices Hijacked by money, greed and self interest.
http://35percent.org/blog/2013/01/16/objectors-excluded-from-heygate-hearing/
Frustrated
that such little time had been allocated for objectors to speak, some
residents had prepared placards outlining their concerns. Planning
Committee chair Cllr Nick Dolezal immediately halted proceedings and
ordered those holding placards to leave the room.
http://35percent.org/blog/2013/01/16/objectors-excluded-from-heygate-hearing/
Objectors Excluded From Sell-out Heygate Hearing
Objectors are fuming after being refused entry to Tuesday’s public hearing for the Heygate masterplan planning application.
Over
40 local residents including members of the Wansey Street TRA and
representatives from the Elephant & Castle’s Latin American traders,
were refused entry to proceedings at the council’s Tooley St.
headquarters.
A
total of 102 seats had been allocated for the hearing, but objectors
arrived to find that around half of these had already been taken up by
representatives from the developer and the council’s regeneration &
property divisions.
With
Southwark’s largest ever planning application and 300 objectors, a room
with maximum capacity for just 100 people had been allocated to the
hearing. Southwark’s Head of Corporate Programmes told waiting objectors
that the meeting is full, and that if people put their names on a list
then they would be admitted on a one-in, one-out basis. He apologised to
objectors and explained that “We weren’t expecting to completely sell out”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHUSIcLIons
Fellow objector and MP Simon Hughes later arrived to find objectors barred from the meeting, and immediately tweeted Peter John to complain about the situation.
After
much debate with officials, the planning committee’s legal officer
finally intervened and the meeting was forced into recess. The 30 or so
objectors who had stayed in the lobby, were then finally admitted at
around 9pm - 3 hours into the hearing.
Those objectors who had been fortunate enough to gain entry at the beginning of the meeting, made the most of the ridiculous 5 minutes allocated between them in which to make their representations.
Among
these were Jerry Flynn speaking on behalf of the Elephant Amenity
Network and Adrian Glasspool representing the Heygate residents.
In
answer to questions, Flynn made a number of points including: concerns
surrounding the large number of car-parking spaces proposed;
privatisation of public realm; lack of clarity in the developer’s
promise to retain some of the trees; lack of any renewable energy. His
major two concerns though, were the masterplan proposal for just 71
social rented homes, and whether the scheme was actually financially
viable - the report on the scheme described it as representing a ‘very big risk’ for the developer.
Glasspool
objected that Heygate residents had originally been promised new homes
in the development, but that the 71 social rented units proposed
wouldn’t be sufficient to honour this pledge. He also pointed out that
despite assurances that all of the Heygate’s 1,000 social housing units
would be replaced as part of the scheme, only 209 social rented units
had been completed to date - (according to page 8 of the officer’s
report addendum).
Frustrated
that such little time had been allocated for objectors to speak, some
residents had prepared placards outlining their concerns. Planning
Committee chair Cllr Nick Dolezal immediately halted proceedings and
ordered those holding placards to leave the room.
The meeting reconvened after Dave Walker from Southwark Mediation Service was
able to persuade objectors to lower their placards. Those privy to the
proceedings witnessed the expected approval after the committee accepted
Lendlease’s assurances that they could indeed deliver the scheme
despite the risk. The application went on to be approved with
councillors predictably voting along party lines, with the exception of
Cllr Crookshank-Hilton who abstained.
Jerry Flynn’s reaction to the decision was emphatic: “This
is very bad news for anyone desperate for a home in Southwark. The
so-called ‘affordable rent’ homes will be half market rent, at least £50
a week more expensive than council rents – how could anyone who used to
live on the Heygate afford that?. There are more planning applications
for the Heygate in the pipeline – they must be rejected unless they have
cheaper social rented homes.”
Simon Hughes summed up the decision in an interview with London SE1 “Sadly,
many people will go short of affordable housing in and around the
Elephant because the council weren’t tougher with the developers. It is
not surprising that there was - peaceful - civil disobedience when so
many people feel so strongly that this does not deliver the housing and
the balanced scheme, which they have fought for for so long.”
Chris Mead, Chair of the Wansey Street Tenants and Residents Association issued the following comment: “As
Chair of the Wansey Street TRA, I am furious that a number of Wansey
Street residents (myself included) were barred from the Heygate
master-plan committee meeting on Tuesday evening. Wansey Street directly
borders the Heygate development area, and residents have genuine and
reasonable concerns about aspects of the planning application; those
concerns continue to be ignored and remain without receiving a
satisfactory answer. Despite receiving over 200 objections from the
wider community, less than 50 seats were provisioned for the public at
the largest planning application review meeting in Southwark Council’s
history. At the least, this was incompetent by Council Officers and the
meeting’s Chairman, or at worst, a contrivance to exclude the public
from what is supposed to be a transparent and democratic process.”
SE17 resident Marie Cane was one of the objectors holding up placards - she explained: “the
committee gave us just 5 minutes for 300 objectors to state their case.
This is particularly shameful as this is the largest planning
application ever submitted to the council. We have been silenced by the
council, so we decided to stage a silent protest. We simply wanted
committee members to remember the Council’s own policy requirements. We
are not against change; all we want are guarantees built into this
masterplan - guarantees that the council would have required on any
other development in the borough.”
Objectors
had proposed a number of planning conditions upon this application,
i.e. that the park should be managed by a trust, that a detailed RPA
survey should be undertaken for the trees, etc.
It was not made clear at the end of the meeting which of these, if any, were adopted.
We were expecting a sell out, but - in the words of Southwark’s Head of Corporate Programmes: we weren’t expecting a complete sell out..
8:42am Tue 8 Jan 13
...We are going to go ahead and shaft them again.