Last updated: 25th July 2009
Downtown Defence Campaign
 

25th July 2009

Downtown award prompts fresh row

Chris Mullany reports in the Southwark News (Thursday July 23rd 2009) that the controversial proposal for the Downtown site by Barratt Homes has won an award in the 2009 Housing Design Awards, which is designed to recognize planning schemes that have full planning permission but are yet to be completed.  But as the article reports, two applications are still being contested with Southwark Council having conceded that the planning process had been seriously flawed - and was quashed by the High Court. In short, as Steve Cornish points out in the article, the Downtown project does not have any planning permission. In fact, the planning application by Barratt Homes is not due to be heard until November 2009.

20th July 2009

Minutes of the Downtown Defence Campaign Public Meeting

Minutes of the Downtown Defence Campaign Public meeting held in Holy Trinity Church Hall
25th June 2009-06-27

Among those present & speaking were:

London Assembly member for Southwark Val Shawcross (Labour)VS
London Assembly member Andrew Boff (Conservative)AB
Surrey Docks Councillor David Hubber (LibDem)DH
Andrew Howard (Hardhat Communications, for Barratts Homes)  AH
Simon Hughes MPSH
Southwark Councillor Chris Page (Labour)

DDC Committee
Chair - Steve Cornish SC
Vice Chair - Lorraine Smith
Secretary - John Wills
Treasurer - Sue Agnew

TOTAL ATTENDANCE: 103 PEOPLE

The meeting began at 19.08


1. Introduction

Val Shawcross as Chair opened the meeting and thanked the Rev. Andrew Doyle for making the hall available for the meeting. She then introduced those politicians present and the DDC committee. She said however that this was the people’s meeting. The Downtown development was an emotive issue but could have been solved at the start given willingness on all sides. She then introduced Steve Cornish.


2. The DDC

SC gave a brief history of the campaign to date and said that as an action group the DDC had been fighting for 8 years for sensible development on the site. He held up the current issue of Southwark News which had a 4-page Barratt’s wrap-around advertisement published the same day, 25 June 2009, but which he pointed out had nothing new concerning the development. The deadline for submissions to the new Planning enquiry is July 1st.

SC said that the campaign still had the backing of all political parties and had legal representation but that funds were needed in the form of donations. He was certain that Barratt’s will lose at appeal. He said that Nick Stanton (LBS Council Leader)  would be held to his promise in the letter that he circulated to local residents that he would go back to the drawing board. The DDC was against inappropriate development but not opposed to development in itself. He said that 200 trees had been chopped down against the law. People liked where they lived and the Council needed to consult with them.

VS congratulated SC on his dedication over the years. She then invited David Hubber to address the meeting.


3. Southwark Council

DH said he had been elected in 2002 and had always supported appropriate development. He and the other Ward Councillors had objected to each of the planning applications. When the Southwark Plan was being formulated they had tried to have the whole area designated as suburban but had been unsuccessful but were trying to achieve this again. He said that each application had been edged down from oversized and over-dense. He said that a new health centre was needed as was affordable housing. The planning inquiry was pending and ward councillors will appear again so their position remained the same. His personal view was that the law was tilted in favour of the developer and as ward councillors their powers were limited. He was still waiting for a planning application that met the conditions previously imposed on Barratt’s and the land will not change hands until they have met them.


4. The Greater London Assembly

VS then invited Andrew Boff (GLA Member) to address the meeting.

AB said that in the past legislation was such that the Mayor could not intervene. This was not the case now and the GLA wants to force the Inquiry to respond to the objections to planning Application 3. The great irony of planning is that everyone is aware of the great need for housing and to reduce overcrowding but all developments seem to be just 1 or 2 bedroom flats. Local authorities are not being firm enough with developers because they are desperate for money and don’t stipulate that more family houses should be built. This means that communities were not being generated but just buy-to-let developments. VS asked DH if Southwark Planning had attached a planning brief to the sale of the land.

Chris Page (new Southwark Council Labour shadow spokesman for regeneration) addressed the meeting and said he was dismayed at the mess the site was now in. A plan was needed to implement a corporate strategy and the biggest problem was uncertainty.


5. Questions and Answers

VS then asked for questions from the floor.
- Is the freehold still owned by the LBS?
- Why have Barratt’s moved onto the site?

DH said that the site was still owned by LBS.
SC said that Barratt’s were allowed on site by Nick Stanton.

David Pilkington asked DH about the felled trees and the role of Councillor Paul Noblet in his role of responsibility for regeneration. It seemed local democracy was not working. DH relied that all 3 ward councillors deplored the cutting down of the trees. SC reminded the meeting that Barratt’s had been given permission by Nick Stanton who had taken on the role of regeneration at the time.

Can the hoardings be taken down?
SC said that what lay behind them now was quite horrific and it would be better to leave it hidden.

Charlie Smith asked why councillors were unable to influence Nick Stanton


6. Barratts

VS invited Andrew Howard from Hardhat Communications to address the meeting. (Hardhat is the PR Company for Barratt’s.)

AH said that he had received hardly any notice of the meeting and therefore had little time for preparation nor had he consulted with Barratt’s prior to the meeting. He maintained that the tree felling had been legally carried out. Barratt’s will be coming back with another planning application and this will be in the public domain and open for comment. Barratt’s had an agreement with the landowner and will be back. Kath Whittam from the floor asked why Barratt’s never seemed to learn from their mistakes. She asked why they would not ask local people what they would accept.
 
Another local person said that the community should produce its own scheme. Another person asked if there was a termination clause in the agreement.
Lorraine Smith asked if the price was not too high. DH said that the council was obliged by law to ask a market price (best consideration).

SC outlined the cop out of the Community Hall and said that the price of the land was an important factor. He said that Barratts should come down and
consult with the immediate local community first and not other parts of Rotherhithe. AH said they would be doing this.

Alan Chadborn questioned the impartiality of planning officials and asked how councillors ensured this.

Another attendee asked why the council could not go back to the drawing board. VS replied that there could be penalties if they reneged on their agreement with Barratts.

Simon Hodge asked if now that the trees were gone wouldn’t this affect any objections on environmental grounds. SC replied that the DDC had asked for Elizabeth Fieldhouse to chair the Inquiry again and she had seen the site as it was and would have to treat the Inquiry with that in mind.
DH answered the impartiality question. He said that ultimately it was the elected Council Members on the planning committee that made the decisions.
Chris Page said that LBS needed to examine how they wanted the area to look.


7. The Member of Parliament Simon Hughes

Simon Hughes joined the meeting.

He said that he always took the view that an MP should not get involved in local planning applications; that was for councillors. There were exceptions: listed buildings or anything involving a world heritage site. He does however take an interest if matters go to appeal. One of the most frequent requests he receives is for more social housing so he always supported those developments that offered that and more family housing and the Downtown site was suitable for that. He had opposed Ruth Kelly’s view and would submit that Applications 1 & 2 were unsuitable. He was concerned that an applicant could start work on a site without full planning permission. Given the economic situation there had been a tailing off of affordable housing & in principal a developer like Barratt’s should be encouraged. AB asked SH if he was concerned with the quality of affordable housing. SH said that the post-war Parker Morris standards were the best and that LBS should negotiate with developers to achieve similar. A mixture of affordable and family housing was needed.
John Hellings asked SH for clarification that he would be opposing Applications 1 &2 by the deadline of July 1st.
SH said that he would be and would ask to appear at the inquiry. He said that the population of the UK was growing & the reality was more homes were needed. A lot of council housing stock had been lost.
SH then had to leave to go to another meeting.


8. Survey of opinion and Conclusion

VS asked the floor for a show of hands in favour of one of three preferred options for the site:

1. No development at all
2. Low rise development in keeping with the surrounding area
3. For planning application 3 to stand.

The results were:

1. 10
2. 92
3. 1

SC thanked all those who had attended for showing support. He thanked DH for his contribution and said that it was not easy being stuck in the middle. He also thanked Jenny Jones (Green Party) who was unable to attend put who had been consistent in her support from the very beginning. He reminded the meeting that money was needed to continue the fight and that at some stage we may be able to produce our own drawings but this, along with legal representation at the new Planning Inquiry, could only be achieved if we had a fighting fund.

Meeting closed 8.40 pm

 

4th July 2009

Vote backs Downtown Defence Campaign

Thanks to Southwark News for their coverage of the latest news from the Downtown Defence Campaign. A packed public meeting on the controversial Downtown development in Rotherhithe voted overwhelmingly to back the call for appropriate development last Thursday night reports Chris Mullany.  Over 100 residents turned out to discuss the plans proposed by Barratt Homes. The meeting, held last Thursday night, was chaired by Val Shawcross (Southwark and Lambeth London Assembly member).  Contributors included Steve Cornish (Chair of the DDC, Simon Hughes (MP for North Southwark and Bermondsey), Andrew Boff (London Assembly member) as well as Barratt representatives.  The News reports that 92 people voted for an appropriate development, ten for no development and only one for the current Barratt Homes plan.  As Steve says you accept development - but only in a suitable context, with appropriate levels.  The vote seems to reflect that belief.  [See below for the minutes of the meeting].

 

3rd July 2009

Minutes of the DDC public meeting 25/06/09

Minutes of the Downtown Defence Campaign Public meeting held in Holy Trinity Church Hall on 25^th June 2009-06-27

Among those present & speaking were:

London Assembly member for Southwark Val Shawcross (Labour)VS
London Assembly member Andrew Boff (Conservative)  AB
Surrey Docks Councillor David Hubber (LibDem)  DH
Andrew Howard (Hardhat Communications, for Barratts Homes)  AH
Simon Hughes MP  SH
Southwark Councillor Chris Page (Labour)

DDC Committee
Chair - Steve Cornish SC
Vice Chair - Lorraine Smith
Secretary - John Wills
Treasurer - Sue Agnew
 

TOTAL ATTENDANCE 103 PEOPLE

The meeting began at 19.08

• Introduction

Val Shawcross as Chair opened the meeting and thanked the Rev. Andrew Doyle for making the hall available for the meeting. She then introduced those politicians present and the DDC committee. She said however that this was the people’s meeting. The Downtown development was an emotive issue but could have been solved at the start given willingness on all sides. She then introduced Steve Cornish.

• The DDC

SC gave a brief history of the campaign to date and said that as an action group the DDC had been fighting for 8 years for sensible development on the site. He held up the current issue of Southwark News which had a 4-page Barratt’s wrap-around advertisement published the same day, 25 June 2009, but which he pointed out had nothing new concerning the development. The deadline for submissions to the new Planning enquiry is July 1^st.

SC said that the campaign still had the backing of all political parties and had legal representation but that funds were needed in the form of donations. He was certain that Barratt’s will lose at appeal. He said that Nick Stanton (LBS Council Leader) would be held to his promise in the letter that he circulated to local residents that he would go back to the drawing board. The DDC was against inappropriate development but not opposed to development in itself. He said that 200 trees had been chopped down against the law. People liked where they lived and the Council needed to consult with them.

VS congratulated SC on his dedication over the years. She then invited David Hubber to address the meeting.

• Southwark Council

DH said he had been elected in 2002 and had always supported appropriate development. He and the other Ward Councillors had objected to each of the planning applications. When the Southwark Plan was being formulated they had tried to have the whole area designated as suburban but had been unsuccessful but were trying to achieve this again. He said that each application had been edged down from oversized and over-dense. He said that a new health centre was needed as was affordable housing. The planning inquiry was pending and ward councillors will appear again so their position remained the same. His personal view was that the law was tilted in favour of the developer and as ward councillors their powers were limited. He was still waiting for a planning application that met the conditions previously imposed on Barratt’s

• The Greater London Assembly

VS then invited Andrew Boff (GLA Member) to address the meeting.

AB said that in the past legislation was such that the Mayor could not intervene. This was not the case now and the GLA wants to force the Inquiry to respond to the objections to planning Application 3. The great irony of planning is that everyone is aware of the great need for housing and to reduce overcrowding but all developments seem to be just 1 or 2 bedroom flats. Local authorities are not being firm enough with developers because they are desperate for money and don’t stipulate that more family houses should be built. This means that communities were not being generated but just buy-to-let developments. VS asked DH if Southwark Planning had attached a planning brief to the sale of the land.

Chris Page (new Southwark Council Labour shadow spokesman for regeneration) addressed the meeting and said he was dismayed at the mess the site was now in. A plan was needed to implement a corporate strategy and the biggest problem was uncertainty.

• Questions and Answers

VS then asked for questions from the floor.
Is the freehold still owned by the LBS?
Why have Barratt’s moved onto the site?
DH said that the site was still owned by LBS.
SC said that Barratt’s were allowed on site by Nick Stanton.

David Pilkington asked DH about the felled trees and the role of Councillor Paul Noblet in his role of responsibility for regeneration. It seemed local democracy was not working. DH relied that all 3 ward councillors deplored the cutting down of the trees. SC reminded the meeting that Barratt’s had been given permission by Nick Stanton who had taken on the role of regeneration at the time.

Can the hoardings be taken down?

SC said that what lay behind them now was quite horrific and it would be better to leave it hidden.

Charlie Smith asked why councillors were unable to influence Nick Stanton

• Barratts

VS invited Andrew Howard from Hardhat Communications to address the meeting. (Hardhat is the PR Company for Barratt’s

AH said that he had received hardly any notice of the meeting and therefore had little time for preparation nor had he consulted with Barratt’s prior to the meeting. He maintained that the tree felling had been legally carried out. Barratt’s will be coming back with another planning application and this will be in the public domain and open for comment. Barratt’s had an agreement with the landowner and will be back. Kath Whittam from the floor asked why Barratt’s never seemed to learn from their mistakes. She asked why they would not ask local people what they would accept.

Another local person said that the community should produce its own scheme. Another person asked if there was a termination clause in the agreement.

Lorraine Smith asked if the price was not too high. DH said that the council was obliged by law to ask a market price (best considerationâ).

SC outlined the cop out of the Community Hall and said that the price of the land was an important factor. He said that Barratts should come down and consult with the immediate local community not other parts of Bermondsey. AH said they would be doing this.

Alan Chadborn questioned the impartiality of planning officials and asked how councillors ensured this.

Another attendee asked why the council could not go back to the drawing board. VS replied that there could be penalties if they reneged on their agreement with Barratts.

Simon Hodge asked if now that the trees were gone wouldn’t this affect any objections on environmental grounds. SC replied that the DDC had asked for Elizabeth Fieldhouse to chair the Inquiry again and she had seen the site as it was and would have to treat the Inquiry with that in mind.

DH answered the impartiality question. He said that ultimately it was the elected Council Members on the planning committee that made the decisions.

Chris Page said that LBS needed to examine how they wanted the area to look.

 

• The Member of Parliament Simon Hughes

Simon Hughes joined the meeting.

He said that he always took the view that an MP should not get involved in local planning applications; that was for councillors. There were exceptions: listed buildings or anything involving a world heritage site. He does however take an interest if matters go to appeal. One of the most frequent requests he receives is for more social housing so he always supported those developments that offered that and more family housing and the Downtown site was suitable for that. He had opposed Ruth Kelly’s view and would submit that Applications 1 & 2 were unsuitable. He was concerned that an applicant could start work on a site without full planning permission. Given the economic situation there had been a tailing off of affordable housing & in principal a developer like Barratts should be encouraged. AB asked SH if he was concerned with the quality of affordable housing. SH said that the post-war Parker Morris standards were the best and that LBS should negotiate with developers to achieve similar. A mixture of affordable and family housing was needed.

John Hellings asked SH for clarification that he would be opposing Applications 1 &2 by the deadline of July 1^st.

SH said that he would be and would ask to appear at the inquiry. He said that the population of the UK was growing & the reality was more homes were needed. A lot of council housing stock had been lost.

SH then had to leave to go to another meeting.

 

• Survey of opinion and Conclusion

VS asked the floor for a show of hands in favour of one of three preferred options for the site:

• No development at all
• Low rise development in keeping with the surrounding area
• For planning application 3 to stand.

The results were:

• 10
• 92
• 1

SC thanked all those who had attended for showing support. He thanked DH for his contribution and said that it was not easy being stuck in the middle. He also thanked Jenny Jones (Green Party) who was unable to attend put who had been consistent in her support from the very beginning. He reminded the meeting that money was needed to continue the fight and that at some stage we may be able to produce our own drawings but this, along with legal representation at the new Planning Inquiry, could only be achieved if we had a fighting fund.
 

Meeting closed 8.40 pm

 

PRESS RELEASE: FIGHTING BARRATT HOMES

Issue Date:  Monday 29th June 2009 Release Immediate

BIG TURNOUT AT DOWNTOWN TO BACK FIGHT AGAINST BARRATTS HOMES ONCE AGAIN

A PACKED public meeting of more than one hundred residents in Downtown, Rotherhithe, rallied on Thursday night (25 June 2009) to reject once more the controversial Southwark Council/Barratts Homes planning development which threatens to blight their community.

In total, 103 Downtown residents attended the public meeting to pledge their continued support for the Downtown Defence Campaign (DDC), which has fought for 8 years against the high-rise, Southwark Council/Barratts Homes private flats plan, towering over the outstanding natural parkland at Downtown, known as Russia Dock Woodland.

To block the development plan, the DDC even took Southwark Council to the High Court and won a rare Judicial Review legal planning victory, including all their legal costs, in April this year.

And local politicians at the meeting last Thursday (25 June 2009) from all the major Southwark political parties  Labour, LibDem and Conservative - joined in condemning Southwark Council and Barratts’ plan as based on over-development and greed.

The DDC Chair, Steve Cornish, told the standing-room-only meeting: It’s fantastic to see you all tonight as it sends the right message to Southwark Council and Barratts that you all love the community where we live, and you will fight to stop it being ruined by this plan, which is based on over-development greed for profit if they think you will go away, far from it, and we will fight on for you all.

-more follows -

There was cross-Party endorsement for the DDC from Greater London Assembly Member for Southwark, Valerie Shawcross (Labour), who chaired the meeting, and Conservative Party London Assembly Member Andrew Boff, who both pledged to try and get the Mayor and the GLA to make objections to the new Downtown Planning Inquiry, called by the Government for later this year.


GLA Assembly Member for Southwark, Val Shawcross, dramatically launched a vote on three options for Downtown (1) no development at all, (2) appropriately-scaled, sympathetic development, and (3) Barratts plans should go ahead. The voting went  Option (1)  10 votes; Option (2)  92 votes; and Option 3  one vote


She said: That result shows conclusively that the Downtown community are not Nimbys, and are not being unreasonable. You accept development “ but only in a suitable context, with appropriate levels, to match the environment of Downtown and neighbouring Russia Dock Woodland as a site of outstanding natural beauty, and to regain your former community facilities.

Local MP Simon Hughes, who briefly attended the meeting, vowed to object to Barratts plans at the new Downtown Planning Inquiry, due later this summer: I will write to object and speak against Barratts original planning proposals, but I won’t interfere with any new proposals for Downtown that’s for Southwark Council to decide, and I am powerless, the long-serving MP for the area said.

Summing up, DDC Chair Steve Cornish issued a defiant finale: We are fighting against over-development, Southwark Council and Barratts greed here. We are fighting for sustainable, sympathetic development for our community which we love, where we all live.

We want our Downtown community facilities back. We will fight on, and we say as politely as we can to Southwark Council and the highly-paid Directors of Barratts Homes and their spin-doctor who is here tonight, and their bankers who’ve bailed them out in the property collapse, and to Barratts shareholders  ask yourselves what Southwark Council and Barratts are doing, because Downtown and the DDC is never going to back down not now, not ever unless these people talk to us and enter genuine consultation and negotiation.
Ends


EDITORS NOTES:

For any further details, information or interviews please contact DDC Chair Steve Cornish on 07947 275 386, or DDC Adviser John Hellings on 07913 819 784.

Coverage for the DDC by Docklands 24

With our thanks

15th June 2009

The purpose of the meeting is to a) explain to the people of Downtown, and neighbouring areas, exactly what has happened over recent months on the Downtown site, and b)  to discuss our plans for the future of the D.D.C.s fight against any inappropriate development that may cause environmental harm to the Russia Dock Woodland’s wildlife and bio-diversity.

We will also be discussing the wider picture regarding, traffic, schools, pollution, GP provision, housing, youth provision and related topics.

We are inviting the leader of Southwark Council (Nick Stanton) local politicians, all of our local councillors, tenants and residents association reps, doctors , teachers, faith groups, police, wardens, youth organisations, and many other members of the community.

Please try to attend if you have the opportunity. 


 

3rd June 2009

Downtown News Update from John Hellings

Thanks to John Hellings for copying me on the following update. 

From: john hellings
Sent: 24 May 2009 16:42
Subject: Downtown News Update - new Planning Inquiry ordered


Dear Kam,

Keep going with your FoI request.

I haven't been in touch for quite a while, but now that the Downtown Defence Campaign (DDC) lawyers are waiting for Southwark Council and Barratts to sign the legal agreement over the successful DDC Judicial Review of the Downtown Planning Application/Permission Number 3 (December 2008), I can give you some Downtown latest news and a retrospective catch-up.

Just to be clear, the DDC Judicial Review success means that that Planning Permission will now be in effect legally rescinded, and will have to be re-considered by Southwark Council.

The legal agreement, called a Consent Order, must however be signed by all Parties, and approved by the High Court, to become legally binding.

This official legal sanction has yet to happen, although it will sooner or later, by all accounts, and barring any unforeseen developments.

In the meantime, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the Right Honourable Hazel Blears, MP, has ordered that a 'new', joint full public Planning Inquiry be held into the original Barratts Planning Application (No.1 - 2004/6), and their 2nd Planning Application (No.2 - 2007).

And, as a result, Her Majesty's Planning Inspectorate in Bristol has already started this process off, and any interested party who wishes to submit any written statements or comments and/or make a spoken representation to Her Majesty's Inspector at this 'new' Planning Inquiry, has only a matter of weeks to do so.

To gain speaking rights at the 'new' Planning Inquiry, one must submit a written statement in advance to HM Planning Inspectorate in Bristol - the deadline dates have been set out clearly by Bristol.

I am attaching the relevant correspondence from the Secretary of State and HM Planning Inspectorate, especially regarding deadline dates.

It looks as if the likely date for the 'new' Planning Inquiry will be August/September this year, although this is by no means certain.

Many people will probably be rather puzzled by this development, not least because they may recall that we have already had a full public Planning Inquiry into Barratts' first planning application (No.1) three years ago, which the DDC and Southwark Council won.

Why are we in this position? Well, it was of course Barratts which was not content with being refused Planning Permission by Southwark Council on its No.1 application in 2006; nor was it prepared to pay any heed to HM Planning Inspector Elizabeth Fieldhouse in her Report (2006) finding in favour of Southwark Council's refusal; so Barratts sent their lawyers to bend the ear of the then Secretary of State for the Environment, Ruth Kelly, to overturn HM Inspector's Findings and Southwark Council's refusal, which she duly and controversially did, later in 2006.

After predictable public outrage against Ruth Kelly's extraordinary move, Southwark Council was persuaded to seek a Judicial Review of Secretary of State Ruth Kelly's decision.

And in a very well-argued case to the High Court, and possibly to Southwark Council's surprise, it won its Judicial Review action, and Secretary of State Ruth Kelly agreed she had acted illegally and would therefore re-consider her decision on Barratts' planning application No.1.

Then various things happened:

1. the legally-binding High Court-approved agreement (the Consent Order) on Southwark Council's successful Judicial Review action (2006), was quietly placed in the legal slow lane, whilst Barratts produced its No.2 Downtown Planning Application, a somewhat modestly amended version of its application No.1.

2. the Council kept 'schtum' about its own astonishing legal victory against Barratts and the Government, whilst this Planning Application No.2 was cobbled together - which was odd, to say the least, as application No.2 only differed from application No.1 to a very, very slight degree. Once again, there were masses of objections to this application No.2.

3. So in 2007, Southwark Council also refused Barratts No.2 application, and once more, oh-so-predictably, the Barratts boys and their lawyers issued another appeal against refusal. We, the public, were all set for a second Downtown Planning Inquiry, which is the consequence of any appeal by an applicant against a refusal by a Planning Authority such as Southwark Council, whilst also patiently awaiting the outcome of Southwark Council's Judicial Review action (which, unbeknownst to us, had in fact already been won), when Barratts seemed to have second thoughts: they decided to reserve their right to appeal against refusal of their No.2 application, which they did at the end of 2007, whilst saying they would produce a third application proposal and 'watch this space'.

4. Of course, the truth was that there wasn't much point in Barratts pursuing application No.2 to appeal whilst its application No.1 was still outstanding, and anyway, a far more pressing matter had suddenly concentrated the minds of Barratts and Southwark Council - the time-limit of the original  Development Agreement between the Council and Barratts, to flog the Downtown land to Barratts, was coming up to its expiry date very soon. Without a valid Development Agreement to flog off the land to them, Barratts would be playing a different game, indeed a rather pointless game, as the Downtown development site would not be their land to develop without a sale agreement from Southwark Council, and therefore, with no Planning Permission in place since signatures were put to the original Development Agreement four years previously in 2003, the entire project would be dead in the water unless a new Development Agreement was pushed through by 2008 (the 5-year validity deadline).

5. In the meantime, the parties to the Judicial Review of application No.1 - Barratts, Southwark Council and the Secretary of State - had actually agreed legal terms, but still withheld their signatures or any publicity about this. Perhaps the fact that a new Government Department for Planning had been created in the interim, the Department for  Communities and Local Government, with a new Secretary of State, Hazel Blears, had slowed things up.

6. So it was that in June/July 2008 a new Downtown Development Agreement was signed off by Southwark Council and Barratts, and not long after, the much-heralded Downtown planning application No.3 was finally produced by Barratts. This planning application did differ substantially from applications Nos 1 & 2, but far from favourably in many respects, in the eyes of the DDC and local Downtown residents.

7.  At last though, Southwark Council and Barratts must have thought they were in the clear over Downtown - the finishing line in sight. They had a brand new Development Agreement, and Barratts had agreed to withdraw their planning applications Nos 1 & 2, if they were granted Planning Permission for application No.3. It was only then that Southwark Council and Barratts signed themselves up to the Judicial Review Consent Order on planning application No.1, and so that legal agreement - for the new Secretary of State, Hazel Blears,  to re-consider her predecessor Ruth Kelly's decision on application No.1, was lodged in the High Court officially (August 2008 - nearly two years after it was agreed de facto). And Southwark Council finally granted Planning Permission to Barratts' No.3 application on 23rd December 2008 (whilst tellingly still maintaining a public news blackout about the successful Judicial Review of planning application No.1).

8. We, the public, then watched aghast at the ensuing Downtown Tree Massacre, perpetrated by Southwark Council and Barratts (February 2009). And the Downtown Defence Campaign made a successful intervention to challenge that Planning Permission (No.3), via its own Judicial Review action (March 2009), about which the DDC made absolutely no secret.

9. So, with planning application No.3 still up in the air, thanks to the DDC's Judicial Review action, the Secretary of State, Hazel Blears, has decided it's time that she tied up her obligations legally, to re-consider Barratts' planning application No.1, and she has decided the best way to do this is to have a full public Planning Inquiry once more. For good measure, she has ordered that Barratts' (suspended) appeal on its application No.2 be part of that Planning Inquiry's terms as well.

So, after three years, we have come full-circle.

Can the cost and resources needed for a 'new' Planning Inquiry into two rejected Barratts planning applications be avoided, especially since there is a newer application - No.3 - in existence? Well, the answer is 'yes' - but there's only one way:

Barratts can withdraw their applications Nos. 1 and 2, freeing Secretary of State Hazel Blears from the legal necessity to push ahead with her Planning Inquiry into these stale old proposals, long since past their 'sell-by' dates.

Otherwise, if Barratts makes no move in this direction, we will all assemble once more before one of Her Majesty's Planning Inspectors, this Autumn most likely, in London Bridge, and rehearse all the arguments once more over Barratts' applications Nos 1 & 2.

The 'new' Planning Inquiry may uphold Southwark Council's refusals of applications Nos 1 and 2 once again, which would mean Hazel Blears being in the same position as Ruth Kelly back in 2006 - to accept the Planning Inspector's and Southwark's refusal, or ignore them, like Ms Kelly, and grant permission. This would be subject to legal challenge, as before.

The 'new' Planning Inquiry may, on the other hand, go against Southwark Council's refusals of Nos. 1 & 2 applications (either one or the other, or both, presumably, but that is an even more labyrinthine legal issue), but these potential Planning Inquiry Findings would also have to be endorsed by Hazel Blears, subject to legal challenge.

Sane people might think this would all be a complete waste of public resources and time, not least as all the main parties - the Council, Barratts and the DDC - will be employing lawyers at the new Planning Inquiry - and the fact we've already been through this process once, and these Downtown planning applications (Nos 1 & 2) have not changed since 2006/7, so why should the outcome of a 'new' Planning Inquiry be any different.

That consideration is now entirely for the developer, Barratts Homes (east London) Ltd, to weigh up. Only Barratts can now take action to obviate this. Perhaps Barratts should be asked publicly what its intentions are, and its reasons.

After all, Barratts has itself come up with Planning Application No.3, which Southwark Council illegally approved and has now agreed to re-consider, and which both Southwark Council and Barratts have agreed to re-consult over.

Council Leader Nick Stanton has publicly vowed in writing that Barratts will re-consult the residents of Downtown over Planning Application No.3, in a recent letter to all those residents.

One might ask what purpose that would serve, if in the meantime we are going to have to fight all over again on Planning Applications 1 and 2, at a 'new' Planning Inquiry.

Furthermore, one might ask what the purpose of a new public consultation on Planning Application No.3 would be, if there was not a possibility that that application (No.3) might be amended to take into consideration the findings of this new public consultation exercise, so creating, in effect, a planning application No.4, whilst we are all still forced to re-examine planning applications Nos 1, 2 & 3.

One might ask if we weren't all attending some sort of Planning Mad-Hatter's Tea Party in a Downtown Looking Glass World.

I do hope you can circulate this news to everybody concerned, as clearly we should seek to maximise public involvement in this 'new' Downtown Planning Inquiry, to galvanise public opposition and fight once more against the existing Downtown planning applications Nos. 1, 2 & 3.

People may conclude that we are no nearer to resolving the future of Downtown than we were in 2001/2 when this all started, which is a bit of a scandal in itself.

I trust you are well, Kam, and look forward to corresponding more often in the coming months. 



John Hellings (DDC adviser)
 

Relevant documents:
Secretary of State re-opening of Inquiry into application for Downtown site, May 2009
Planning inspectorate letter of confirmation re re-opening of Inquiry
 

27th May 2009

Freedom of Information Request

Thanks very much to Kam Hong Leung for forwarding the following response from Southwark Council to his request for information

Subject: Freedom of information request - 3671

Dear Kam Hong Leung

Re: Your request for information: 3671

Thank you for your request for information that was received on Mar 25 2009 in which you requested:

Please email me a copy of the "Bird Nesting Surveys" that were allegedly conducted by Scott Wilson for BARRATT on 12 March 2009 and 16 March 2009 respectively which I would like to think that Southwark Council have received a copy and have studied them carefully in order to monitor the legal compliance by BARRATT?

I am writing to advise you that following an extensive search of our records, I have established that the information you requested is not held by Southwark Council.

Barratts is required to comply with all relevant statutory obligations as part of their occupation of the site under the licence granted by the council.

A 'Bird Nesting Survey'  was not a condition of the consent and as a result neither Southwark Property nor the Local Planning Authority requested or received copies of the surveys.

An environmental survey (ES) was, however, submitted by Barratt’s along with their application for planning permission.  (All documents in relation to the planning application 08/AP/1563 including the ES are able to be viewed online at:
http://planningonline.southwarksites.com/planningonline2/AcolNetCGI.exe?ACTION=UNWRAP&RIPNAME=Root.PgeDocs&TheSystemkey=9529094

 For your information, the ES outlines that a survey of breeding birds was undertaken and particular attention was given to seeking evidence of Black Redstart, a rare species which has been recorded in the vicinity of the site. No Black Redstarts were recorded during the breeding bird survey, however the following species were recorded as breeding on the site: Robin, Dunnock, Blackbird, Wren, Blue Tit, Great Tit, House Sparrow.  Long-tailed Tit, Magpie, Feral Pigeon and Woodpigeon were also recorded on the site although were not breeding.

Overall the site was considered in the ES to have a low value for birds. The council's ecology officer was consulted on the contents of the ES and had no objection relating to impact that the development would have on birds within the site.

It is the responsibility of Barratts as the occupier under licence to ensure that they adhere to the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 (as amended).

If you are unhappy with the service you have received in relation to your request and wish to make an appeal for a review of our decision, you should write to the Corporate Records Manager at:

Corporate Access to Information Manager
Southwark Town Hall
Room 3.12
Peckham Road
London.  SE5 8UB
Email: accessinfo@southwark.gov.uk 

If you are not content with the outcome your appeal, you may apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision. Generally, the Information Commissioner cannot make a decision unless you have first exhausted our internal appeal procedure and you should contact him within 2 months of the outcome of your internal appeal. Further information on the Freedom of Information Act is available through the Information Commissioner at the:

Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire.  SK9 5AF
Telephone: 01625 545 700
Internet: www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk 

Yours sincerely,
Laura Wannop

Freedom of information officer
Regeneration & neighbourhoods
PO Box 64529
London
SE1P 5LX
 

9th May 2009

Dockland News report on blundering Southwark Council failure to protect Downtown site

John Hyde has added a report to The Docklands newspaper (Wednesday May 6th 2009) entitled "Downtown ditched by council blunder".  The subtitle reads "Controversial homes for beauty spot plan dropped after five year battle".  The rest of the article reports that "blundering Southwark Council" has been left admitting that it had failed to deal with the development plans in a correct manner, and have now had to retreat from plans to allow 212 homes at the Downtown beauty spot to go ahead, pending a new planning process.  Steve is quoted saying that although it is a great day for Downtown the fight is far from over and that both Southwark Council and Barratt Homes will be back. 

 

 

8th May 2009

Southwark News reports Labour’s reaction to Downtown planning fiasco

David Yuill reports that Labour is demanding that heads roll over Southwark Council’s decision-making on the Downtown development saga.  Labour's housing and regeneration spokesman for Southwark, Paul Bates is quoted saying "In terms of who should go, the buck stops with the Leader of the Council."  Cllr Stanton has said that he shares "the sense of anger and frustration that a technical error was made by the planning department in the processing of the last planning application on Downtown". (Southwark News Thursday May 7th 2009, page 5).
 

Canada Water Consultative Forum

An advert has appeared in this week's Southwark News announcing the next meeting of The CWCF.  The meeting will take place on Monday 11th May 2009 at 7pm at the Alfred Salter Primary School, Quebec Way, Rotherhithe SE16.  The key theme is "health" and the guest speaker is Chris Baker, Head of Premises Development, Southwark PCT.  There will also be an update on all Canada Water sites.  More news can be found atwww.canadawater.org

7th May 2009

Southwark News continue to support the DDC

Thanks very much to Chris Mullany of Southwark News for featuring us on the front page of the April 30th issue and for adding a feature on page 8, entitled Residents force council re-think  which discusses the current situation.  We thank them most sincerely for their ongoing support.

South London Press features DDC reprieve

Thanks to the South London press for featuring the DDC’s ongoing battle for a reasonable development to be built at the Downtown site.  They featured a short paragraph on the front page, which reads as follows: Tree felling plans have been derailed after council officers messed up their paperwork.  Delighted residents learnt that work on the Downtown site in Rotherhithe has been stopped because of a missing environmental report.  A new planning application from developers Barratt will now have to be considered from scratch.  The story was followed up on Page 9 with a more complete summary by Sam Masters entitled Tree cutting halted by town hall cock-up and features a photograph of some of the 200 trees already destroyed, presumably illegally, and a photograph of Steve. 

This issue of the South London Press is available for the next two days if you want to see the full article.

6th May 2009

New DDC publicity poster

You can download the full-sized poster here in PDF format (1.67MB).

4th May 2009

Another response to the letter from Nick Stanton

The following response to Nick Stanton’s letter is reproduced here with my sincere thanks to Antony Eaves, a local resident, for his permission to do so:

An alternative letter to that from Nick Stanton at Southwark Council

Dear resident,

Barratt Homes development at Downtown

I want to write to you about a decision the council has been forced to take following their illegal actions, which would have badly affected the future of your area.

Last year the council illegally gave Barratt Homes planning permission to demolish the Downtown Health Centre, build 212 luxury apartments and build a much smaller health centre on the site.

This site is still the much-used and needed Downtown Health Centre, the only Doctors surgery that serves the many residents living in this part of the peninsula.

The site previously housed other community facilities such as a Gym, a Respite Centre, Disabled Care Centre, and a Childcare Centre, that was until the council stopped funding and let them fall into such disrepair that they had to be demolished.

Only a small percentage of these homes would have be shared ownership and/or let at rents that are affordable to local people.

The majority would have been luxury apartments, the smallest 1 bedroom apartment would cost about £300,000 (based on prices for current Maple Quay development at Canada water), which is more than 12 x the wage for any person in the area lucky enough to be earning £25,000 and IS NOT the 3.5 x wage a mortgage company may be willing to lend.

They would therefore have been out of the reach of ordinary working local residents and either sold to private landlords to or to highly paid Canary Wharf/City workers.

Many residents in the area campaigned against the Downtown development and the Council was aware of a judicial review, yet despite this, they went ahead and completely destroyed almost 300 mature trees on this site and ignored the massive protests against the loss of those community facilities. This included the destruction of a beautiful tree lined plaza providing seating and open space alongside the primary school.

Today the council decided not to contest this judicial review. They have accepted that they have no defence as the planning service failed to follow correct procedures and was illegal.

What this means is that the planning permission will be quashed, but the council still do not intend to act in the best interests of the local community and want to sell the site to its preferred developer, Barratt Homes and not to try and obtain the best use of this site.

Many local people believe the best use of this site should be the return of its use solely for community facilities. Instead the council intends to give an opportunity to its preferred developer to make millions of pounds from council (community) owned land.

If homes were desperately needed on this site, the council should have involved one of the Housing Associations instead of a private developer or insist that ALL the homes are either `affordable' or for key workers.

They will make a new decision on the planning application from their preferred developer Barratt Homes; this will not be an open tender.

They intend that these luxury apartments will be built by Barratt Homes alone, with no concern for the loss to local residents by having a smaller Health Centre or the demise of the other community facilities and open space alongside the primary school.

They now realise that they cannot get away with not following correct planning procedure. In this case they did not live up to any reasonable standards in the they do things, and Nick Stanton claims to have made it clear to everyone at the council that they now need to get it right, only time will tell.

The cost of these mistakes will of course have to be met out of local council taxpayers money.

It does mean, however, that you will have another chance to have your say on this plan, lets hope that your comments will now be taken into consideration by the planning committee when it looks again at the planning application, particularly at all the environmental aspects.

If not, there will be no hesitation by those many residents against this plan to bring legal action against the council again.

The planning team will be contacting you shortly to tell you how you can take part in the consultation.

Even if you gave them your views last time and they were ignored, they now encourage you to take part again and tell them what you think. Please do, and if you are one of the many residents against this, please join the Downtown Defence Campaign; they are the local group that the person who was successful in bringing the legal action against the council was a member of.

They are still intent on favoritism to Barratt Homes and intend to exclude any other options that will benefit local residents, they have instructed Barratt Homes that they need to spend a lot more time in the area talking to people (of course they will - they are desperate to get hold of this site and make a few million! ) They may use marketing terminology that could mislead you into believing that the development will benefit people living in the area. Don't fall for this demand that this site is returned to the community and put to good use in providing local facilities.
 

Local resident responds publicly to Nick Stanton’s letter of April 29th

Thanks to Alan Chadborn (Downtown Resident, The City Hope Church Group Leader, Chair of Surrey Docks Farm & Chair of Galleywall Nature Reserve) for making his response public.  The email was in response to the letter sent by the leader of Southwark Council, Nick Stanton on 29th April 2009. That letter is shown on this page, below, or can be downloaded in PDF format from Southwark Council’s website here:
http://www.southwark.gov.uk/Uploads/FILE_42128.pdf

Subject: RE: BREAKING NEWS : Downtown Site - Southwark Council's Public Announcement on 29 April 2009 (Admission and Withdrawal of Illegal Granting of Planning Permission to Barratt Homes on 4 November 2008)

Dear Councillor Stanton,

Thank you for your letter of 29th April about the decision not to contest the judicial review.

As you write - It is important we do this correctly, and carry out our duties as the local planning authority with openness and transparency. In this case we did not live up to our high standards in the way we do things, and I have made it clear to everyone at the council that we now need to get it right.

Recent events have led many of us to question the high standards of both our councilors and LBS officers, which leads us to think about voting differently in future.

• The seriously delayed news of victory for Southwark in the High Court action.
• Council officer seen to be actively advising Barratts representatives during the Planning meeting on Nov 4th.
• Lack of transparency as to whether Barratts actually paid for the Downtown site and when their ownership started. This had implications for permission to cut trees.
• Go-ahead given to Barratts to start work on site when they had not met the Conditions attached to Planning consent, and still had not met them 4 months later.
• Regeneration Member and local councilors apparently powerless and not knowing the facts during this period. 

Were the mistakes that have now been admitted deliberate, for private benefit, or due to incompetence?
 

What confidence can we have that similar or worse will not happen, not only for Downtown site, but also for Canada Water Area Action Plan in its successive phases? 

This delay to Downtown site will presumably mean that the present Health Centre will need maintaining for extra months or years beyond their budget. Will Barratts or LBS pay for this?

Your letter does not thank one of your neighbours for starting proceedings for a judicial review, but he obviously did you a service towards your stated aims for high standards.  Do the planners see him as a friend of justice and the community or an enemy?

May your high standards prevail!

Yours sincerely,

Alan Chadborn
 

 

30th April 2009

Press Statement : Release Immediate: 30 April 2009 TIMED: 0900 Hrs (BST)

From: the Downtown Defence Campaign

SOUTHWARK COUNCIL ADMITS TO ILLEGALITY

THE LONDON Borough of Southwark Council admitted publicly yesterday (29 April) that it acted illegally in a Planning Application.

Southwark’s legal shame came after a last-ditch David versus Goliath Judicial Review challenge in the High Court over the highly controversial Downtown planning development next to protected woodland in Rotherhithe, south east London.

The complete legal cave-in by Southwark Council means an astonishing victory for the battling Rotherhithe residents of Downtown, an environmentally sensitive area next to a unique woodland by the River Thames, who brought the legal challenge.

The Downtown residents were appalled at the huge scale, insensitivity, environmental damage, false data, secrecy, lack of community facilities and sheer density of a Barratts housing development on public land at Downtown in Rotherhithe, which landowner Southwark Council approved with planning permission in December 2008.

So they took Southwark Council to the High Court of Justice for a Judicial Review in March 2009.

And with the 24 April 2009 High Court deadline looming for Southwark Council to defend its decision to give planning permission to Barratts Homes ,the Council’s lawyers have backed down and admitted they acted illegally.

Southwark Council’s chief lawyer Deborah Collins wrote a grovelling letter, dated 29 April 2009, to the High Court stating:  We (Southwark Council) have erred in law..and accept we have failed to comply with the Regulations and that accordingly the (Planning Permission) decision should be quashed.

The Chairman of the Downtown Defence Campaign residents group, Steve Cornish, which has fought the Southwark Council/Barratts Homes plan tooth and nail since 2002, said: There have been many false dawns over this illegal planning permission.

Southwark Council has tried to railroad through this Planning Application for their business partners they are in cahoots with, Barratts Homes, and what we have tried to do is to use the legal planning processes to express our views as the local residents, to make our objections. They have behaved illegally and it was only by us challenging that, that they have admitted that.

It is a great day for justice, a great day for Downtown, and all its residents but speaking as David, we have not slain Goliath yet, we have slung our stone and Southwark and Barratts have fallen down, but Goliath’s head has not yet been severed, and they’ll be back they are very, very greedy, nasty people - they have behaved illegally by their own admission and they won’t stop here, Mr Cornish said.

They have not even apologised they spent three months using their lawyers to deny our Judicial Review case against them, and we have not yet agreed to terms. And now they are behaving as if this illegality was a minor slip-up and they can continue to railroad through their favoured Barratts application as if nothing has happened.

They don’t seem to have learnt anything about the law, or local democracy, and the importance of the environment and green spaces. We have not finished yet with Southwark Council or Barratts Homes. We raised in the High Court, five legal reasons why their planning permission was illegal, and they have accepted one of them. What about our other four reasons that they lied to us; that they refused us access to information; that they did not carry out environmental surveys; and they misled people?

Southwark Council continues to treat us with contempt just read the letter stuffed in our letter-boxes yesterday (29 April 2009) from their Leader, Councillor Nick Stanton: he says the Council won’t contest our legal action on a technical point. We say to Councillor Stanton that the Law is the Law, and if you break it on a technical point, you still break it.

We’re totally unimpressed with Councillor Nick Stanton, and Southwark Council Planning, and Barratts Homes - there is a great deal more legal negotiation to take place before this matter is settled, and those matters may well be decided by the High Court, not Councillor Nick Stanton, his friends at Barratts Homes or their spin doctors, Mr Cornish said on behalf of the Downtown Defence Campaign.

ENDS

You can download the above statement here in MS Word format or in Adobe PDF format.

29th April 2009

Letter re Judicial Review from Councillor Nicholas Stanton, Leader of Southwark Council
 

The following letter can be downloaded from the Southwark Council website in PDF format here:
http://www.southwark.gov.uk/Uploads/FILE_42128.pdf

Dear resident,

Barratt Homes development at Downtown

I wanted to write to you about a decision the council has made which will affect the future of your area.

You may know that we are regenerating Canada Water area to provide new homes, shops, jobs, community, health and sports facilities and better transport links for local people. We know from our consultations that many people in the area are excited by these plans and that residents see that we want to make the area a place where you will love to live and do business.

Last year, as part of these plans, the council gave Barratt Homes planning permission to build 212 homes and a health centre on a site at Downtown. Many of these homes will be shared ownership and/or let at rents which are affordable to local people.

Some residents in the area have campaigned against the Downtown development and recently one of your neighbours started proceedings for a judicial review of the planning decision. This means a judge would look at our planning permission to see if the decision had been made properly. Today the council decided not to contest this judicial review. It has accepted that on one technical point the planning service failed to make sure that the process for dealing with something called an environmental statement was absolutely clear and correct. What this means is that the planning permission will be quashed and that councillors will make a new decision on the planning application from Barratt Homes, making sure that all the right procedures are followed.

It is important we do this correctly, and carry out our duties as the local planning authority with openness and transparency. In this case we did not live up to our high standards in the way we do things, and I have made it clear to everyone at the council that we now need to get it right.

It does mean, however, that you will have another chance to have your say on this plan and that your comments will have to be taken into consideration by the planning committee when it looks again at the planning application, particularly at all the environmental aspects. The planning team will be contacting you shortly to tell you how you can take part in the consultation. Even if you gave us you views last time, can I encourage you to take part again and tell us what you think.

I have also told Barratt Homes that they need to spend a lot more time in the area explaining what they are planning to do with the site and how the development will benefit people living in the area now as well as any future residents. I am pleased to say that the company has agreed to do this and is very keen to meet local people and keep you in touch with progress.

If in the meantime you have any questions or comments, please contact Simon Bevan at
simon.bevan@southwark.gov.uk or on 020 7525 5655.

And if you want to us to keep you in touch with progress on this important project then email
southwark.life@southwark.gov.uk with your contact details. We promise that we will use these details only to send you information about our work in the Canada Water area.

Yours faithfully,

Councillor Nicholas Stanton
LEADER OF THE COUNCIL

21^st April 2009

Overview and Scrutiny Committee

Thanks to Kam Hong Leung for forwarding the following information from Fiona Colley regarding the planned scrutiny of the planning processes regarding the most recent Downtown decision by the Overview and Scrutiny Committee

----- Original Message -----

From: Colley, Fiona
To: stevecornish49@hotmail.com ; kam@khleung.fsnet.co.uk
Cc: Salmon, Jane ; Hubber, David
Sent: Tuesday, April 21, 2009 1:14 PM
Subject: Downtown Scrutiny Update

Dear Steve & Kam

I'm afraid I have disappointing news about our planned scrutiny of the planning processes relating to the most recent Downtown decision. We have been in discussions with the council's legal team about the overlap between the scrutiny proposal and the judicial review culminating in some very firm advice from them that the scrutiny review should not go ahead until the Judicial Review is completed. Most crucially from my point of view, they also say that if we did go ahead Officers and Councillors (eg Executive and Planning Committee members) would be prevented from giving us evidence and answering questions.

The report is on the Scrutiny website  http://www.southwark.co.uk/Uploads/FILE_41883.pdf

I understand that there is some kind of legal deadline approaching within the next week or two and that this may result in the review being resolved - in which case we can and will go ahead with the scrutiny. However, if it isn't then we will either have to do a pretty major rewrite of the scrutiny proposal so that we can look at planning processes more generally but without using Downtown as the example or we will have to postpone completely until the JR is finished.

I, and all the other Scrutiny Committee Members are really disappointed about this, but we can't see anyway that we can do anything worthwhile under these circumstances. Clearly the JR is more important than the scrutiny review as the courts actually have the power to overturn the decision whilst scrutiny does not so I guess that just has to take precedence. I'm going to keep a close eye on the situation over the next few weeks - please do keep sending me your email updates and then I can see where we are after the deadline.

Kind regards

Fiona

Cllr Fiona Colley
Chair of Overview & Scrutiny

21st March 2009

It beggars belief.  The Downtown site has been flattened

When Steve told me on the phone that the Downtown site had been flattened I was seriously hoping that his first impression was inaccurate.  He called me at 10am to say that the site had been completely annihilated yesterday afternoon and that contractors were back on the site today.  I was still dripping wet from the shower but I hauled on the first clothes that came to hand and went to see.  When I arrived at the site the scene was truly staggering.  There was nothing to see but fallen trunks and branches, raw tree stumps and piles of spring foliage all lying as far as the eye could see in a desolate mess on the ground.  I am guessing that Barratt Homes assume that if they remove all the trees there will be nothing left for local residents to campaign for.  A false assumption, if true. 

As well as Steve Cornish there was already a gathering which included Kam Hong Leung, John Wills, Lorraine Smith, Sue Agnew, Tom, and even young Harry and his younger sister, both of whom had strong views on the subject.  Harry told me that he had learned to ride his bicycle in the area we were staring at through the bars of the fence.  Sue told me that she and others had used the communal areas at the Downtown site to sit and chat as they watched their brand new houses being built over 20 years ago, little imagining what they would be faced with today.  Someone else said to me that it hardly seems as though we live in a democracy when people in power ride rough-shod over local opinion for financial gain.  One really has to wonder what the future holds for Rotherhithe under the current Council regime.

Thanks very much, particularly, to our new colleague Lisa for travelling so far to see for herself what was happening. 

There are two big questions arising from the destruction.  The first is how it could have taken place after PC Wood put a restraint on the contractors from felling any more trees due to the nesting birds.  The second is why the contractors were working on the site on a Saturday using a special permission notice which actually referred not to the Downtown site but to the Canada Water developments.

One of the big ironies, as far as I’m concerned, was a sign attached to a fence in the middle of the site which read Tree Protection. Do not remove.  I’d love to know how felling vast quantities of mature trees is in any way a form of protection for them or the wildlife that depends on them.

I will hopefully be in a position to add more information soon.  In the meantime here are some of the photographs taken today, just to demonstrate the scale of the destruction. 

 

 

19th March 2009

Update re the Downtown Site

I was over at the Dowtown site yesterday and it is still a thorough mess, but the bronze compass sculpture has now been enclosed with barriers and is surrounded by, rather than buried under, a pile of branches.  There was no more tree felling being carried out, but a large truck seemed to be depositing large mounds of earth, sand and/or gravel. 

Steve, Kam, Jerry and I watched nesting crows flying in and out of their new nest as the Barratt site workers felled logs (shown right).  This was just one of the nine active birds nests that were present on the Downtown site when visited and inspected by P.C. Mark Wood (the Metropolitan Police Wildlife Crime Officer).  P.C. Wood immediately shut down the downtown site because of the blatant contravention of the Government’s Wildlife Act of 1981.

Val Shawcross (London Assembly member for Lambeth and Southwark) recently emailed Steve and Kam, and copied many others with the following remarks, which raises some good points and reflects what a lot of us are thinking:Just to say  that I have just been down to take a look at the site - while I was at the farm nearby. It's devastated.  The Council MUST have given consent for so much work  to go on the site now and for it to be fenced off as it is.  Paul hasn't yet replied to my simple enquiry - Doesn't the Council still own this site? 

I can't imagine there weren't occupied birds nests lost, as there are nests all over the adjacent trees.

 

16TH MARCH 2009

Barratt Homes ordered to stop felling trees

At 10am those of us are who were able to attend the inspection of the Downtown site this morning by the wildlife crime office, PC Mark Wood gathered to see what the outcome would be.  By the time I arrived at just gone 10am Steve Cornish had already been joined by Kam Hong Leung, Jerry Hewitt, Antony, and Tom and we were later joined by Alison, Dorothea and Lorraine, all local residents. 

When PC Wood had been shown the video evidence of nesting birds provided by Steve he immediately spoke to the site foreman and put a hold on felling.  Initially it looked as though the felling would been barred for the season, but it was later revealed that a company hired by Barratt Homes to assess the situation would be coming in this afternoon to review the nests and to submit a report following their inspection.

We made it clear to the site foreman that in spite of the fact that we have been taking photographs of his team’s activities there is no intention to intimidate Barratt personnel by doing so.  They can scarcely refuse to carry out their instructions.  But we do need evidence to support our claims about the scale of destruction and the presence of nesting birds.  I promised to ensure that only photographs showing general action and not individual faces would be selected for the website.

The saws continued to make a din, but the site foreman assured us that this was just the chopping up of logs from trees that had already been felled (one of which Steve says has a nest in it which was under construction). As we talked a van full of Barratt contractors left the site.

The council’s one ecology officer is away on leave at the moment but we have sent an urgent message for him to attend the site on his return to determine how many nesting birds are resident on the site.  We have communicated to Councillor Paul Noblet that we want our own independent bird nesting survey to be carried out immediately following the report by the Barratt Homes consultants which stated that on  last Wednesday 12th March 2009 there were no visible signs of nesting birds on the site.  As there clearly are nesting birds on the site we cannot trust the conclusions of the consultants acting on behalf of Barrat  Homes.

We are hoping that the site will be closed to Barratt Home contractors for the season, which extends until August.  Watch this space!
 

15th March 2009 - PART 2

First they destroy our trees - now they ignore our heritage

It was not that long ago that the three Nature Girls sculptures by sculptress Laura Ford, commissioned by the Dockland Development Corporatin for the land next to Surrey Water, were stolen and presumably melted down.  There was a lot of local outrage about that, and it was featured in both Southwark News and the South London Press. 

At the end of January I found a fascinating piece of sculpture in the form of a compass in the area between the Surrey Docks Health Centre and the school, in the centre of a communal seating area.  I asked Steve about it and he told me that when the Dockland Development Corporation had installed it the sculpture doubled up as a water feature with water falling along channels in the metal.  It ceased to be maintained, I understand, when Southwark Council took over, but there may be an alternative explanation.  I liked this feature very much, but it doesn’t really matter whether any individual  likes it or not  it is a feature of our residential landscape and it is part of our community’s landscape. 

You’d have thought that the council would have got the message that we respect the sculptures and other items of both modern and older heritage that are dotted throughout Rotherhithe.  But here we go again, thanks to Barratt Homes and the failure of Southwark Council to control their activities. 

Sadly for it this feature is in the middle of the Downtown site now in the process of being torn apart for development.  The trees that have been torn down surrounded this compass.  The compass should have been removed for safety and installed somewhere else, but instead the sight that greeted me today was felled trees lying on top of the feature.  I took this photograph by holding my camera over the top of a giant metal fence that now surrounds the Surrey Docks Health Centre site and it is not a good photo but you can see that there is a tree lying on the sculpture.  This should count as criminal damage but I expect that officials will declare that some local regulation or other will absolve both Southwark Council and Barratt Homes of yet  this latest piece of casual destruction.  Why couldn’t it have been moved somewhere else before the trees started coming down?

There seems to be no end to this disaster.

 

15th March 2009

The annihilation of our communal land continues.

The scene below was taken by Kam in July last year and the scene last week, taken by Steve both serve to display how dreadful the destruction has been at the Downtown site.  It is amazing to think that this could possibly be the same place, only a few months apart.
 

July 2008
 

The same site last week.
I couldn’t believed it when I saw this photo. What a ghastly nightmare.
 

14th March 2009

Action to protect nesting birds

Thanks to Antony for pointing out that the destruction of trees by Barratt Homes at a time of year when birds are trying to nest may turn out to be illegal.  The Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 states it is illegal to fell a tree with a nest:  http://www.jncc.gov.uk/PDF/waca1981_part1.pdf.  The very first paragraph on page 2 states it is an offense if any person "takes, damages or destroys the nest of any wild bird nest whilst that nest is in use or being built."  Antony has logged yet another call with Southwark Council's Environment Team for the Duty Tree Officer (apparently records of his previous call on 12th February 2009 have been mysteriously lost).

Steve has also been busy following up this topic.  He has been in touch with the 'metropolitan  police wildlife crime officer' and has explained the Downtown site situation to him, highlighting that a number of this years birds nests that have either been destroyed amongst the 100 trees that have perished, or are amongst the 200 trees and shrubbery that have been cordoned off for next weeks destruction. The officer is fully aware that the official bird nesting season is now two weeks old, and feels that this is worthy of a 'site visit' this Monday (16th March 2009). He told Steve that he has the power to enter the site, and if there is enough evidence that there is a potential to cause harm to not only nesting birds but also birds that are preparing new nests he has the power to stop anymore tree felling. We have one documented case from during the week, where a great spotted woodpecker had started to hammer a new nesting hole in a Downtown site willow tree, only to abandon this timely house building exercise because of the contractors drilling and erecting their hoardings less than one metre from this nesting hole. This will be pointed out to the wildlife officer.

We have photographic and video evidence to back up our case.

Please try to make to the Downtown site on Monday at 10.

If necessary we may be able to contact the RSPB for support, as suggested by Gary Williams but hopefully after Monday’s visit we will have official backing for stopping the destruction of our trees.

 

13th March 2009

Southwark News: Judicial review re Downtown site on the cards?

Page 4 of this week’s Southwark News (March 12th 2009) highlights that the third application for development on the Downtown site may face a judicial review.  A local resident, in conjunction with the Downtown Defence Campaign, has instructed environmental lawyers to apply for a judicial review.  As Southwark News (Chris Mullany) points out, the local community has become increasingly angry with the felling of mature trees which the developers, Barratt Homes, claims is site preparation.  Mr Mullany also points out that the Southwark Council Overview and Scrutiny Committee will investigate the process leading up to the planning committee meeting.
 

12th March 2009

OSC Committee

I am glad to report that Fiona Colley (Chair of Overview & Scrutiny Committee) has said that the Committee will undertake a scrutiny as per her topic proposal form. She believes that this issue will need a full evening devoted to it so they will arrange a special meeting just for this item.  However, before they can fix a date they need to get further legal advice relating to the legal action/judicial review/appeal that has been lodged as this may restrict what we are able to do and when.  OSC members have delegated authority to Fiona Colley and the Vice-chair to take this forward and she hopes to be able to fix a date soon.
 

11th March 2009

Before and After

A picture paints a thousand words. How truly depressing these photographs are.  Both were taken by Steve Cornish.
 

June 2008

The tragic remains of the same trees yesterday, 10th March 2009

10th March 2009

Local anger as Barratt Homes contractors permitted by Southwark Council to continue felling trees at the Downtown site

It will come as no surprise to local residents to learn that the contractors operating on behalf of Barratt Homes are continuing to destroy trees at the Downtown site, and are getting ready to demolish the next set  in this case 25-year-old cherry trees which are just about to come into blossom.  Birds trying to nest in the trees are being constantly disturbed as they move from one tree to the next, only to find each one removed from under them in turn. This is the worst time of year for imposing this type of destruction on wildlife.

In order to ensure that local residents were actually aware of the destruction of our natural resources, Steve and other DDC members took the initiative to create a DDC newsletter and distribute it to local homes.  The response was overwhelming and both Steve and the council have now been inundated with objections and questions about the situation. 

NEWSLETTER 6^th MARCH

Today Barratt’s have destroyed another 50 trees on the Downtown site with the collusion of the council. Some of these were cherry trees coming into bloom. This is the Council who did not think it was their role to inform you last August that they, prompted by the DDC, had won their  case in the High Court against Barratt’s & the then Secretary of State, Ruth Kelly, but kept it secret from the public.

Here is a brief summary of what you need to know.

• Southwark's Planning committee approved Barratt's plans for the Downtown site on 4th November 2008 but there were 44 conditions, including one that Barratt's should restore the Community Hall facility that they removed from their latest plan + other conditions and then submit a revised planning application for approval.

THEY HAVE FAILED TO DO THIS.

• We the DDC are challenging the legality of Southwark Council’s granting of permission to Barratt’s carrying out the current site work.
• The DDC is still awaiting an official response to questions raised with Councillor Paul Noblett on some specific conditions. We have also requested that Southwark Council should stop all site work until clarifications have been obtained.
• Even as late as today we have approached Boris Johnson who has personally made the following comment:"I know this to be a very controversial development and it would have done Barratt's no harm to be considerate of those who live close to the site and restrain from felling mature trees until it was necessary to start work on the development ..."
• Your local Councillor Paul Noblett has had to step aside as Head of Regeneration because of a potential conflict of interest. The whole issue is now so contentious that Nick Stanton (Leader of the Council) has made the unprecedented move of taking over the executive role for regeneration just for the Downtown site.
• There is a strong possibility that the whole issue may be the subject of a further Judicial Review which means that the proposed current Barratt’s development would be ordered to stop with immediate effect by the High Court. If this can be done immediately the DDC will have succeeded in saving the 200+ remaining trees.

The DDC needs your practical help NOW
to send a loud & clear message to Southwark Council & your MP

WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP.

These people need to know how angry you are. Please take the time to e-mail the below with your comments before it is too late.
nicholas.stanton@southwark.gov.uk
HughesSH@parliament.uk  or simon@simonhughes.org.uk
paul.noblet@southwark.gov.uk
lisa.rajan@southwark.gov.uk
david.hubber@southwark.gov.uk

Steve Cornish
Chairman
March 6th 2009
 

The newsletter can be downloaded here in PDF format or here in MS Word format.

Steve, Kam and many other residents have been asking Southwark councillors for a response to their questions and concerns.  Paul Noblet has been attempting to find an answer on behalf of the DDC, stating that he too is very concerned local residents have still not received definitive answers to the questions have raised with officers over the past few days.  To date, however, he has been unable to supply any of the answers that we all so urgently require due to the delay in gathering some of the information required to address the property issues.  As usual, we wait on Southwark Council.

My thanks to Antony, who was taken to the Downtown site by Lorraine Smith, for his very articulate expression of dismay about the site and its implications for the future of Rotherhithe.  This is an extract from his email to the Friends of Russia Dock Woodland:
 

I had presumed it was a left over piece of brownfield site that hadn't been developed, not a plaza with seating and mature trees directly adjacent to the Woodland. All communications seemed to be about the relocation of a Doctors surgery and how tall the building was going to be.

But I do care now that I know that what is a designated open space from the conception of the peninsula's regeneration in the 1980's and 20 years ago had been carefully planted with (now mature)trees, with an open seating area, benches and grassy banks with hedging and yet is now to be destroyed.

But this MAJOR FACTOR was all lost to me in the lengthy narrative about Barratts and the Downtown site campaign.

People are emotional about destruction of open spaces and trees and maybe this was obvious to those people like Kam who have been involved in this issue for some time, but as a relative newcomer to FoRDW I knew nothing of the loss of an "official green open public space".

I walk past (not through now because of the fencing) every day, what was a shady tree lined plaza with seating for parents to sit and wait for children coming out of the school or for appointments at the health centre is now a fenced off dilapidated litter strewn graffiti ridden site reminiscent a of no-go 60's designed inner city estate awaiting destruction. Magnificent healthy 30ft tall Mature Trees are being killed and chopped into pieces every day.

That Southwark Council have allowed this is criminal, that local Councilors living in the area have stood by and watched is irresponsible and a dereliction of duty (and I hope the electorate remember this blatant disregard to the local community come election time).

I now fully appreciate that the Downtown site IS relevant to Russia Dock Woodland and also to residents in other parts of the peninsula than Downtown.

That is because if Southwark Council can take away one designated open space, they will take away others. If not to build social housing to meet government targets it may be to reduce street cleaning/parks maintenance cost

 

The following letter was sent to Steve by Richard Rawes. Please note point 4, which says that The Council can confirm that it received a formal pre-action protocol letter on 9 March 2009.  Surely this should have been submitted BEFORE the trees were being felled, not in the middle of the whole fiasco. Yet again, the council continue to underwhelm.

10^th March 2009

Dear Mr Cornish
Land at Downtown Road, London SE16

Thank you for your letter of 5 March 2009. 
I would respond to the points raised in your letter as follows.

1. The Council Executive is of the view that by entering into the development agreement with Barratts for the sale and redevelopment of the Downtown site, the Council will sell the site for the best consideration that can reasonably be obtained. Under Section 123 of the Local Government Act 1972 the Council is not therefore required to obtain the Secretary of State’s approval to the sale.

2. The Council has granted Barratts a formal licence to access the Downtown site and to carry out certain preparatory works at Barratts cost prior to satisfaction of the conditions to the development agreement. These conditions include the expiry of the judicial review period following the grant of planning permission for the site.

The licence granted by the Council expressly permits the removal of trees and bushes. These works do not amount to a material operation for the purposes of Section 56 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 and do not implement the planning permission. Therefore, to the extent that conditions attached to the planning permission must be discharged before the permission is implemented, Barratts is not in breach of those conditions.

3. Following the Planning Committee’s resolution to grant planning permission for the site on 4 November 2008, the application was referred to the Mayor. The Mayor did not direct Southwark within the statutory period to refuse to grant planning permission nor did he direct that he wished to determine the application personally.

4. The Planning Permission granted in December 2008 is valid and the applicant is entitled to act on it despite the fact that the period for a legal challenge is still open. The Council can confirm that it received a formal pre-action protocol letter on 9 March 2009.

5. For the time being, the agreement for the sale to Barratts continues to be conditional.  The agreement contains provisions allowing Barratts to enter the site to carry out preliminary works at their own cost and at their own risk once planning permission has been granted.  It is pursuant to these provisions that Barratts have been given access.  There is no obligation on Barratts to withdraw their previous applications but if this agreement becomes unconditional then Barratts are likely to allow the previous applications to fall away.

The Council has endeavoured to answer all your questions as fully as possible and I feel that the matter is now exhausted.  However if you are unhappy with this response and there are further matters you wish to pursue, I attach a copy of the council’s formal complaints procedure for your information.

Yours sincerely

Richard Rawes

Strategic Director of Regeneration & Neighbourhoods

‘

5th March 2009

Letter from Steve Cornish to Richard Rawes

From: stevecornish49@hotmail.com
To: richard.rawes@southwark.gov.uk; nicholas.stanton@southwark.gov.uk; deborah.collins@southwark.gov.uk; stevecornish49@hotmail.com; john.wills6@btopenworld.com; lorraine.smith194@btinternet.com; paul.noblet@southwark.gov.uk
Subject: FW: URGENT - DOWNTOWN
Date: Thu, 5 Mar 2009 09:33:47 +0000
 

To Mr Rawes,

CC Stanton, Deborah Collins, Nicky xxx, Gary Rice, P Noblet, L Rajan, S Hughes MP, V Shawcross, Paul Bates, B Henderson, C Mullany, K Quinn, etc

You state several matters as if they are true and legal facts in your response to my inquiries about your powers re: the tree-felling, hoarding and site clearance that your development partner, Barratts, is carrying out at the Downtown Site, and we would challenge you on the grounds of truth, law, and ethical standards, as follows:

1) The development agreement with Barratts to sell the Downtown land to them:

-this sale of public land is subject to the agreement of the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. Has the Council received the Secretary of State’s legal approval for the sale to proceed under the terms of the development agreement? If not, how can the agreement be considered to be a legally enforceable contract yet?

The land is still owned by the Council, despite the fact that it has every intention to sell it to Barratts as and when it can, and the Council therefore has every right to stop site clearances by Barratts on Council-owned land, such as has been going on recently. Any informal agreement to such activity is extremely premature and prejudicial to the Council in many respects, not least as set out below.

2)  Firstly, that the development agreement with Barratts also stipulates that the sale of the land to Barratts is contingent upon the granting of a Planning Permission to the applicant, Barratts, to develop on the land, and although the Planning Committee and the Council have approved this in principle they have attached many conditions, one of which is that the applicant must submit suitable proposals for a community facility for the Council to approve before any work commences on site.

Barratts has not yet done this, so how can it be legally possible for the site clearance to go ahead, before this substantive pre-condition is satisfied?

The Council has either agreed to ignore the Conditions imposed by its own Planning Committee, or it has acted incompetently in respect of upholding those Conditions.  Either way, the Council is exposing itself to further serious legal action as a result, and we will be seeking legal advice on this matter immediately.

3) The Mayor of London has called in this Planning Application and therefore the Planning Permission can also not be considered to be legally enforceable, even with the conditions having satisfied the Council (see above), until it has received his consent. Has that taken place yet? If not, then again, all this talk of Barratts having some sort of legal or contractual power to clear the site and fell the hundreds of trees, is nonsense. The Mayor could annul the Planning Permission. Where would the Council be then? Environmental assets like trees are irreplaceable in the short-to-medium term, and casually permitting their uprooting and destruction is grossly negligent on the part of the Council on its own land, when there is no legal status to this development or legal Planning Permission as yet.

The Council also knows full well that the period for legal action to be taken against it in the form of an application to the Administrative Court for leave to seek a Judicial Review of the Planning Permission is still open, and the Council has already received an initial pre-case protocol letter from solicitors acting on behalf of an instructing party, expressing their very intention to do precisely that, barring a change of heart on the Council’s part.

Therefore it is not yet the case that the Planning Permission can be considered legally enforceable as it is still open to legal challenge, and so any casual, informal, arrangements to let Barratts clear the site prior to construction are not only grossly premature ethically but legally as well, and the Council knows this.

5)  Despite the fact that the Council knows this full well, or should do, in one critical respect the Council  does seem to be either allowing Barratts to breach the terms of the development agreement to sell the land to them, or again, ignoring such a breach, namely:

• Barratts’ commitment to withdraw its two previous Planning Applications for the Downtown Site, submitted to the Council in 2006 and 2007. Far from having withdrawn either of these two Planning Applications, Barratts has lodged an Appeal on one, and everybody now knows full well, that the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government is minded to open a new Planning Inquiry into both. Barratts has stated that it will withdraw these two Planning Applications once the period for legal actions has expired, namely 23^rd March 2009.
• we at the DDC fail to see how the development agreement sale of land at Downtown can have gone ahead whilst your contracting partner, Barratts, has not fulfilled its obligation to withdraw those Planning Applications, which it does not intend to do until after 23^{rd March 2009, or until the outcome of any legal action challenging the Planning Permission, whichever is sooner.}

How come Barratts can withhold from fulfilling a contractual condition whilst the Council is arguing in relation to site clearance, hoarding and tree-felling, that it cannot stop this from happening because it does not have the power to do so, as Barratts is fulfilling its contractual obligations?

As you should already also know, this Planning Permission has been dealt with in such a way as to have resulted in being called in by the Council’s own Overview and Scrutiny Committee, as part of an investigation into the planning procedures being adopted and employed by the Council in respect of Downtown. We believe that gross disrespect of both the spirit and the letter of the basic ethical standards of a Public Authority having dual roles as a public landowner and a Planning Authority, has been perpetrated. We will also, as advised earlier, be examining further legal action against the Council with regard to this dreadful conduct.

We would very much hope that all the recipients of this letter will study its contents very closely indeed because we believe that if the Council accepts the explanation of its own officer, Richard Rawes, to permit this grossly intrusive site clearance activity by Barratts at this stage in this matter, when there are many extremely serious legal matters outstanding, and on its own land, and continues to permit this activity, then the consequences for the Council could be very serious indeed.

Yours sincerely,
Steve Cornish

 

 

 

4th March 2009

Barratt Homes contractors continue to fell trees at Downtown site

Steve Cornish has had e-mails and phone calls whilst at work this morning to let him know that Barratt Homes contractors are back on site chopping down trees this morning. As they warned, the Surrey Docks Health Centre car park has been locked off, which local residents say s causing gridlock along Downtown Road.  Cllr. Paul Noblet has raised the matter with the officers responsible for managing the situation.

 

Proposal for Overview & Scrutiny Committee (OSC) Meeting

Cllr Fional Colley has decided to propose to the Overview & Scrutiny Committee that the complaints about the planning procedures relating to the Downtown Application should be scrutinised.
 
Scrutiny has no power to overturn or amend the November 2008 decision of the planning committee to grant planning permission or the June 08 decision of the Executive to sell the land to Barratt Homes. Cllr Colley believes, however, that it is important to examine the questions which have been raised. There will be many more planning applications, both in Rotherhithe and other parts of the borough, and she believes that it is important that the council is seen to act fairly and without bias in such cases.

She has prepared a Scrutiny Review Topic Proposal in an official format based on the email put together by Kam Hong Leung.  This proposal will be presented at the next meeting of OSC on Monday 9 March 2009. The members of the committee will then decide whether or not to accept her proposal and, if successful, when the scrutiny review will take place.
 

2nd March 2009

Scrutiny Committee Must Act

Downtown Defence Campaign chairman Steve Cornish has joined calls to Fiona Colley (Chair of Overview & Scrutiny Committee) for the Scrutiny Committee to examine the Barratt Homes planning application for the Downtown site, which will also impact the Canada Water Area Action Plan:

Hello Fiona.

I am sure you will agree that the detailed information presented to you by Mr Kam Hong Leung, and others, regarding the disgraceful set of events leading up to the Downtown Development Application, and indeed afterwards, needs to be thoroughly investigated by the scrutiny committee as soon as practically possible.

There is now a serious lack of trust with the consultation process on the Downtown Site, which will also affect the C.W.A.A.P. This cannot be allowed to be brushed under the carpet. If this outrageous attack on local democracy is allowed to carry on unchecked, then there will be major repercussions further down the line.

The infamous 'fraudulent' 148 document from the chair of the Rotherhithe Area Housing Forum (supposedly representing 14.5 K people?) that was unbelievably allowed to be used in the officers report on the night of 04-11-08 has quite frankly turned the council's planning process into a local laughing stock. We now have the proven 'double counting' on the late, never to be seen, addendum report of the same night. You will also be aware of the R.A.H.F. chairs written political attack on the local conservative party for supporting the Downtown Defence Campaign leading up to this application. If this is not worthy of scrutiny committee then nothing is.

I look forward to hearing your response

Kind Regards

Steve Cornish
 

28th February 2009

Apologies that this page hasn’t been updated for a couple of days. I upgraded my web authoring software which turned out to be a bit of a challenge when using the upgrade with sites built in the older version.
 

Update re Andrew Boff’s question to Mayor Boris Johnson

Andrew Boff has been in touch with the Downtown Defence Campaign stating that the question has been put to Boris Johnson. The Mayor is expected to reply in writing by the middle of next week.

 

Surry Docks Health Centre car park closed

Steve Cornish has written to Cllr Paul Noblet asking for clarification about the circumstances surrounding the ongoing work at the part of the Downtown site adjacent to the the Surrey Docks Health Centre (SDHC) car park. Barratt Homes have continued to fence off this part of the Downtown site. Their contractors have placed a sign on the front gate of the S.D.H.C. stating that the car park will be closed as from 02-03-09 (next Monday). Steve has asked if Paul Noblet can give him an explanation as to why the car park is being closed, and where are the general public that use the health centre going to park their cars.  Steve has asked for assurances that this is not just a way of controlling the public access to that particular area of the site so that Barratt Homes contractors can carry on felling trees before a) they officially own the site b) before they have addressed all of the 44 conditions set by the planning committee on the 04-11-09 and c) before the mayor of London Boris Johnson has 'signed off' the 87 conditions/recommendations that the GLA set last October.

 

24th February 2009

Support for Downtown Defence Campaign from Andrew Boff

Thanks to Steve for the information that Andrew Boff (Conservative, London Assembly Member) has once again offered to help the Downtown Defence Campaign following the news of the recent destruction of over 20 mature trees on the Downtown site by Barratt Homes, before they have addressed the 44 conditions set by the planning committee last November. Andrew has visited the Downtown Site in person on more than one occasion and is well aware of the other 300 trees on the Downtown Site that have been granted a stay of execution thanks to the action of local people. Andrew has also stated that the way in which the Rotherhithe Public have been treated regarding council officers holding vital information from them for nearly six months, including our local councillors, and executive members, "is astonishing".

Andrew has tabled a supplementary question regarding the 87 conditions Barratts received prior to the November 4th planning meeting when the Mayor "called in" The 3rd application (08-AP-1563).  The question posed by Andrew Boff is as follows: What is the Mayor's view of Barratt's wilful destruction of the environment of the Downtown site in Rotherhithe, including the removal of 20 mature trees, despite there being no start date for development and no finally agreed plan. You can see the reply, when made, at the following address:
http://www.london.gov.uk/assembly/members/boffa.jsp
The question will be posed to Mayor of London Boris Johnson this coming Wednesday at City Hall.

Support for OCS investigation by Jenny Jones, London Assembly member

Thanks to Jenny Jones for her support for the DDC's request for an investigation.  She believes that there does seem to have been (to put it at its best) a failure of process in communication that really has to be challenged and explored so that it doesn't happen again. She also points out that, at worst, it could of course be deliberate obfuscation, which should not be allowed and the people concerned would have to be disciplined in some way.
 

23rd February 2009

Objection by local councillors to latest Barratt Homes appeal

Thanks to Kam Hong Leung for forwarding this to local residents.  Sorry that it’s a couple of days late appearing on this site - it got temporarily buried in the blizzard of e-mails which appeared in my Inbox over the weekend.

From: Noblet, Paul
Sent: 20 February 2009 15:36
To: 'pcc@communities.gsi.gov.uk'
Subject: Objection to appeal by Barratt Homes East London re: land at Downtown Road and Salter Road, London SE16

To: pcc@communities.gsi.gov.uk

Appeal by Barratt Homes East London land at Downtown Road and Salter Road, London SE16

We write as the ward councilors for Surrey Docks, in which the Downtown Road site is located, to object to the application by Barratts to construct 268 units (Southwark Planning application 04/AP/1721, your ref: APP/A5840/A/05/1184427) on the following grounds:


1. Overdevelopment

The Downtown site is located within an area designated as suburban in the Southwark Plan.  The area enclosed by Salter Road is much different to the new build and converted warehouses along the riverfront, with the majority of residential dwellings rising to only 2 or 3 floors.  Large blocks of flats, such as those proposed do not respect the local context and would have a severe negative impact on the streetscape.

The height and massing characteristics of Block A/B would dominate the Woodland edge in an unacceptable way, and the scale and dominance of all the blocks on the site have an entirely contrasting character to the neighbouring buildings and local environment.  Redriff Primary School on one side of the site is 1 storey high. Houses in surrounding roads such as Somerford Way are 2 storeys.  Houses on the Salter Road side are 3 storeys.  The proposed blocks in the Barratts application range from 4-6 storeys. The massing would form large solid facades that are totally out of keeping with the character of the area.

It should also be taken into account that the site is elevated from both Downtown and Salter Road, increasing the overall height by something of the order of 1.5 storeys and causing the blocks to dominate the streetscape in an unacceptable way. This contradicts UDP policy 3.13 Urban Design and would destroy the low-rise character of the area highlighted in the Inspector’s report.

We also have concerns about the layout of the development, including car parking, which we believe is contrary to UDP policy 3.14 Designing Out Crime.


2. Transport and accessibility

The London Plan assigns this area a Passenger Transport Accessibility Index (PTAI) rating of 1 - the lowest possible in London.

The site is only served by one bus route, the 381, which has a peak hour frequency of 10-12 minutes. The C10 service does not pass the Downtown site, but rejoins Salter Road about 80m away. During peak hours these buses are frequently full because of the demands on the service from residents on the rest of the Rotherhithe peninsula.  Transport for London has no plans to increase this service to take account of the increase in population that would result from this development and others at Canada Water.

The Downtown site is not what many people would accept as walking distance from either Surrey Quays, Canada Water or Rotherhithe tube stations. Many residents take the bus to these tube station and continue their journey from there. Walking routes are indirect, because of the need to cross or skirt round Russia Dock Woodlands.

The low PTAL is likely to result in more residents having cars, and the low parking provision will lead to increased on-street parking, which will be compounded by school-run drop-off and pick-up parking and patient parking at the health centre.
 

3. Environmental impact

The application will have a severe and unacceptable impact on the local environment, contrary to UDP policy 3.1 Environmental effects.  The proximity to Russia Dock Woodland of Block A/B and the loss of the existing wildlife buffer zone, which is rich in wildlife, including newts, frogs, birds and butterflies, leads to serious concerns.  Building right up to the edge of the woodland will neither enhance it or be beneficial to it.

The site itself is home to around 400 mature trees, few of which can be saved because of the large scale of the proposed development and the massing of the blocks. If a smaller scale development was planned, much more in keeping with the character of the local area, more of these trees could be retained and the negative environmental impact could be lessened.

In summary, we believe the application is unsuitable for the proposed site and does not respect the local context. It is incompatible with the low-rise and suburban character of the surrounding area and would have a negative environmental impact on the Woodlands. The densities proposed do not reflect the low PTAL rating of the area, and we strongly believe that the heights and massing of the buildings do not comply with the Southwark UDP policy 3.13 Urban Design.


Yours sincerely,

Councillor Paul Noblet
Councillor Lisa Rajan
Councillor David Hubber

Surrey Docks Ward, London Borough of Southwark

 

22nd February 2009

Request for  Southwark Council's Overview and Scrutiny Committee (OSC)'s  Investigation of Planning Applications Processing System & Procedures

Thanks to Kam Hong Leung for copying me on an e-mail sent to Councillor Fiona Colley who is the Chair of Overview & Scrutiny Committee for Southwark.  Kam has requested that OSC should investigate the planning application procedures which have been applied to the Barratt Homes development plans for the Downtown site. His e-mail gives detailed reasons for that request

A lot of work has gone into this e-mail.  Thanks to Kam and those who assisted him in pulling together this request.

21st February 2009

The latest from Southwark News
 

Further Downtown Protests

http://www.southwarknews.co.uk/00,news,14292,185,00.htm

It is good to see that Southwark News have covered the Downtown Defence Campaign’s continuing work to prevent the destruction of mature trees by staging protests under the trees that were in the process of being prepared for felling.  The article, on page 13, is a companied by a huge photograph showing Steve Cornish with Paul Noblet and local parents and children at the site.  The children are holding banners which spell out the word UNITED.  A smaller photographs shows contractors erecting hoarding around the site.
 

Tree destruction in South Camberwell echoes Downtown situation

Thanks to Councillor Veronica Ward (Labour, South Camberwell Ward) for her letter to the Southwark News which highlights a similar situation which took place in South Camberwell recently.  She says that many residents in South Camberwell will be feeling for residents local to the Downtown site, where trees have been chopped down before final planning conditions had been agreed.  She describes how South Camberwell has lost two lovely wooded areas in similar circumstances, in once case ignoring Tree Preservation Orders and in the other case removing a woodland zone which divided residents from a busy railway station which they now overlook.  She goes on:  I call on Councillor Noblet, Southwark Executive Member for Regeneration, to review all woodland in the borough and look at how we can protect it before we lose more.
 

Hoarding at the Downtown Site

I was in the park today and went to see what was going on at the site where the contractors had been operating last week.  The trees that local residents were protecting have been fenced off and the wooden hoarding is now in place facing the road, although it does not yet encircle the entire site.  Doubtless Barratt Homes will put some advertising posters on it eventually.

If Barratt Homes had been removing branches and trees for the sake of health and safety you would have though that they would have removed this half-detatched branch before they moved to the other trees which don’t look as though they represent any danger whatsoever!

 

 

20th February 2008

Addendum Report for 4th November 2008 planning meeting now available

Planning Committee Agendas, Minutes and Reports 2008-09

Thanks to Kam Hong Leung for circulating the information that the Addendum Report for the 4th November 2008 Planning Committee Meeting is now available for on the above web page (scroll down to 4th November and click on Item 6, the last link on the list at time of writing.) ""

You can download the file in PDF format by clicking here.

 

 

18th February 2008

Hoarding erected around demolition area of Downtown site

The area undergoing demolition of trees by contractors employed by Barratt Homes was yesterday sealed off by the erection of fences, thereby barring access to protestors and effectively concealing the damage being carried out.

The Downtown Defence Campaign will not waste time in opposing the erection of the hoardings because, at this moment in time, it has been deemed by Southwark Council that Barratt Homes have the legal right to prepare the site  for development, even if this includes the felling of mature trees before all the conditions of that planning application have been met. 

Steve Cornish points out that the hoardings can, however, be taken down if Barratts do not address the conditions set down by the planning committee on the 4th November 2008
 
But of course the 300+ trees that are currently on the downtown site cannot be replaced. This is what is causing the public anger that was covered so well in last weeks Southwark News, in their article Lumber Whacked.
 

 

17th February 2009

Letter from Simon Hughes MP re Canada Water Area Action Plan

Simon Huges, the local MP for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Liberal Democrat) has sent around a letter to local residents asking for feedback from local residents about the CWAAP.  I received mine this morning.  He is asking for general response to the CWAAP document itself, he requests that the online survey on his own website should be completed, and he asks a short number of questions to those without web access and who might take the time to drop him a note.  You can see the entire letter by downloading it here. 
 

Information update from Councilor Paul Noblet

Thanks to Paul Noblet and Kam Hong Leung for providing the following information.  Kam made four key requests, listed here, with the answers that have been provided by Paul Noblet.

1) Provide an update on your email below of 12 February 2009 @ 3:04 PM regarding Simon Hughes MP's phone call with Barratt.

Answer: Simon was able to speak to Barratts late on Thursday.  They were unwilling to stop felling the trees.  They restated what is in the section 106 agreement (which I emailed around last week) which says that they will withdraw their appeals for the first two applications once the last challenge date has passed and permission is granted for the revised health and community centre plans.
 

2) Provide an update on the "Legal Ownership" of Downtown Site as we have discussed during the site visit on 12-2-2009
 
Answer: The Council has exchanged conditional contracts with Barratts in relation to the sale of the site. The developers have the right under the contract, subject to certain conditions being met, to enter on to the site to secure and make ready for development. Those conditions have been met.
 

3) Advise on the last day for making a Judicial Review application for Barratt's third planning application that Southwark Council has granted planning permission with attached conditions during the Planning Committee Meeting on 4 November 2008

Answer: 23rd March 2009 as the decision notice was issued on the 23rd December 2008.


4) Please email me the full set of conditions that Barratt must satisfy in relation to Southwark Council's granting of planning permission during the Planning Committee Meeting on 4 November 2008. 

Answer: There are 44 conditions [NB Paul Noblet pasted all 44 conditions into his email but I’ve put them on a separate page on the site so as not to overload this page with too much text.  You can find all 44 conditions by clicking here].  It is possible to follow the progress of each of the conditions as they are discharged (or not) by following the link: http://planningonline.southwarksites.com/planningonline2/  and typing in Downtown Road.  For example, you can see that condition 36 (Bat survey) has been discharged and that condition 31 (Japanese Knotweed) is due for decision by planning officers. Some of the conditions are standard to many planning consents, others are more specific.  Condition 41 is the health/community centre revised application.  I think conditions 8, 29, 37, 39 and 40 should also have a particularly close eye kept on them too by all of us.

This is a very useful statement of the situation as understood by both Southwark Council and Barratt Homes.  Questions are arising, however, about some of the more ambivalent areas of the conditions.  For example, questions have already been asked about when planning permission can be deemed to have been granted given that the conditions for that planning permission have not been met in full.  In addition, it is possible that Barratt Homes should have waited, following the recent public discovery of the High Court Ruling made last August, to see whether the Downtown Defence Campaigns would be seeking a Judicial Review.

More information will be posted here as it becomes available.

15th February 2009

Tree destruction update

Several local residents have received a letter from the Liberal Democrat councillors (available on this website by clicking here - a large image file which may take some time to download.  Alternatively click here to download it. 464kb).  It was hand delivered yesterday.  Residents have welcomed the quick response and the explanation of the current situation regarding the unfortunate destruction of 20 mature trees on the Downtown site by contractors employed by Barratt Homes.  Unfortunately they have omitted to add contact details.  These can be found by clicking on the links in the Who’s Who page on this site.

The image to the right shows one of the trees which was given a stay of execution, thanks to local community action.

 

 

14th February 2009

UPDATE -Tree Preservation Order (TPO)

Thanks to Antony for the following e-mail to the Friends of Russia Docks Woodland email group:

Here is the information from UK Gov on a Tree Preservation Order (TPO)
http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/planningandbuilding/pdf/tposguide.pdf

WE NEED THIS ENFORCING IMMEDIATELY

On Thursday 12 February I rang Southwark Council Environment Department to speak for the Tree Officer, unfortunately all the operator could do was to log a call,I logged a call requesting that an
immediate Tree Preservation Order be put in place on ALL trees at the Downtown site, Somerford way SE16. I was promised someone would call be back hopefully by 5.00pm or at the latest before end the of the day Friday 13 Feb, nobody has, time now is 18:17pm.

In the absence of any response or action from Southwark Council's Tree Officer I have now emailed:

1. The Secretary of States office
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Minister for the Natural and Marine Environment, Wildlife and Rural Affairs): Huw Irranca-Davies MP

PS.Huw.Irranca-Davies@defra.gsi.gov.uk

2. Department of the Environment TPO
tpo@communities.gsi.gov.uk

3. Governement office London
sporter.gol@go-regions.gov.uk

4. Forestry Commission: English Conservancies
fc.nat.off.eng@forestry.gov.uk

Anybody else wanting to send emails please feel free to do so, the more representations we make the more chance somebody will do something, i.e. its the squeaky wheel that gets oiled.

13th February 2009

Community Action photographs from Thursday

Thanks to Kam Hong Leung for the above photograph which shows some of the people who turned out to protect the Downtown site from the destruction of mature trees.  They were not alone.  Parents and children turned up to lend their support, together with other local residents and, of course, Steve Cornish. The above photographs show, from right to left, Cllr. Jenny Jones AM (Southwark Councillor and Green Party Leader of The London Assembly); Stephanie Lodge (Representative of Southwark Friends of The Earth); Cllr. Paul Noblet (Surrey Docks Ward Councillor (Lib Dem Party) and Southwark Council's Executive Member for Regeneration); Loanna Morrison (Southwark Conservative Party's Parliamentary Candidate for Bermondsey & Old Southwark) and Jerry Hewitt (Secretary of Hawkstone Tenants & Residents Association).

See the latest update on Kam’s website for another photograph and additional comments.

12th February 2009

UPDATE: A day of community action has provided a stay of execution for the Downtown trees

Thanks to everyone who copied me in on the e-mails re today’s news whilst I was at work in town.  There was a lot going on, so apologies for the length of the following report.

The main result for today is the prevention of further demolition of trees on the cordoned off section of the Downtown site described in news updates from yesterday and this morning.  Local residents successfully prevented Barratt contractors from destroying any more trees by parking cars under the next group of trees that were cordoned off for destruction.  The tree felling contractors arrived, looked at the scene before them, turned around and went back to their headquarters. Unfortunately another contractor appeared on site with boards and posts to fence off the Downtown site to the public, for obvious reasons.  They want to control who enters that particular part of the Downtown site so that local protesters cannot gain access. There is nothing we can do about the hoardings, but we can still attempt stop the butchery of our trees.

Steve says that there has been a great ground swell of extra support today, particularly since the report in today's Southwark news has focused peoples attention on the unbelievable saga of recent events. As Steve says, it is good to see that people really do care about their environment even though sometimes they don't react until they physically see it being taken from them.

A gathering at the site was planned for 3,30pm and Steve was informed that Jenny Jones (Southwark councillor and London assembly member for the green party) will attend, along with representatives from Southwark friends of the earth. representatives from the Hawkstone tenant and residents association, prospective conservative parliamentary candidate (Leonna Morris) Surrey Docks Farm manager (Kath Whittam) plus, more importantly, dozens and dozens of local schoolchildren and their parents who unbelievably seem to have been left in the dark as well.  Paul Noblet pledged his support as well.  Simon Hughes was unable to attend but was speaking to Barratt Homes earlier on our behalf.

One local resident has suggested to Paul Noblet that we should investigate the possibility that the council’s Tree Officer might be in a position to put an immediate Tree Protection Order (TPO) on the trees at the Docklands Downtown site  His understanding is that a TPO is a discretionary power that the council can enforce within a day. It will be interesting to see what sort of response this receives.

Thanks to Lisa Rajan for her input, copied by e-mail to a long distribution list, to explain the difficulties that the councillors have had in their dealings with Barratt Homes over this issue, and I have copied it below because it makes some important points:

From: Rajan, Lisa [mailto:Lisa.Rajan@SOUTHWARK.GOV.UK]
Sent: 12 February 2009 10:56
Subject: RE: Downtown Site

It is not fair to say that Surrey Docks councillors are uncaring and are not making any attempt to stop the trees being cut down, as this is untrue. Paul and I went down to the site yesterday morning to see what could be done. I have also spent the past two days trying to get hold of Greg Tillotson at Barratts to ask him to give the order to stop cutting the trees down. I finally managed to get hold of him yesterday afternoon. He was very bullish about the situation and said they had no intention of stopping even though I pointed out the devastating effect this is having on the DDC and local community, and that it was needless at this time when their revised application on the health centre had not even been submitted. I tried as hard as I could to persuade him to show some sensitivity to the community, but he was adamant that they are not doing anything illegal and it is part of them progressing the planning permission and discharging various conditions. He refused to be drawn on the issue and would not see the emotive, community or ecological side of the arguments. We've worked with local residents every single step of the way on Downtown over the past six years and many of your previous emails have detailed the shared successes we've had in this long and convoluted battle, so I don't think it's fair to say that we don't care. Paul has been doing everything he can to check out the legalities of what Barratts are doing and whether they are breaching the permission in any way. He has had a number of enforcement officers looking into it to double check what our options are, and it is not his fault that they are limited.
Best regards,
Lisa

Southwark News (February 12th 2009, Issue 895) have featured a front page article about the High Court ruling as well as the situation with the Downtown trees, following it up with more details in a middle page spread later in the paper, with photographs taken by Steve Cornish and Kam Hong Leung. This type of high profile exposure is something that we really need to bring the issues playing out at the Downtown site into the public domain.  Hopefully other resident groups in other areas fighting similar inappropriate developer behaviour will also benefit from the activities of the DDC.  The paper will be in newsagents until next Wednesday.  Here’s an extract from the front page article Lumber whacked by Chris Mullany, one of the Managing Directors of the Southwark News (see the newspaper for the full stories):

FURIOUS ROTHERHITHE residents took direct action against developers on Wednesday morning, hurling themselves in the path of mature trees earmarked for felling, in a desperate bid to halt the destruction.

The angry scenes took place in a week of extraordinary twists, with Downtown residents, local ward councillors - and even Southwark Council's Executive Member for Regeneration, Paul Noblet - discovering that a High Court appeal lodged by the authority against developer Barratt Homes' original application had been successful.

Campaigners were stunned to learn that the appeal had been won back in August 2008, and insist they were not informed by council officers. Just over two months later, the developers' third attempt to secure permission was considered by the council's planning committee and given approval.

As residents celebrated the High Court revelation, they stepped out of their doors on Tuesday to find mature trees being felled on the Downtown site by contractors for Barratt, on the back of the subsequent secured approval. A spokesperson for Barratt told the 'News' that they were "not in breach of planning regulations" and were "acting legally in accordance with a licence granted by Southwark Council and... clearing tress and undergrowth in readiness for construction."

Yet the timing of the felling has enraged campaigners, who have pointed out that Barratt have yet to submit a revised application, showing how they will meet 44 conditions laid out when their November permission was granted, including how they will provide a health/community centre.
 

Community action at Downtown site planned for today

Community action will continue today at the site of the tree felling by contractors brought in by Barratt Homes.  If you wish to join them by gathering beneath the trees that are under threat you will be very welcome.  The land under threat is to the right of the Surrey Docks Health Centres visitor car park.  This action by Barratt Homes is very much the thin end of the wedge.  25 trees have been removed so far but 300 are under threat, including those which line the edge of the Russia Dock Woodlands Downtown pond  See below for photographs from Tuesday and Wednesday.
 

More re High Court ruling

Docklands News 24 has picked up on the news that there was a High Court ruling which quashed one of the planning applications submitted by Barratt Homes for the Downtown site, on grounds which some local residents believe have not yet been resolved. Here#s an extract from the story

THE High Court has quashed the Government's decision to allow Rotherhithe's 'inadequate' and 'prejudicial' Downtown development to go ahead.

Plans for Southwark Council and Barratt Homes 212- flat development on the ecologically-sensitive area could finally be shelved now after three planning applications over five years.

The current Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Hazel Blears, said she will now run a new Public Inquiry into the development.

Downtown Defence campaigners have described the appeal news as a 'triumph', but are angry that although the High Court decision was issued in August 2008, it has been kept secret until now.

Steve Cornish, chair of the Downtown Defence Campaign, said: "Barratts were round with their diggers excavating large pits illegally only weeks ago and we forced them off the site.

"All along, we have unanimously as residents, and carefully as citizens, and as diligently as we can, objected to this fundamentally wrong planning development proposal since the very outset - for the High Court to back us is fantastic. Justice is alive and well."

See the above page for the full story.
 

11th February 2009

1930.  Final update for today. 

Paul Noblet has said, in an email directed to Steve Cornish and Kam Hong Leung, that someone in the council has spoken to Barratt Homes and have made every effort to get them to cease felling pending the revised application. They is apparently no legal obligation for them to stop and they are not willing to compromise and show residents or elected members any goodwill on this issue.  Paul Noblet says that he and others in the council share your frustration and anger at the way this has been handled, and have told Barratts that this will obviously impact on the view which we and local residents will take on future Barratt developments. He feels that they have taken all us all for granted and says that he is extremely sad that local residents, ward councillors and the local authority cannot stop this tree felling in its tracks until such time as a new application comes forward.  He is encouraging everyone to continue to object to the first application and to lobby their MPs to get the planning act amended and says that he will be keeping a close eye on the way they discharge all their future conditions and  will come down on them hard if they try to cut corners at any point.

Steve Cornish, Chairman of the Downtown Defence Campaign, responded with the information that we, local residents, have successfully prevented the felling of any more trees today by contractors working on behalf of Barratt Homes.  Community action provided a stay of execution for many more trees where council pressure was unable to pull any weight in spite of the fact that they state that they share our frustration and are extremely sad.  It is blatantly obvious that there is nothing that our councillors can do on our behalf and on behalf of the natural habitat that is being eliminated.  This inability to act is highlighted by the fact that our executive member for regeneration and our local councillors were kept in the dark for six months about the outcome of the High Court ruling. This has left local people absolutely dumbfounded.  As Steve says, it looks horribly as though our council have turned what should have been a council/community combined victory into a disastrous defeat

Steve’s view is that in the face of the council’s inability to act officially it will be up to concerned residents to do it ourselves. We have stopped Barratt Homes contractors today, and they can be stopped again tomorrow, and the day after if necessary. We have had an offer of help regarding this action from Jenny Jones (Green Party AM) and also members of the Southwark Friends of the Earth.  Steve has issued an invitation to Paul Noblet to  come and join us, and anyone else is most welcome

The part of the Downside site currently under threat can be found in the visitor carpark of the Surrey Docks Health Centre, on the ground to the right.  It is a very sorry spectacle.

Photo log of destruction at the Downtown Site.  Photos by Steve Cornish, Kam Hong Leung and Andie  Byrnes.

Further updates re the destruction of trees at the Downtown Site

1300. Whilst waiting for the Council to make up their minds about what decisions take re the Downtown site and Barratt contractors’s ongoing felling of trees, a number of local residents have gathered at the site and are standing in the way of the destruction.  Another five trees have been taken down this morning, bringing the total to 25 trees felled.  Barratt Homes have not yet met the terms and conditions of the changes demanded to their planning application, meaning that the their destruction of the natural resources of the Downtown site is extremely questionable, certainly ethically and very possibly legally.  We await a response from the council.  Unfortunately for the contractors, who are merely carrying out the work order issued by Barratt Homes, no Barratt officials are on site to address local concerns. The contractors have been thrown into the middle of this fairly substantial mess and no-one from Barratt Homes has had the decency to come down to oversee the situation, which they must have known would be controversial.  Their behaviour continues to cause considerable distress to local residents.  A swift response from our councillors would be welcome.

1430. I went down to join Steve to see what was going on for myself.  The part of the site where the trees are being removed is in front of the Surrey Docks Health Centre - immediately next to the Health Centre’s visitor car park.  The contractors had been sent over from Chelmsford, and had all the kit required for sawing branches, felling trees, processing the smaller bits of wood into shavings and sawdust, and a lorry with a crane for taking away large tree trunks.  Numerous raw tree stumps, small and large, could be seen all over the site, and the destruction was both efficient and absolute.  I took photographs which I will post shortly.  Very sad.  I left Steve to hold the fort as the and Kam was going to re-join him shortly. 

1600.  Thanks to Paul Noblet for the information that he, Lisa Rajan and David Hubber have opposed each of the planning applications and do not want to see the trees go unlawfully, but the planning legislation gives them both members and local residents very little muscle in stopping issues such as the tree felling happening something which he is currently writing a letter to Simon Hughes MP, Harriet Harman MP and Tessa Jowell MP for their help in rectifying.  He adds that they are currently trying to contact one of the Barratt Homes directors by telephone and will keep everyone posted.

IMPORTANT UPDATE
Staggering news re Barratt Homes ongoing damage to the Downtown site

I really was quite staggered by this story, reported by Steve Cornish who witnessed the destruction of 20 full grown trees, in person.

At 15.30pm yesterday, outside the gates of Redriff School on the Downtown site Steve was in the process of informing school parents and their children that an High Court judgment had taken place on the 20-08-08 ruling in the favour of the council and of course the Downtown Defence Campaign (the D.D.C.)..A celebration was in full swing when, unbelievably, one of the parents pointed out that Barratts contractors had been on site all afternoon chopping down 60ft mature trees. To the complete amazement of everyone she was absolutely correct. When challenged about who gave him the authority to destroy over 20 trees the foreman of the contractors responded "I have been told not to answer any questions"
 
Steve immediately contacted Paul Noblet, our local councillor and executive member for regeneration, demanding that, in Steve’s words, he stops Barratts illegal butchery immediately".  Paul Noblet responded by submitting the council’s planning enforcement team to visit the Downtown site yesterday evening as a matter of urgency.

The photographs shows the felling of twenty 60ft high trees by contractors operating on behalf of  Barratt Homes on the Downtown site. This has taken place is spite of the hard facts that Barratts a) have not met the conditions set by the councils planning committee and b) that they knew that they lost the High Court judgment on the 20th august last year.  It can therefore be observed that Barratts have carried out two illegal acts on the downtown site within the space of two weeks.

1. Pretending to dig soil sample holes when in fact they were digging massive holes trying to locate the old dock wall. Councillors spoke to Barratts at that time, and it appears that these warnings have gone unheeded
2. Making a statement yesterday that 'they were instructed  by Barratts to remove the trees furthest away from the school to avoid health and safety problems'.

There are two further issues regarding the destruction of the trees,  in two ways:

1. The trees in question are not the furthest trees from the school they are in fact very close and
2. It is completely unclear who decided that the tree were an health and safety issue to begin with.  They have been there for 25 years and are no different to any other trees on the site.  The trees in question were all within the same square area. If there was a rogue tree that had a branch hanging precariously one could understand, but to destroy 20 tree seems like nothing more than opportunist vandalism.

It seems as though the situation has now become a controlled destruction of our environment by Barratt Homes before meeting the demands of the conditions set out by the planning committee.
 
Steve has emailed Paul Noblet on the behalf of distressed residents of the Downtown area to  inform him and other councilors, who are supposed to represent our interests, that if Barratt Homes attempt to destroy one more tree on the Downtown site, we will have no alternative but to take our own action.  At the time of writing Barratt Homes have been ordered to stop their work. so there is no reason why the general public cannot stand in front of the chain saws if the illegal and ruthless destruction of our woodland continues to be ongoing.

Astoundingly, Steve had to email councillor Paul Noblet at 1115 this morning  to inform him that Barratts Contractors are on site again today! Steve has spoken to the contractor’s foreman who stated that he has been instructed by Barratts to cut down even more trees today. The destruction of these trees must be stopped while we await a response from the planning department.

Councillors Paul Noblet and Lisa Rajan had visited the site earlier this morning and are waiting for clarification of key questions which Paul Noblet says have been posed to 5 very senior members of the planning department working on this issue.  The questions concerned were asked in the form of an email to Paul Noblet by Kam Hong Leung, and I include that email below for reference:
 

Sent: Wednesday, February 11, 2009 3:23 AM
Subject: Downtown Site :
Urgent Request for Clarification and Actions by Cllr. Paul Noblet re Destruction of Trees by Barratt

Dear Cllr. Paul Noblet
 
I have understood from Steve Cornish's email below of 10 February 2009 @ 16:49  that Barratt's contractors have chopped down twenty mature trees on Downtown Site and grinding them into pulp yesterday.  Reportedly, Barratt's action has cut short the celebration of some Local Residents and Redriff Primary School Pupils for Southwark Council's High Court victory against The Secretary of State for Communities & Local Government.  This has allegedly caused great distress to many parents, residents and school children.  I have posted 4 photos taken by Steve Cornish of yesterday's reported incidents which can be accessed for viewing via the web link :
 http://cid-810e9c86bbce804e.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!810E9C86BBCE804E!574.entry

I am hereby writing to seek your urgent advice, and immediate actions if appropriate, on the following issues in your roles as my "Local Councillor" of Surrey Docks Ward and Southwark Council's Executive Member for Regeneration. 
 
1)  Please advise if Southwark Council is the legal owner of Downtown Site where the mature trees have been chopped yesterday. 
 
2)f Southwark Council is the legal owner of Downtown Site where the mature trees have been chopped down yesterday, please advise if Southwark Council has given formal approval to Barratt to chop down these trees.  If formal approval has been given by Southwark Council, please advise the department that gave the formal approval to Barratt and if this department has the authority to grant the approval. 
 
3)Brett Henderson, Southwark Council 's Senior Planning Officer has made the following statement to Steve Cornish in his email below of 10 February 2009 @ 17:57:50: 
 
"Barratt homes have outlined that they will be withdrawing the above appeal and the second application's (07-AP-1898) appeal after the Judicial Review period has expired for the third application (08-AP-1563) that was approved by the Planning Committee on 4 November 2008.  Barratt's have also confirmed that they wish to build out the development that was approved by the Planning Committee on 4 November 2008."
 
Please confirm the accuracy of the above-mentioned statement made by Brett Henderson.
 
3)Cllr. Gordon Nardell stated in his email below of 10 February 2009 @ 22:23:03 that :  "As regards the application we resolved to grant in November, I have no idea of the state of play on the discharge of the condition we imposed regarding the community/health centre .... ". Please advise what is the state of play on the discharge of the conditions Southwark Council has imposed on Barratt during the Planning Committee's Meeting on 4 November 2008 regarding the community/health centre.
 
4) If the conditions Southwark Council has imposed on Barratt during the Planning Committee's Meeting on 4 November 2008 regarding the community/health centre have not yet been discharged, please advise if you consider Barratt's chopping down of the mature trees on Downtown Site yesterday was deemed to be "legal".
 
5) Steve Cornish stated the following in his email below of  10 February 2009 @ 16:49 : "I/we therefore urgently request you to stop Barratt's contractors destroying anymore trees with immediate effect."  You told Steve Cornish in your email below of 10 February 2009 @ 4:50 PM that "Planning Enforcement are on their way to the site and should be there before 5pm to assess the situation."  Please advise if the expected assessment by Southwark Council's Planning Enforcement has taken place and if so, what was the assessment of the situation and the resultant action points that have been proposed or undertaken by Southwark Council, especially if the chopping down of the trees by Barratt yesterday is deemed to be "illegal" or without the "formal approval" of Southwark Council. 

Yours sincerely

Kam Hong Leung
Surrey Docks Ward Resident and Southwark Council Taxpayer

High Court ruling update
 

I anticipate that the level of discussion and communication on this subject will rise considerably over the next few days and weeks, but here’s an initial response from Gorden Nardell:

Dear all,
 
I thought I should try to help clear the air in the wake of these recent exchanges.’  I do so very cautiously because the outstanding issue of the configuration of the health centre/community centre building is likely to come back to Planning Committee at some stage.
 
The Planning Committee certainly were advised that the Secretary of State decision to allow the original appeal against her inspector's recommendation had been quashed.  I have been trawling through old Committee minutes to try to find it, but my recollection (though I could be wrong) is that officers formally reported this to members in an addendum report some months ago.  The SoS decsision was quashed by consent -- that is, without a contested hearing in front of a judge -- and the context of the report to members was what should happen next. The effect of quashing the SoS decision is that she has to consider it again, and she has a discretion whether or not to hold a re-opened inquiry. Members pressed officers to ask the SoS to hold a re-opened inquiry given the passage of time and the change of circumstances, especially the adoption of the UDP in the meantime.  We were not comfortable about the SoS simply re-taking the decision on the basis of the original inspector's report as a paper exercise behind closed doors. 
 
This discussion was held in public session and I am sure it appears in the minutes somewhere.  There is no question of the Committee concealing it from anyone.  As Planning Committee members we can't take sides, or be seen to be taking sides, on controversial applications, especially where we may have to deal with the same site again in the foreseeable future.  So I don't think it would have been wise for any of us to trumpet this to local campaigners as a victory/defeat etc.  However, it would have been helpful if officers had informed interested parties of what was going on.  I would have expected officers to keep the Executive Member for Regeneration informed, who could in turn have kept ward councillors in the picture.  This particular case should also have been reported to Council Assembly, since it was there that the decision to challenge the SoS grant of planning permission was taken, unanimously, all those months ago.
 
I think - though again I might be wrong -- that all this happened some time before we considered the more recent application for the Downtown site at our November meeting.  If that is right, then what was pending as at that meeting (and I see the word "pending" appeared in the officers' report) was the SoS's redetermination of the original appeal, not the High Court challenge. I have a feeling she had accepted the Council's argument that there should be a re-opened inquiry, and this was still awaited in November.  I have tried to reconstruct this from the search entry on the Council's website.  This shows that the appeal eventually came to an end by being withdrawn.  So the real news is that the original scheme, which the then Planning Committee resolved to reject and which the inspector was against, is now officially dead. 
 
As regards the application we resolved to grant in November, I have no idea of the state of play on the discharge of the condition we imposed regarding the community/health centre, though I am aware from e-mail traffic that there is still community disquiet about what is understood to be proposed.  For obvious reasons I can't comment on the merits, but I do have a suggestion to make about procedure.  We recently determined a series of applications for the early housing sites to replace demolished flats on the Heygate.  It was obvious that there was a great deal of disquiet about the way in which these proposals had been drawn up, and members expressed the view that a more inclusive way of working up future applications for the early housing sites would be through Local Development Orders.  These are orders made by the Council itself following community consultation, taking the place of an application for planning permission by a developer.  It might be worth looking at using an LDO to come up with more consensual proposals for an acceptable version of the health/community centre building.

I hope these thoughts help.  There has evidently been a communications failure here, and I hope that for the future officers will take note of the importance of keeping all interested parties informed of what happens in cases like this.  I also hope that the LDO idea might help resolve the future of the Downtown site in a way that maximises community involvement.
 
Best regards
Gordon

Gordon Nardell
Labour Councillor for The Lane ward

Members' Room
Southwark Town Hall
Peckham Road
London SE5 8UB

Tel 07903 964262
 

9th February 2009

BREAKING NEWS
HIGH COURT QUASHES GOVERNMENT PLANNING DECISION AS “INADEQUATE AND PREJUDICIAL

PRESS RELEASE IMMEDIATE
Issued on behalf of the Downtown Defence Campaign (DDC), Rotherhithe, London SE16 on
9th February 2009
 

The High Court of Justice has overturned a UK Government decision which gave the go-ahead to a bitterly disputed planning development in an ecologically sensitive wild-life area in south east London, as inadequate and prejudicial, it was revealed today (5 February 2009).

Furthermore, the Government has agreed unconditionally with the Judge’ Ruling, and picked up the tab for the legal costs of Southwark Council who brought the Judicial Review which challenged the controversial multi-million pound planning development. Now the developer, Britain’s giant home builder - debt-burdened Barratts Homes - is nursing a big headache as local campaigners celebrate this landmark legal planning ruling.

The High Court also states that Barratts agreed to the Judges’ Ruling, but did not make any concessions about it.

There will therefore not be any Appeal by either the Government or Barratts.

The High Court decision, which was actually issued in August last year(20th August 2008), but inexplicably kept secret until 5 February this year (5th February 2009), is a body-blow to both Barratts Homes and  ironically  their development partner, Southwark Council itself, which not only brought the Case and but also owns the land wants to sell to Barratts.

Barratts and Southwark Council have spent seven years trying to push through a huge high-density flats development right on the edge of the rarest piece of free-access, public woodland in central London, known as Downtown in Rotherhithe, south east London.

Many politicians in Southwark are now demanding to know why they were not told of the High Court ruling when it was issued in August last year  especially because days before last Christmas, Southwark Council granted a new Planning Permission for a revised, slightly scaled-down development, to its development partner, Barratts Homes, under the explicit threat that if Southwark Councillors refused the latest Planning Application, Barratts could revert back to its original Plan, when in reality the High Court had already thrown out that Plan as illegal.

This is quite extraordinary - why weren’t we told about this at the time of the Planning Commitee Meeting before Christmas. We are going to have to ask a lot of questions  this is very, very strange indeed, although it is also good news for Downtown and our environment, said opposition local Southwark Councillor Richard Livingstone (Labour Livesey Ward). Southwark Council is currently run by a Liberal Democratic & Conservatives’ joint majority administration. Labour is the second largest Party on Southwark Council but in Opposition. The Greens have one seat on Southwark Council.

Already Downtown campaigners, including Friends of the Earth, and hundreds of local residents, want to know why the High Court Judgment was kept under wraps for the last six months during which time Barratts and Southwark Council have agreed a new Planning Permission to build on this ecologically sensitive site- albeit with special conditions that Barratts has yet to meet. Steve Cornish, Chair of the local objectors’ group, the Downtown Defence Campaign, which has led the campaign against Barratts Homes all along, said on learning the legal news: Barratts were round with their diggers excavating large pits illegally only weeks ago and we forced them off the site. All along, we have unanimously as residents, and carefully as citizens, and as diligently as we can, objected to this fundamentally wrong planning development proposal since the very outset for the High Court to back us is fantastic. Justice is alive and well.

We have now had, over 5 years, three separate Planning Applications from Barratts, with countless amendments, one official Government-sanctioned Public Planning Inquiry, and Ruth Kelly, the Secretary of State’s over-ruling of her own Planning Inquiry finding, and not to mention numerous Southwark Council Planning Committee Meetings, and we have fought every step of the way, with the cross-Party support of everyone who lives here and cares about Downtown  Labour, Liberal Democrat, Conservative and Green Parties.

We have sat up most of the night at umpteen Town Hall Meetings at Southwark Council, and we are now really grateful to the High Court for its Ruling. But we wish we had been told about it earlier, when the Judges made their decision in our favour in August last year. The Court Case was brought by Southwark Council and they seem to have suppressed it from public knowledge and we want to know why “ because in the meantime they have sneaked through a new Planning Permission in Barratts’ favour.

We are also grateful to the Government that it has accepted the High Court decision. We are grateful to Southwark Council for taking the case to the High Court in the first place. But first and foremost we are grateful to everyone who has joined in our campaign and helped keep things going along the long and hard road we have travelled to protect a unique and beautiful part of inner London, so that generations in future can also grow up and enjoy this green oasis in our great city, and we would like to see all Londoners coming to our fabulous Woodland and enjoying themselves it is a treasure trove of Nature, Mr Cornish said.

The current Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Hazel Blears, said on Friday (5th February 2009), in response to the High Court Ruling last August, that in her preliminary assessment, she wants a new Public Inquiry into the Downtown development and has given everyone 30 working days until 19 March 2009 to submit their views to her.

Downtown Defence Campaign Chair Steve Cornish said: We serve due notice that we will now be going to the High Court again, to seek another Judicial Review of the very recent Planning Permission granted by Southwark Council to Barratts Homes, when they knew full well about this incredibly important High Court decision, but didn’t let on to anyone about it, and we hope our arguments will prevail once more.
-ends-

Download above press release with additional Editor’s Advisory Notes BY CLICKING HERE (in PDF format).
 

 

30th January 2009

Canada Water Area Action Plan Meeting 4th February 2009

At the Alfred Salter School, Quebec Way,  Rotherhithe at 7pm.  This is your chance to take a look at the options that are proposed and to ask questions. Spread the word to as many people as possible.  This does not concern the Downtown site specifically, but will impact the entire of Rotherhithe.

See the Recent News page for more details.
 

19th January 2008

Barratt Homes damage to the Downtown site

Thanks to Steve Cornish for sending me the attached photograph showing the damage that occurred when Barratt Homes contractors vandalised the Downtown site, claiming that they were there to take soil samples.  In fact their activities on the site, which resulted in enormous three metre deep holes all over the site were the result of trying to locate the historic Acorn Dock wall which is directly below the Downtown site.  The presence of the former dock wall would apparently hamper their piling if or when they should meet the conditions set down by the planning committee on the 4th November 2008.

The photo attached is taken from the very same location as depicted in the first photo shown on the Downtown Defence Campaign’s home page, which  has a caption mentioning the long grass meadow in the foreground right up to the trees in the background all of which is on the downtown site.

One has to wonder if there isn’t a way of raising this illegal destruction of the meadow by Barratt Homes before they have addressed the conditions set by the planning committee?

A digger was on site all last week, from the 5th to the 9th January 2008. Please note that all of the trees plus the grass verge in this photo (foreground and background) will be destroyed prior to development.  Barratt Homes removed the digger on Saturday 11th January and replaced it with a much smaller core drilling machine that is used for soil samples. This was the method that should have been used to take soil samples. Barratt Homes have taken  a liberty not only with the people of Rotherhithe but also the council.  They are apparently very keen to get remedial work done before the start of the nesting season which starts on 1st march.
 

11th January 2009

More re Barratt Homes activities on Downtown site

Please note that Kam Hong Leung visited the Downtown Site today and has posted 3 of the photos that he took on his RCSF Blog.  They can can be viewed at the following address : 
http://cid-810e9c86bbce804e.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!810E9C86BBCE804E!399.entry
 

 

10th January 2009

More re Barratt Homes work on Downtown Site

Email from Steve Cornish to councillor Paul Noblet

Paul,
 
For your information Barratts contractors have removed their mechanical digger from the downtown site this morning (saturday)
 
Barratts have taken a diabolical liberty here, They have lied to the councils head of planning control in an attempt to carry out vital remedial ground work before receiving permission? from the local planning authority.
 
I will remind you of just two of the many 'terms of conditions' laid down by the planning committee on the 4th november 2008.
 
Condition (44).... " the development shall not commence until details of the traffic management plan has been submitted and approved in writing by the local planning authority"
 
Condition (41)...." no development shall take place until a scheme for the internal layout of the 'health centre' and 'community centre' has been submitted to and approved in writing by the local planning authority"
 
These are just two of the numerous conditions set by the councils planning authority which should have been adhered to. No matter if you are an ordinary Southwark resident or one of the country's largest developers.
 
Barratts have left swathes of land completely destroyed shrubs bushes and wild grassland ripped up, and with some of the perimeter fencing pulled down and not replaced. We know full well that if Barratts are given the go ahead after addressing the conditions in their forthcoming application that over 300 trees will be felled. But we are not at that stage yet, and we would like to think that the planning laws apply to everyone including Barratts.
 
They have caused local anger just by destoying some of the shrubs and vegetation, so god knows what will happen if and when they start destroying 300 mature trees.

Regards
 
Steve.....
 

9th January 2009

Barratt Homes Contractors on Downtown Site

Email from Steve Cornish to local councillors:

From: Steve Cornish [mailto:stevecornish49@hotmail.com]
Sent: 07 January 2009 17:31
To: Noblet, Paul; Rajan, Lisa; Hubber, David
Cc: the_friends_of_russia_dock_woodland@yahoogroups.com;
john.wills6@btopenworld.com; lorraine.smith194@btinternet.com
Subject: URGENT: BARRATTS CONTRACTORS ON DOWNTOWN SITE


Hello Councillors,
 
I have been inundated with calls this morning from local residents who have complained that Barratts contractors are on the downtown site with a mechanical digger which has been digging deep large holes at the top of the grass verge on the corner of Downtown Road and Salter Road.

I have spoken to the contractors foreman who stated that " they were there under orders from Barratts to dig down bore holes to find out where the old historic dock wall is situated". They then proceeded to uproot the (buddleia) bushes close to Redriff school stating that "they need to do the same thing in this and other areas of the site".

I have been in touch with the acting case officer at southwark council ( Gordon Adams) who explained that Barratts are doing some exploratory remedial work. I pointed out that a new amended application is forthcoming which will go out to public consultation in the normal manner and will then be put before the planning committee to decide whether or not Barratts have addressed the conditions set down on the november 4th planning meeting.

He 'was' aware of this and stated that "Barratts are taking a risk" but there was not a lot he could do about it.
 
Can You make it a matter of urgency, to find out why Barratts are digging enormous three metre deep holes all over the downtown site and also ripping up established shrubbery which conceals an underground foxes den, well before Barratts have submitted their new amended plans to the public, and then the planning committee.

I am sure that if any ordinary member of the public were to start digging exploratory holes in their back garden for their house extention before they met 'in full' the conditions set down by the planning committee, then the council would be down on them like a ton of bricks.

You can imagine what people are saying in this area. I am sure that I don't have to explain.

Regards
 
Steve

 

Reply from Paul Noblet:

Steve,

I’ve contacted the Head of Development Control about this issue.

Barratts have to provide soil samples as part of the permission so they are allowed to dig holes but not to construct anything before they submit and get permission for (not a fait accompli) the health/community centre. 

The risk referred to appears to be not of Barratts doing something illegal and getting caught but more a risk to them financially that if they never get planning permission for the health/community centre then they will have wasted money doing the exploratory works.

If they start putting anything up or damaging wildlife then let me know and I’ll see what more we can do under the conditions that were set out by the committee as I will not allow them to break the rules.

Best wishes,

Paul

Reply from Steve Cornish:

Hello Paul
 
Thank you for your quick response below. I am sorry to say that you have been misinformed by Gary Rice (head of development control)

Barratts are digging up swathes of shrubbery (buddleia) (hawthorn), one section is as big has a tennis court,  and digging large holes (six to date) approximately 3 metres deep, and 3 to 4 metres in length. This can hardly be called 'test holes for soil samples' which is carried out by using a totally different method.

(soil samples have already been carried out and the results are available in Barratts previous environmental impact assessment)

I repeat...Barratts contractor foreman has told me that 'they are digging to locate the position of the old historic dock wall (acorn dock)' this is not a dig for soil samples.

Barratts contractors have now started to pile drive through the concrete cavity membrane of the old 'downtown community hall' and also the old 'gymnasium' concrete membrane. There are fox dens in this cavity membrane.

I am now receiving e/mails from concerned local residents who's children attend the adjoining Redriff Primary School, who want to know why this has started before Barratts have placed their amended plans before the public then to be placed before the planning committee after the public consultation. I will copy you in on some of the mails that I have received this morning separately.
 
We urge you to demand a proper and accurate explanation from the head of development control, as to what is actually happening here. He is obviously being misinformed by Barratts, who are obviously trying to get as much remedial work carried out before the official bird nesting season starts on the 1st march.

Not one of the three hundred trees on the downtown site can be felled after that date ( by law)

Barratts are pre judging the outcome of the forthcoming amended planning application results? we are now seeking proper legal advice on this matter.
 
Steve
 

16th December 2008

Email exchange re Barratt Homes responsibilities regarding Downtown site development

Subject: RE: Barratts next amended application?
Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2008 09:27:20 +0000
From: Brett.Henderson@southwark.gov.uk
To: stevecornish49@hotmail.com
CC: Paul.Noblet@southwark.gov.uk; Lisa.Rajan@SOUTHWARK.GOV.UK;
David.Hubber@SOUTHWARK.GOV.UK; john.wills6@btopenworld.com;
lorraine.smith194@btinternet.com; sezagnew@aol.com


Dear Mr Cornish,
 
Thank you for your email [see below], I would like to advise you that no development shall take place on Block E and no demolition of the existing health centre on site shall take place until Barratt Homes have lodged an application to discharge the following condition:
 
Notwithstanding the plans hereby approved no development shall take place on Block E and no demolition of the existing health centre on site shall take place until a scheme for the internal layout of the health centre and the community centre has been submitted to and approved in writing by the Local Planning Authority. The scheme shall demonstrate that the community centre has been increased and is of a size capable of operating as a viable community centre subject to:

• the operational and financial viability of the health centre;
• the deliverability of the development as a whole.

Block E shall be built in accordance with the plans approved.
 
Reason
To ensure that the development provides a community centre of a suitable size that caters to a wide range of potential uses by the local community in accordance with policy 2.2, site specific policy 7P and strategic policy SP 9 of the Southwark Plan 2007.
 
Barratt's have indicated that they will be lodging this application soon, however they have not given me an exact date.  I can confirm that when this application is lodged it will go out to public consultation in the same way as the previous applications. That is the same residents will be consulted as the last application that went to Planning Committee on 4 November 2008.  Furthermore, when this application is lodged it will be determined at Planning Committee by members.

I trust that this answers your query.

Yours sincerely
 
Brett Henderson


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Steve Cornish [mailto:stevecornish49@hotmail.com]
Sent: 13 December 2008 17:44
To: Henderson, Brett
Cc: Noblet, Paul; Rajan, Lisa; Hubber, David; john.wills6@btopenworld.com; lorraine.smith194@btinternet.com; sezagnew@aol.com; stevecornish49@hotmail.com
Subject: barratts next amended application?


Hello Brett,


As discussed in telephone conversation with you some two weeks ago. Can you send me official confirmation that Barratt Homes are going to submit an amended application for the downtown site showing what they feel is adequate community space provision for the replacement Downtown Community Hall.

Can you also confirm that this will go out to public consultation in the same way as any other amended application.

Many Thanks.

Steve
 

15th December 2008

Rotherhithe planning update - email from Steve Cornish

Sent: Sunday, December 14, 2008 6:06 PM

Hello,

It is good to see that the Canada Water Area Action Plan and it's massive implications to the future of our area is being debated fully by concerned people. The main worry that I have is that this massive new document with it's 'options' and 'pick and mix' strategy will not get through to the vast majority of local people.
 
I was amazed at the way a so called consultation survey was carried out at last weeks Rotherhithe Community Council meeting. Members of the public (approximately 40) were given 'little red stickers' to place on the different options that were placed on the community hall wall.
 
I can see where this process works with getting local peoples opinions on, for example, where the Rotherhithe Cleaner Greener Safer funds should be spent, but this process at a few meetings that will get through to about 5% of the population of Rotherhithe is not good enough on its own. I think a full public meeting chaired by a totally independent person, should be number one priority.
 
Seven islands leisure centre is a prime example of what I mean. This is just a small part of the overall C.W.A.A.P but is a prime example of where this so called 'options consultation' will inevitably cause public anger.
 
Firstly it is vitally important that the general public are told the truth, and that they know for example that the land developers are seeking to acquire is not just the Seven Islands Complex, but also the considerable amount of land behind the swimming baths (shown on page 25 fig 9) that elder local people will remember as the 'fish farm'. This land is twice the size of the Seven Islands Complex and spans the whole length of Gomm Road to the East, and Ann Moss Way to the West. If I were a resident in either of these two streets I would be totally against a major change to the outlook of these areas, which are totally made up of two storey houses. The C.W.A.A.P (page 25) shows redevelopment of up to six storey's, and the Seven Islands 'SITE' going right back to Southwark Park which incorporates the 'fish farm land' that backs onto the two streets mentioned above . There are two points here (1) who owns the fish farm land and what status doe's it have, i.e. M.O.L or B.O.L.

(2) When are the residents of Gomm Rd and Ann Moss way going to find out about this part of the C.W.A.A.P. so that they can get involved with this process at the earliest possible stage. This is the type of information that the general public need to know before making an informed choice. I know people that live in Ann Moss way who are totally oblivious to what is happening on their own doorstep.

These are the two options as explained in the C.W.A.A.P.

OPTION (A) REGENERATION WITH A FOCUS ON HOMES
 
....The seven islands centre could be refurbished. The council will do it's best to keep the S.I.L.C. operating, at sometime the centre will require substantial investment which the council cannot presently afford and without which it may not be possible to keep the centre open.
 
....This option could bring some sports improvements to the area.

....Refurbishment of the S.I.L.C. would be expensive and the council would need to find additional funding which may take some time.

....A disadvantage would be that there would be significant disruption to services at S.I.L.C. while refurbishment was carried out, due partly to the difficult layout of the building.

OPTION (B) MIXED REGENERATION.

.....Leisure facilities including a new swimming pool would be provided. the S.I.L.C. site would be redeveloped for other uses

.....This option would enable improved leisure facilities with no temporary loss of services.

.....Selling the seven islands 'SITE' could help pay to provide new leisure facilities which could not otherwise be funded.

Question (option A) who allowed S.I.L.C. to fall into disrepair?

Question (option B)... Why should people believe that "selling off the S.I.L.C. Site to provide a new leisure facility" would be delivered, when they were promised a 'new state of the art olympic size swimming pool' in the Canada Water Master Plan that won the bidding process some three years ago, only to be removed from the plans at a later date.

This has caused a great deal of mistrust in the area, and needs to be addressed before we move on.

This new C.W.A.A.P. should have been carried out eight to ten years ago. ITS CALLED PLANNING.

Steve.
 

 

12th December 2008

Email from Steve re minutes of 4th November meeting about Downtown Site

For your information. We are still waiting for the official minutes of the downtown planning meeting that took place on the 4th november. We understand from the case officer that Barratts are to submit a ' NEW AMENDED PLANNING APPLICATION" showing what ' they feel' is adequate community hall provision. This will go out to the general public in the usual way. Lets hope that individual public objections. or recommendations, are accepted by the planning committee and not the 'block votes' from people who have never set foot on the downtown site.
 

7th December 2008

Email from Steve Sunday, Downtown site – more re development plans

There are a pair fishing the waterways of Russia Dock Woodland.The photograph attached is of the kingfisher in Downtown Pond which as you know is now only ten metres from the Barratts Development?.
 
Will they be our local residents this time next year when over three hundred trees will be felled within ten metres of this photo to make way for this inappropriate and out of character development. Only time will tell?.
 
I made contact with the downtown case officer (Brett Henderson) last week. He told me that Barratts are going to submit a new amended application containing what 'they feel' is "ADEQUATE COMMUNITY PROVISION" for the downtown site. He also stated that the legal officers report did not mention the 400 square metre community hall provision(25%) in block E.

We all heard the conditions loudly and clearly on the night, but apparently the legal officer (who was present) didn't. I asked officers Mr Henderson and Mrs Bridine O'connor whether their recollection was that of a 400 square metre community provision within Block E. and would you believe it, they both failed to recollect this being mentioned on the night. The wording on the other condition has remarkably changed as well. This condition, as you would have heard, was that the health centre (Block E) has to be built first on the first phase(there will be four phases)
This has now changed to " the new health centre will be built before the old one is demolished" which is a total play on words. Looking back at all the other previous applications, the new health centre was always going to be built before the old one was demolished so how can this be a new condition.
 
Mr Gordon Nardell (planning committee member) on the night, stated quite clearly his condition for having the health centre built 'first' on the 'first phase'. It was because of past experiences where developers have built their 'money making flats' on the first three phases, only to pull out of the 'non profit making' final phase, for whatever reason. He stated that this had happened on several other occasions.
 
I was told that Barratts new amended application with (THEIR ADEQUATE COMMUNITY PROVISION) will be sent out to the people of Rotherhithe in the same way as any other application. "this will be in about 2-3 weeks" (Brett Henderson).. I am fully aware that this could be a stalling tactic, so will be seeking further confirmation in writing from the case officer to this effect tomorrow.
 
I am still seeking official confirmation from our local councillors as to the reasons why the chair of the planning committee refused to hear our request for a deferral of the November 4th planning committee meeting. If we don't get an answer within the next 48 hours I will use the freedom of information act to get an answer.
 

9th November 2008

Six years later - Downtown development gets go ahead (By Gavriel Hollander)

The request for a deferment of the Downtown planning application meeting was rejected, and the meeting went ahead as planned in spite of complaints which have been documented and covered in earlier posts on this page.

Southwark News has covered the Downtown planning application meeting (6th November 2008, Issue 882).  Members of the committee unanimously approved the Barratt Homes plans after a four hour meeting despite objections from local residents. However even with this approval there are still hurdles for Barratt Homes to overcome in the form of a series of conditions which have been imposed by the committee.  these centre on the community space which along the site of the expanded health centre.

Gavriel quoted Steve in his story: The DDC were unhappy that our request for a defermnet was not even heard by the committee . . . . They dismissed our claims out of hand, so we had a situation where the developers were privy to information that was denied to us as ordinary members of the public.

DDC achievements include limiting the height of new buildings to four storeys.
 

Southwark Council’s Planning Committee Meeting and Decision,  4th November 2008, Kam Hong Leung’s personal account and comments directed to local media

Many thanks to Kam, as usual, for copying me in on this letter so that I could publish it here.

Dear Editors of Southwark News, South London Press and Dockland News

As requested by Downtown Defence Campaign (DDC), Cllr. Lisa Rajan (Surrey Docks Ward Councillor & Southwark Council's Executive Member for Children's Services and Education) has requested the chair of the meeting, Cllr. James Gurling, to defer the meeting for the reasons like that stated in DDC's letter as attached herewith to Cllr. Paul Noblet (Surrey Docks Ward Councillor & Southwark Council's Executive Member for Regeneration) of 26-10-2008 @ 23:47 (Web Link to Source Document).  Lisa's request was rejected outright.
 
Southwark Council's Planning Committee Members have unanimously decided to APPROVE Barratt's planning application on the condition that it will be a "Phased Development" that starts with "Site E" which will incorporate the new "Health Centre" and "Community Centre" with the latter that has to be substantially increased in floor space by cutting back on what was planned for the former.  Much discussions have taken place with some committee members stating publicly that most proposed developments would involve an increase in "community benefits" but the proposed "Downtown Site" offers a net reduction in the combined floor space of some 25% or 500 square meters for the new "Health Centre" and "Community Centre" when compare to that of their predecessors.  An increase of floor space for the new "Community Centre" from some 45 square meters to about 400 square meters has been discussed but the Committee has chosen not to fix its dimension in the "condition" which in my view is a very weak condition if it can be called a condition at all. 
 
There has been significant discussions on "Road Traffic" concerns, including severe traffic congestions during morning peak hours that the Rotherhithe Peninsular already suffers from even before a big influx of new residents, visitors and their motor cars as well as the inadequacy of car parking space in the proposed development that will cause an overspill of car parking in neighbouring streets that can cause serious problems for both the inhabitants and visitors alike. I have seen none of the Committee Member making good use of and specific reference to the findings and recommendations of what many Rotherhithe Residents deem to be a very costly and highly controversial "Rotherhithe Multi-Modal Transport Study".  Instead,  the Committee Members seemed happy to rely on the "oral reassurance" from one Southwark Council Officer at the meeting that all the concerns will be addressed via the "Traffic Plan" which I have no idea how it will work and I am not convinced that the Committee Members know, much less care, how the concerns of many Local Residents like myself will be satisfactorily resolved in their apparent haste to approve Barratt's latest planning application. 
 
My biggest surprise and disappointment came when "Item 148 : Rotherhithe Area Housing Forum (RAHF)" in the attached document titled "file_38909" (Web Link to Source Document:  http://www.southwark.gov.uk/uploads/file_38909.pdf) which formed part of the 59-page Planning Committee Meeting Document was highlighted which according to Bridin O'Connor (Southwark Council's Officer) was provided by RAHF's Chair, Barry Duckett, who claimed that RAHF represent 14,034 tenants and residents in the Rotherhithe area and are in favour of this development.  Kathy Hennessey, Chair of Hawkstone Tenants & Residents Association was invited to addressed the Planning Committee in public who unreservedly challenged the validity and legality of this alleged "Block Vote" by RAHF for the development.  The Planning Committee Members did not demand at the meeting for an investigation of Kathy's public allegation of "fraud" and "misconduct" by Barry Duckett.  The Planning Committee's Vice Chair, Cllr. Toby Eckersley, made a public statement near the end of the meeting that although he does not know Barry Duckett, he seemed like an important person and he agreed with what Barry Duckett claimed in the above-mentioned statement despite of  Kathy Hennessey's public complaint regarding Item 148 : RAHF which is a serious cause for concerns for the likes of Kathy and myself.
 
Please find attached a group photo of some meeting attendees that was taken during the first and only 5 minutes break at 10:25pm, three and a half hours after the meeting that started at 7pm.  The facial expression of most people in the photo was probably a good reflection of how many of us felt about the meeting :  "Local Democracy" has suffered a fatal blow that caused a loss of "Public Trust" in Southwark Council's "Planning Process" and those who have been entrusted to deliver this important "Public Service". 


All best wishes

Kam Hong Leung

Founder, Owner & Manager
Rotherhithe Community Safety Forum (RCSF)
Email Address :  kam@khleung.fsnet.co.uk 
Public Information Website :  http://rotherhithe.spaces.live.com/
Public Photos Collection Website: 
http://www.flickr.com/photos/16999050@N00/sets/72157604053249144

 

Downtown planning application and Hawkestone TRA

I have simply copied this communication in full here, to keep a complete record of the topics described, although it deals with two different topics.  It was written to Kam and Steve by Jerry Hewitt, Secretary T&RA, Delegate Rotherhithe Area Forum:

Dear Kam & Steve,

I apologise that I could not make it to the Town Hall, as you know the Rotherhithe Area Housing Forum clashed. 

At last night's Rotherhithe Area Housing Forum, taking place at 7pm and delayed by one week, delegates had the first opportunity to approve the minutes of the meeting help on 29th July 2008. The relevant approved minutes are transcribed below: please compare and contrast the minutes to comment 148. As previously reported to the Council by this T&RA the Forum delegates made no collective resolution on the matter nor was the Chair or Vice Chair authorised, or empowered, to write correspondence (of this nature) on this specific matter as far as we are concerned. It is also important to note that at last nights meeting neither the Chair, nor Council Officers, informed of any correspondence written nor received by the Chair (or vice Chair) on this matter.

I conclude that rather than representing the views of thousands of residents, or even delegates, the individuals who submitted comment 148 were representing themselves for their own benefit and interest. The matter of correspondence from the RAHF Chair to the Conservative Party (and replies) is still with the Council and so I am not commenting on that. However, it may be that had a motion/recommendation been put to the Forum on the 29th July delegates might have supported the development rather than merely enjoyed a presentation: who knows! However, it would not have been unanimous and negative comments were made in some detail.

Hawkstone T&RA Officers, committee and residents are deeply upset and disturbed by this whole matter, and not for the first time.

As for the reported comment by Toby Eckersley I have not spoken with Kathy about this however Kathy is an extremely well respected member, influential and important member of the Rotherhithe Community and her comments with the evidence provided below, together with evidence that is currently with the Council, is quite enough for serious doubts to be raised about the claimed support of the RAHF for this particular application.

The Forum will no doubt sort this matter in its own way.

Best regards.
Yours sincerely
Jerry Hewitt
Secretary T&RA, Delegate Rotherhithe Area Forum


If you did not get Kam's email that this replies to please contact Kam or Steve and request it.


Minutes of RAHF meeting held 29th July 2008 approved by delegates on 04th November.

Extract, Agenda Item / point 5.0,  from pack provided to delegates: (errors in original)

Item 5: Presentation – Canada Water (Down Town Development)  by Mr Howard for Barratt Homes

5.1 The Down Town Development is a joint venture project between the Council and Barratt Homes. The site on which this development would be built is owned by the council.

5.2 35% affordable housing is expected from this development with high levels of three, four and five bedroom family homes.

5.3 The health centre with the area will be upgraded and will be 65% bigger than the current provision.

5.4 Enhanced public spaces will also be provided. There will be the creation of an ecological habitat and the area will be landscaped to reflect the natural beauty of the surrounding environment.

5.5 The roads leading into the development has been designed to encourage walking and cars will have to drive slowly within the area because of the how the road layout is designed.

5.6 Post development – A management company will be put in place to manage thing like trees, open spaces and the general well being of the area.

5.7 Concerns  were raised about the quality of houses built by Barratt Homes. The Bonamy estate was sited as an example, which was built by the company about 12 years is now having a lot of structural issues.

END

Item No.  6.1 Planning Document under Supporters 148 Rotherhithe Area Housing Forum  We represent 14,034 tenants and residents in the Rotherhithe area and are in favour of this development.  The Planning Committee should take into account that there is a great need for development in the area as we have a major problem with a shortage of rented and intermediate affordable housing.  As Southwark Council can not build new properties the only way to provide affordable housing is to get the developers to build it so we get a percentage of the development registered as social housing.  We the forum delegates have seen a breakdown in communities through families having to move out of the area the reason being the lack of rented, affordable accommodation; we fight hard to sustain our communities and need local development to provide what the Council can.  The large percentage of family accommodation proposed can only be an asset as we are so short of family accommodation in this area.  The proposed children’s playground will be an asset to the area as there is not enough child play area in this part of Rotherhithe.  The new health centre, which is something that has been needed for years, as we have a shortage of medical provision in the area with doctors complaining about the number of people on there lists and also tenants/residents say that they have to travel too far for treatment.  The S106 money that is proposed is a great asset, which allows further investment in the area, which can only be a good thing for local tenant/residents.  The Forum delegates unanimously agreed that they would like to see this development go ahead. 
 

 

8th November 2008

Request for Deferment from Lisa Rajan, 4th November 2008

Email sent to James Gurling, November 4th, with the Grounds For Postponement document attached:

Dear James,

I am writing to you on behalf of Surrey Docks residents who have concerns about the consideration of the Downtown/Barratts application at Planning committee this evening. I understand that Cllr Noblet has already discussed the matter with you and has forwarded to you the concerns that local residents have about the availability of information regarding the application, and its accessibility to all parties. I attach the document to this email, although I believe you have already been forwarded it by Cllr Noblet.

I have been asked to draw your attention to this at the start of this evening's meeting, but I am aware of the quasijudicial nature of planning committee meetings and the need to conform to the approved structure for meetings. I am therefore asking, ahead of the meeting, whether you would draw committee members attention to the concerns of local residents and ask that they (and yourself) are satisfied that processes have been followed correctly and that all parties have had equal and timely access to all the relevant documents, particularly the report on the transport aspects and impacts of the development, which resulted from the application of the Rotherhithe Multi-Modal Model. To preclude me asking this from the floor at the start of the meeting, I would be most grateful if you could consider discussing the deferment request with other committee members and take any necessary advice from officers before moving any further into the formal business of the item. The local community are very concerned that they have had insufficient time to respond on this application, and feel that a deferrment is warrranted if they are to be able to adequately present their arguments and objections. I am mindful of the long history and strength of feeling about Downtown and would ask that you give respectful consideration to this request.

I appreciate this may not be possible, but if there is also any chance that we could have an indication of your and the committee's view ahead of the meeting, that would be very useful for the local community in that I can advise them as to whether the significant numbers expected need to come to Peckham or not this evening to make their representations.

Best regards,

Cllr Lisa Rajan

Executive Member for Children's Services and Education

Liberal Democrat Member for Surrey Docks ward

Offer of representation from Jenny Jones and reply from Steve Cornish, 4th November 2008

Councilor Jenny Jones, Green Party Group, very kindly offered to speak on our behalf re the request for the deferment in the event that no other councillor had offered to assist.  Here is Steve Cornish’s response:

Hello Jenny,

Our local councillor Lisa Rajan is going to ask for a deferment along with the D.D.C.s request. We have been told that she can 'table a deferment' through the chair which will then go to a 'show of hands' in full view of the general public, so we can see who is 'for' and who is 'against' on the planning committee. We are still awaiting a reply from Lisa to our request to 'table a deferment' she has just mailed me to say she will do this later today.

If our local councillors and the general public request a one month deferment and it is denied, then we can only assume that local democracy is just a word used by politicians to further their careers, but has no place in reality.
 
We are being told that the council are worried that Barratts could Take the council to court for what's called 'non determination' which means that the application has not been seen within the legal time frame permitted. This of course is just a threat so that we the general public rush our objections through without the same rules afforded to Barratts consultants.

We have put our 'factual reasons' for a deferment to the planning committee. One month for 'purdah' in the recent local bye election + no access to the multi modal study etc, etc.
 
We are confident that common sense will prevail. But we are also realists and know that common sense is a rare commodity these days.

I now understand that you have a long standing commitment for tonight and cannot make it. We will contact you tomorrow to let you know the outcome.

Many thanks for your continued support
 
Steve 
 

4th November 2008

Southwark Friends Of The Earth - new objection letter re tonight’s meeting

From: Stephanie Lodge (Southwark Friends of The Earth)
To: Sally.Crew@southwark.gov.uk (Southwark Council - Principal Transport Planner in Transport Planning)
Sent: Monday, November 03, 2008 2:23 PM
Subject: Making MMS Transport Modal Study available to Developers before local community
 


Dear Miss Crew,
 
It has been drawn to our notice that the above document has been made accessible to Barratts, the developers for the Downtown Road Application long before the local Downtown Defence Campaign even though it appeared to be incomplete at the time.
 
We are most concerned that Barratts had access to it about 4th October, and yet the above group only had access to it on the 24th October, leaving virtually no time at all to go through 3 huge volumes and present their case to the Planning Committee on Tuesday 4th November, this really is very unfair of the Council to do this, it amounts to social exclusion rather than inclusion.   There leaves the question of whether it complies with what we started off the new planning law process, the Statement of Community Involvement, and as far as we're all concerned, this does not comply with the Statement of Community Involvement at all.
 
Objective 3 - Promote and inform people about Council Services.

Use the full range of communications tools available to give all part of the community equal access to information about Council Services - when they want it, where they want it, and in the way they would most like to receive it.
 
You may be aware of this section of the Best Value Final Consultation document, you may like to read it as this has not been adhered to in this case.

As it is so unfair, the item: Downtown Road, 08-AP-1563 should be withdrawn from the agenda so that the local community can be given exactly the same time as that given to Barratts, which should have happened in the first place.

Yours sincerely,
Mr. and Mrs. W. J. and S. M. Lodge

Also available in PDF format here.

 

3rd November 2008

Downtown Defence Campaign - New objection letter to the Head of Development Control for Southwark Council

Please see the latest email and accompanying letter to Gary Rice. below.
 

DOWNTOWN PLANNING APPLICATION 08-AP-1563

Hello.

Please see following the D.D.C.s objection letter to Gary Rice (head of development control) for Southwark Council.

We have been working on this for over a week, after receiving a copy of the addendum to Barratts latest application.

This is despite not having all the information available to make an informed objection to this inappropriate development.

However Barratt Homes have been privy to the very information that we the general public need to make an informed objection.
 
We have therefore requested a deferment of the Downtown Application at tomorrow nights 4/11/08 planning committee meeting.

Unfortunately we will not find out whether our request will be granted until tomorrows meeting.

Local people have always attended such meetings in huge numbers to show Solidarity, and Strength.

We would like you to do this once more, but it must be realised that this maybe deferred until December.

Please come along and support us once more. But bare in mind that you may be told that this has been deferred
 
The planning meeting is at Peckham Town Hall, starting at 7.00pm.
 
Many Thanks for your continued support
Steve Cornish
 

You can download the letter in MS Word format, or PDF format.  You can also read it below (minus the proper formatting):

The Downtown Defence Campaign

A non-political neighbourhood self-help group to safeguard the best interests of the Rotherhithe Community

Planning Reference  08-AP1563
Land at Downtown Road and Salter Road London SE16 6NP ( as amended) 

Dear Mr Rice

We wish to object to the above application on the following grounds:

Buffer Zone
(Page 12: 2.29)

We welcome the extension of the buffer strip from the previous application for this site, but the general consensus of local wild-life photographers, nature lovers, ramblers, woodland users  is that this is still not enough given the massive enhancement of that particular area of Russia Dock Woodland (e.g. Downtown pond, now the home of a varied wildlife - some rare in Inner London, such as the Kingfishers now using the pond) since the original proposals for development in 2003.

The amended drawings at this point show us that the buffer strip between blocks A & B and the Downtown pond will be an enclosed private area rather than a continuous open flow into the woodland.


Environmental
(Page 13: 2.32)

Barratt’s claim an extended habitat survey has been carried out and that there have been no significant changes since 2004. We agree with Barratt’s in 2.33 where they state that it was noted that the Downtown pond and the associated water course now supports a more diverse range of flora than previously recorded. However, we strongly challenge the supposed habitat results because our own recorded research (Friends of Russia Dock Woodland and Trust for Urban Ecology in mid August 2008) shows that there is a greater bio-diversity of fauna and flora than in 2004. This is commonly known to be the case and even Southwark Council’s Ecology Officer will concede this.

As an example, in 2.38 (p14), Barratt’s state that in order to provide a more robust assessment of the use of the site by bat species, Scott Wilson are currently undertaking a combined bat emergence and activity survey within the site. This survey will be completed over the next two weeks. Our ongoing  research, completed ahead of Scott Wilson’s, show that there are three different species of bat in and around the Downtown pond area which are Daubenton, Pipistrelle & the Soprano Pipistrelle , the latter of which has been noted for the first time this year. This has been confirmed by The Trust for Urban Ecology’s twice-yearly bat survey, the last one being as recent as August 2008. It is worth noting that neither T.R.U.E. nor the Friends of Russia Dock Woodland have been contacted by Scott Wilson as has been the case in previous applications.


Community Facilities
(Page 7: 2.9 ~ 2.14)

The grounds for Ruth Kelly’s decision to override the recommendations of her own Inspector were that the community benefits provided (i.e. Community Hall, Breakfast Club and creche  far outweighed the Inspector’s recommendations for the refusal of planning permission.

We welcome the community play space but this has been achieved at the expense of losing our stand alone community hall of 1,000 sq.meters rather than the loss of any units by Barratt’s.

In 2002, 250 seated people met in the then 20 year old Downtown Community Hall. The amended drawings show 16 chairs round a table. The proposed replacement for the community hall  is now merely a room of 45 sq.meters shared with the health centre. This so called Community ROOM, by adding on the Health Centre’s kitchen and toilets to try to double the size of this community area, is an insult to the community & its intelligence. We therefore conclude that the new community room is over 2,000% smaller than that which the community had in 2002. This is an undeniable material consideration that cannot be challenged. ALL other previous applications have included the re-provision of a stand alone Community Hall. This has been taken away to meet a reason for refusal set by Southwark Council in November 2007,  but the community has suffered for it together with the loss of the breakfast club and creche.


Affordable Housing
(Page 10: 2.20)

Affordable Housing should not suffer the brunt of previous mistakes by Barratt’s. The developer is planning to cut affordable housing from 35% to 33%. Therefore we feel that it is the private sector housing that should be reduced and affordable housing should stay at 35%.


Car Parking and Circulation
(Page 16: 2.46)

Barratt’s will be 76% larger than the existing facility yet parking for staff is less and there is now only 10 visitor parking spaces. At the existing health centre there are 24 authorised car parking spaces for staff and additionally 20 more spaces for general use making a total of 44 spaces. It is proposed that these spaces would be managed by the health centre and would incorporate drop-down bollards with visitors having to obtain a key from the health centre reception to use these spaces (Page 16,2.48)

This is obviously totally inadequate and will not work. Being that the site is officially within a PTAL index of 1-2, many people, especially the elderly, disabled and infirm will find it necessary to use their vehicles to access the health centre and will find this arrangement impractical, totally unworkable and time consuming.

Although not yet part of the equation, the CWAAP states on P7 that a new Children’s Centre is being built at Redriff Primary School. The applicant has reduced school drop off spaces to 14 at the request of TFL. We are concerned that when the Children’s Centre is built, with the subsequent inevitable increase in traffic, this provision will not only be inadequate but will lead to an unacceptable increase in the level of traffic within the development and surrounding roads.

In conclusion, although a 76% bigger facility, parking has been reduced from 44 to 24 a 45 % reduction.


Circulation & Servicing.
2.55

The council has raised the need to provide stopping places for refuse vehicles. Barratt’s response is that these are not needed. They have advised that as refuse collection is anticipated to be once during the week, stopping places are not necessary for the following reasons: refuse vehicles will not be on site for a considerable period of time and collection is usually outside the peak periods. They go on to state that the level of traffic generation for the site does not exceed 66 movements and that this traffic will disperse when it enters the site to access various car parks. We challenge this for these reasons: in practice the refuse vehicle will be on site for a considerable time, as it has to service 212 units, plus  refuse collection is exactly the same time as the peak school period. To say that the traffic will disperse into the various car-parks sounds good on paper but is will not happen in practice.

Page 18, 2.56
The Rotherhithe Multi Modal Study. Overriding all of this, we now see the new CWAAP options that completely cancel out all previous applications on environment, health transport, and biodiversity. The whole ball game is about to change and the proposed development needs to be considered in the context of any future change to the area master plan. (CWAAP).


Sustainability
(page 18, 2.58)

Code for Sustainable Homes BREAM rating.
Council officers  previously advised to get Excellent rating for the Health Centre (2.59) but in 2.60 it is stated that Barratt ‘is unclear if a Very Good rating is technically possible. This will allow the developers to build a sub-standard health centre under current building standards (BREAM) which will not meet the building standard requirements for a 21st century modern health care provision. 2.62 Barratt’s state there is no flexibility on this.
 


Yours sincerely
Steve Cornish
Chairman
 

2nd November 2008

Response to request for postponement by Downtown Defence Campaign

Councillor David Hubber has emailed in response to yesterday’s letter (below) to let Steve know that Councillor Lisa Rajan will be attending the November 4th meeting and will be able to put the DDC’s request for a postponement of the Downtown discussion to the committee. Paul Noblet cannot take part as he is a school governor of Redriff School and David Hubber is himself restricted as he is a member of the planning committee. He will not be attending the meeting but Cllr James Barber, his reserve, will be there instead.  David Hubber says that Cllr Barber is familiar with the site and the application as he was on the committee when it was last debated.
 

Letter from the Downtown Defence Campaign to Southwark Council

Many thanks to John Wills for copying me on an email which had the following letter attached, sent to James Gurling, Brett Henderson, Paul Noblet and Gary Rice.
 

Address by the Downtown Defence Campaign to Southwark Planning Committee 4th November 2008

First of all, we would like to thank those members of the planning committee who made a visit to the site on Wednesday 29th and also to members who have visited the site in the past. We consider it vital that they should see that, although classified as a brown field site, it is in fact more green than brown.

We wish to raise our serious disquiet regarding the procedure that has led up to our appearing before you tonight to make this address.  Barratt’s the developer have had access to information denied to us, even though all parties have known for months that knowledge of the contents of the Multi Modal Study was vital to us as objectors. This has given them an advantage over us in what should be a level playing field.

The study has been requested many times in the last 4 months and at the Canada Water Forum as recently as 20th October when we were told it was not finalised. The Head of Regeneration now tells us in an e-mail this week that it has been available since mid-September. This has put us at a serious disadvantage.

Since then the draft Canada Water Area Action plan has been placed in the public domain, with its major, major implications for the whole area including the Downtown site.

By any democratic standards, tonight’s decision-making process should therefore be deferred until December’s planning committee meeting.

Objectors to the Development will then have had the time to make an informed judgment on the amended application in the context of the MMS & the basic proposals in the new extensive options of the CWAAP and its subsequent changes to the overall area master plan.

This, together with the other massive proposals for Canons Wharf Deptford, being made by Lewisham council, which our ward councillors are opposing, and its resultant traffic effects, gives us serious anxieties that if these get the go-ahead, there will be massive implications for the cumulative traffic flows into the overall local traffic volume.

We urge you in the name of fairness and local democracy to defer any decision on the Downtown site tonight to a later date.
 

You can also download a copy in PDF format by clicking here or in MS Word format by clicking here.

31st October 2008

A let-down from Southwark Council

Thanks to Jenny Jones for lending her support to our request for a deferment of the new Downtown application.  She says that she fully supports what Steve is saying on behalf of the Downtown Defence Campaingn.  She goes on to say in an email to Paul Noblet thathis is a very sensitive and important topic for the people living locally, and has been a strain on them for many years. It's utterly frustrating to feel so powerless when they have worked so hard.  She adds her hope that he will do what he can to delay the application until next month.

Unfortunately Councillor Paul Noblet has now spoken to the Chair of the planning committee in charge of the Downtown application.  He says that a decision to defer cannot be made before the committee meeting on Tuesday and he was unable to gain any indication about whether the committee will decide to defer on the night.  Paul Noblet says that he is very sympathetic to the arguments and  that if we  need more time to get your objection in he will ask the committee.  Small crumbs.

Steve has made the point to Paul Noblet that asking local residents to yet again turn up once again to the immmensely inconvenient venue of Peckham Town Hall, knowing that they could be told on the night that the Downtown application is deferred is simply unreasonable.  It also means that we will then have the task of emailing and leafleting the area all over again to keep people up to date.  Steve has highlighted to Paul that we have until 5pm tonight to get our 'speech' not 'objection' together for the 4th which has to be submitted to the Chair. It remains to be clarified if our objections will be taken into account right up to the day of the planning committee meeting.
 
As Steve says, residents are feeling really let down by this whole saga of events that are forcing us to rush things together without all the information that the Council has provided to Barratt Homes.

Steve also highlights that it has been have proven beyond doubt that the threat of non determination that Paul mentioned last week is not an issue, for the reasons we have given.

Councillor Paul Bates (Labour, Housing & Regeneration) has also emailed with his concerns as follows:

How are the DDC and residents meant to make a substantive objection to an application for which they have not had all the details and only the minimal amount of time to prepare?

As a ward councillor you can table a deferment in any submission you give. I would hope that following your welcome comments in today's 'Southwark News' that you might consider this?

Planning committee is run as a quasi-judicial body and follows rules of transparency and natural justice.  I would argue that's not been followed here.  It would seem that undue haste and a degree of unfairness towards the objectors may well result in an appeal to Planning Inspectorate should this application go ahead as timetabled currently.
 

It is clear that Paul Noblet shares many of our frustrations but is unable to influence matters in the favour of what seems to be our very rational position.  I’ll leave the last words with Steve.  Here is his most recent email, which says it all:

Ok, it's obvious that we are banging our heads against a brick wall here. We have tried to get some justice.  We have also given our detailed reasons to the the council why we need more time. I will not be wasting any more of my time on this issue. we have a lot of work to do.

We appreciate some of the planning committee attending the site yesterday. Which means this application is taken very seriously indeed. At least some of them will know know what we are fighting for. You cannot look at three hundred trees which will lost to this development if it gets the go ahead, and not be affected. Lets hope it has the same affect on the planning committee as when the Planning Inspector (Elizabeth Fieldhouse) recommended planning refusal when she visited the site.

 I am now on my way around to our secretary's house to put our speech together. If we cannot get it completed and sent to the chair in time for tonight's deadline, then so be it. We are not going to send in a half baked speech. That would be meaningless.  Steve.
 

The latest reports in Southwark News re the Downtown Site

Southwark News has been keeping tabs on the problems being experienced by residents regarding the Downtown site and it is good to know that they are ready to publicize some of the frustrations of local people.

In the article Administration calls its own plans for Rotherhithe peninsula unacceptable (by Gavriel HollanderCouncillor Paul Bates says that the Downtown is a case in point regarding schemes being allowed to run away with themselves without the backing of local people.  He says that it is a scandal that the planning decision will be made before local people have had a chance to put forward their views on the Area Action Plan and the entire direction for the regeneration.  Paul bates is Southwark Labour’s housing and regeneration spokesman. 

A second article, Anger over new Downtown plan, highlights the objections of local residents to Southwark Council’s plan to allow the amended planning application for the Downtown site to be heard by the council next week before residents have had a chance to review the revised application and raise an objection.  The article explains that the Downtown Defence Campaign (DDC) have said that the November 4th date for the hearing is unfair because of a recommendation that all parties should be given fourteen days to respond to a revised planning application.  the DDC has only had access to crucial information which is pertinent to the application since last Friday.  Councillor Paul Noblet is quoted in the same article saying that he sympathises with the DDC’s objections but worries that if the law is not followed in terms of dealing with the application, Barratt could appeal on the grounds that we have not dealt with it in a  proper manner.  it would then be in the hands of the planning inspector, not the committee. 

 

29th October 2008

Planning Meeting visit to the Downtown Site

This evening Steve reported the good news that some of the planning committee members visited the Downtown site this afternoon. They covered all of the site, and took a considerable amount of time discussing drawings and papers etc. The Downtown Case Officer, Brett Henderson, and the Head of Development Control,  Gary Rice, were also in attendance.

It is hoped that this will be appreciated by the local community who may now feel that certain members of the committee will have a much better feel for the surrounding area and will perhaps now appreciate why we are fighting so hard to keep our area Low, Clean, and Green.

Steve has repeated his request, posed both by email and in person at last night’s  Rotherhithe Community Council Meeting that Paul Noblet make it a matter of urgency that we have an answer from the Committee Chair  by this evening if human possible for our request to postpone next Tuesday’s meeting until next month. The general public would then feel that there is a level playing field in respect of council information being available to the public as well as developers.  That feeling is certainly absent at the moment.

Paul Noblet responded later on to say that he would try to contact the Chair for a response this evening but could not promise that they would be able to catch up with each other due to meetings which coincided. 

I’ll update this page again when I hear some more news.

27th October 2008

Letter requesting postponement of Downtown planning application

Steve Cornish has written a document which has been sent to Paul Noblet requesting a postponement of the most recent Downtown planning application, giving his reasons for the request in detail. The document is entitled Reasons for postponing a decision on the Barratts Downtown planning application at 4 Nov 08 LBS Planning Committee meeting. A copy of Steve’s document, in PDF format, can be downloaded by clicking here.

More dialogue re the traffic survey and the meeting of the 4th November

Paul Noblet has responded to the concerns expressed by Steve Cornish and Kam Hong Leung as follows:

I attach a report prepared for planning committee using the MMS to assess the impact of the proposed development on the local road network. 

Having checked with officers, if the planning committee do not consider this application on November 4th then the applicants would be well within their rights to appeal for non determination, which means that the decision is taken away from the planning committee and will limit our input as local residents into the decision on the application.

I have further been advised that I cannot remove the item from the planning committee’s agenda, although I can make a representation as a ward councillor to the committee.

A further letter from the Mayor of London’s office is expected next week as to whether following their first letter the amendments that have been made to the plans are now in conformity with the London Plan.

I have asked for legal advice as to whether the absence of the multi modal study from the consultation documents could make unsafe a decision by the committee, be it for or against.

I will raise the issue about the need to update the web pages.

I have also made representations to the committee to ensure that as many members as possible visit the site ahead of the application being considered, be it on the 4th or at a later date.

As ever I will update as soon as I find out more information,

Paul

To see the document, Technical Note - Rotherhithe Model Results, click here to download it in PDF format.  It is a large document (2.83 MB and 28 pages long).  For those who don’t have the time or bandwidth to download it and read it, here’s the summary of the report’s findings.  They obviously had a different experience of the junctions under discussion than those that I have in my car: 

The results from the Rotherhithe model indicate that the Downtown Road/ Salter Road junction, and St Olav’s roundabout operate within capacity during the Do Minimum scenario. The Lower Road/ Bestwood Street junction is over capacity for the Do Minimum scenario in the 2011 and 2021 case. With the additional development traffic generated by the Downtown development proposals, the Downtown Road/ Salter Road and St Olav’s junctions still operate within capacity. There is a slight increase in the v/c ratio for the Lower Road/ Bestwood Street junction in the 2011 PM case, however this is not considered to be significant since the increase is only 1% and the junction still has a v/c ratio of less than 100%. Therefore, it is clear that the development proposals do not have a significant traffic impact, and the increased traffic can be accommodated on the local highway network.

The report  is accompanied by an appendix which demonstrates traffic flow at the junctions under discussion.

Southwark Council web page re Downtown site planning application updated

At long last Southwark Council have updated their web page re the Downtown site so that it now shows the correct date for the planning meeting which is scheduled for 4th November 2008, although the Downtown Defence Campaign have put forward a strong case for the postponement of the meeting (see above news post).  To see the web page for the application go to:
http://planningonline.southwarksites.com/planningonline2/AcolNetCGI.exe?ACTION=UNWRAP&RIPNAME=Root.PgeResultDetail&TheSystemkey=9529094 or

http://tinyurl.com/6blwfo

Downtown Defence Campaign - new domain name, same location

For anyone wishing to add a web address which contains an element of the DDC name I have registered the domain www.downtown.ukfriends.com.  this points to the Friends of Russia Dock Woodland home page, from where one click will take visitors to the DDC pages.  Obviously the Friends web address works just as well, but doesn’t contain any mention of the DDC in the address which seemed a little counter-intuitive. 

 

 

26th October 2008
 

Downtown site information consolidated on the Rotherhithe Community Safety Forum (RCSF)

http://rotherhithe.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!FC4C191A8F51F272!1060.entry

Many thanks to Kam Hong Leung for letting me know that he has updated the RCSF website with an index page at the above address, which is dedicated to archiving the key communications which make up the history of the Downtown site.

The Downtown site has been the subject of dispute since Southwark Council began to consider proposals for the site’s development by property developers.  The disputes lie mainly in the precise nature of the plans being proposed by developers, some of which have been completely inappropriate. As a result there has been a long history of planning proposals, meetings, successful challenges to proposals and appeals. 

These activities are easy enough to track in real time if you are a member of the Friends of Russia Dock Woodland’s email group, but untangling the history is less straight forward. A good summary exists on this website, on the Downtown Defence Campaign Page, but if you want to see an archive of emails, newspaper articles and official documents then the best place to go is definitely Kam’s newly indexed archive, which consolidates exactly this type of data.  Kam has separated the archive into two main sections, both of which can be accessed from the Index page.

Sincere thanks to Kam for going to the trouble of assembling this valuable resource.  I can guess how long it took him to do.
 

 

October 25th 2008

Communications with Paul Noblet re Multi Modal Study and the Canada Water Area Action Plan

Below is the email response from Councillor Paul Noblet to Kam Hong Leung regarding Kams message about concerns over the Multi Modal Study and the CWAAP (see earlier posts on this page if this does not appear to make sense).  Thanks to Paul Noblet for copying the Friends of Russia Dock Woodland on that email - much appreciated.

Hi Kam,

Apologies for copying everyone in but given the importance of this issue I thought it best to do so.

I have asked officers to send copies of the MMS to interested parties asap as it has been used in drawing up the report for the committee, and so I agree that both ward cllrs and residents should have the information too.

On the issue of CW AAP, many of you will know that the Executive did not agree the document that was on the website as we felt that some of the options were unacceptable.  We will be drawing up a different version of the issues and options paper over the coming weeks.

I have also asked planning and transport officers to begin drawing up schemes to cut congestion in the area, and more importantly how much they will cost - as the viability of any road improvements will depend on how much money is available from any land sales generated at Canada Water and section 106 agreements.

I will update everyone as I hear more on the MMS.

Best wishes,

Paul
 

In reply, Steve Cornish has emailed Paul Noblet to say that, on the behalf of the members of the Downtown Defence campaign, and indeed the wider Rotherhithe Community we are demanding that as our Local Coucilllor and head of Regeneration, he withdraw the Downtown Site Planning Application from the November 4th agenda.

 

 

24th October 2008

Update re Rotherhithe Multi-Modal Traffic Study and planning applications

Thanks to Kam Hong Leung for copying me in on an email concerning various planning applications and their impacts on the local community.

Apparently, according to Cllr Lisa Rajan, Southwark Council's Planning Committee's Meeting on Downtown Site has been rescheduled for Tuesday 4 November 2008.  There are two issues which need to be addressed before the meeting takes place.

1) Barratt Homes has reportedly referred to the content of the Rotherhithe Multi-Modal Traffic Study in support of their case for Downtown Site.  However, this Study is not available to the public.  Steve Cornish reports that many attendees at the Canada Water Consultative Forum's Meeting on Monday 21 October 2008 were very unhappy that in spite of promises from Cllr. Paul Noblet the Study is still not available to the public.

2) It is entirely possible that the Canada Water Area Action Plan may require residents to revisit the  planning application for the Downtown Site, due to the potential impact on the whole Rotherhithe Peninsular of the combination of these development projects.

Should the meeting go ahead, there will not be sufficient time for local residents to make an informed assessment of the new proposals, and this seems counter the interests of Rotherhithe.  Kam has made a request to local politicians to request a postponement of the meeting.

12th September 2008

Concerns re Southwark Council purdah impacts on Downtown planning application

Councillor Lisa Rajan has asked Steve Cornish, via email, to inform local residents that following concerns raised at Monday's Canada Water Consultative Forum about the Downtown application being heard by the Planning Committee just ahead of the Rotherhithe by-election, she made enquiries of Gary Rice and Paul Noblet, and has been informed that the application will now be heard at the November 2008 meeting of Planning Committee, instead of on October 7th.

Here’s Steve’s reply to Lisa Rajan’s email (sent to Lisa and copied to a number of other parties including the Canada Water Consultative Forum)

Hello Lisa,

Thankyou very much for the quick response below. I will email all the people on our contacts list to let them know. There are however some more questions that were raised at the Canada water Consultative Forum meeting that remain unanswered.

(1)...how can the general public contact the case officer if he is on vacation for the duration of the objection process. It is easy just to say that extra time will be allowed after the 18th, but of course the general public will not know this.

(2) ...how on earth can the general public take on board the 18 page report issued to  Barratts previous application when they are unaware of the report or it's content in the first place. most people will think that this is a good will gesture from the developer and not as a result of the mayors office involvement.

(3)..the people of Rotherhithe have just  recently sent in several hundred objection letters opposing the previous 213 application. If you visit the councils planning website you can see everyone of the scanned responses. I have taken the time to read everyone. Only 3 out of several hundred are for development in it's present form. Over 95% of all the objections point to the fact that this development is totally out of keeping with the immediate area and will have an adverse effect on the woodlands. They have made their statements and to burden them with another slightly different application for them to respond yet again in just ten working days is quite frankly an insult. We the D.D.C are once again putting out all the relevant information through our website, leafleting , or through the Southwark news. people are contacting me constantly asking ' what is this new application, it looks exactly the same as the last one'.  They are also saying that their last objection letter remains the same on this application. Therefore the D.D.C will be responding on behalf of all their members.

Regards

Steve Cornish
 

Canada Water Forum:  news re Frogmore and Barratt Homes planning applications

Thanks to Steve for a great summary of the recent Canada Water Consultative Forum, where Steve and others were able to raise our serious concerns re the recent amended application by Barratt Homes for the Downtown site.  Steve explained to our councillors the anger that residents felt when receiving an amended application last Friday for the Downtown site so soon after the mayors planning department picked massive holes in the Barratt Homes application. He also demanded that this application be stopped from going before the planning committee on the 7th October for three reasons;

(1)..the 14 day window for people to object is not long enough

(2)..the case officer for the Downtown site is on vacation for the next two weeks, so no members of the public will be able to contact him for an answer to whether this amended application has fulfilled the criteria set out by the mayors office.
 
(3)..and if purdah means that because of the local bye election taking place, that the council cannot make any decisions then this should also apply here.

The objections were fully backed by the Canada Water Consultative Forum who have sent in their objection.

7th September 2007

Letters of Objection to Downtown planning proposals on Southwark Council website

Thanks again to Kam Hong Leung who has pointed me at a file on the planning section on Southwark Council’s website which has published some of the letters of objection received by them so far. You can see the page by clicking here.  It is in PDF format and takes quite a long time for the page to load (53.31 MB, 200 pages).

Kam has also pointed out that both Southwark News and The Docklands 24 have updated their websites with online copies of their stories about the Mayor’s Office report about the Barratt Home plans for the Downtown site:

Deputy Mayor of London report - Blow for Downtown Plan

Boris questions plans for docks

 

 

6th September 2006

Update re revised planning application

Thanks to Kam Hong Leung for the information that he has (and presumably other residents in the immediate area of the Downtown location) has received a letter a letter from Southwark Council dated 4-9-2008 which invited written comments of objection or support for the revised Barratt Homes planning application to be submitted within 14 days, before which time no decisions will be made.  Responses should be submitted to:

Case Office: Brett Henderson
Email Address: planning.applications@southwark.gov.uk 
Telephone: 020 7525 5521

The case number for the planning application is 08/AP/1563. Details of this can be found on the Southwark Council website by clicking here.  The page gives summary details of the application, its history and current status.  The top-level description reads as follows: 

Demolition of existing health centre and the construction of 213 new dwellings including affordable housing, in 2 part one, part four storey residential buildings with undercroft car park (Blocks A/B and G); 1 part two, part four storey residential building with undercroft car park (Block C); 2 four storey residential buildings (Block D and F); 2 part one, part two and part three storey terraced housing buildings (Block H); 1 part one, part four storey health centre (1425.5 sq ms), community (40sq ms) and residential building (Block E), together with associated car parking, a new children's play area, landscaping and infrastructure works.

There are two other tabs on the page - Documentation and Consultation.  The Documentation tab provides just what it says on the tin - links to all the main documentation surrounding the application.  There’s some fascinating stuff in there. The Consultation tab is divided into two sections:  Internal Consultees and Neighbours Consulted.  Thanks very much to Kam for bringing these pages to my attention.

The illustration above was taken from the Landscaping and Open Space Statement (dated 3rd July 2008), available in PDF from the Documentation page by clicking here (23.83 MB, 38 pages and it takes a considerable time to load, even on broadband).

 

 

22nd August 2008

Report blow for Downtown Plan

Gavriel Hollander has reported in Southwark News that controversial plans to develop the land around Rotherhithe’s Surrey Docks Health Centre have been dealt a potentially fatal blow by a damning City hall report (p.3). He goes on to explain how the report put together by the Deputy Mayor of London last week advised that the Barratt Homes proposal for the redevelopment of the Downtown site does not comply with Mayor of London’s plan for the London area.  The report suggested some amendments which could be made to ensure that it would comply, but local groups who have been campaigning against the development for five years believe that it could be the final nail in the coffin for Barratt plans in the area.  Steve Cornish was quoted in the article, saying that the Downtown Defence Campaign welcome the timely intervention by the Mayor’s office and that the report proves beyond doubt that the application is fundamentally flawed.  See the Southwark News article for the full story.

 

 

28th August 2008

Boris questions plans for Docks development

It is good to see that The Docklands (the 27th August edition) has picked up on the fact that Boris Johnson’s office has expressed serious reservations about a new housing development in Surrey Docks.  The item goes on to report that Giles Dolphin, deputy mayor and head of planning decisions, said that the plan for the Downtown site does not comply with the London Plan.

20th August 2008

From John Willis, Secretary of the Downtown Defence Campaign - A Summary of the main  implications of the Mayor of London Report

Great news for those of you who are DDC supporters or everyone who cherishes their environment and open green spaces.

The mayor has dropped the threshold on where he can get involved on individual sites by a massive 50%.

He can now be involved with the Downtown Health Centre Site and has responded immediately with a substantial report on Barratt's proposed development.

The GLA's Head of Planning decisions(Giles Dolphin) has stated that the "the Deputy Mayor considers that the that the Downtown application does not comply with the London plan"  & there are numerous reasons why this is.

You can see the full 18 page report by clicking on the Friends of Russia Dock Woodland link below. Then click on Downtown Defence Campaign,& then scroll down to 'Mayor of London's report re Downtown Site' dated 15th August. (It's in in pdf format)

Don't forget Barratts also have to address the three grounds for refusal received at last year's planning failure.

This is a massive boost for the DDC and could not have come at a better time. The DDC gives full marks to the Mayor for honouring one of his election pledges to act as a "green" mayor in acting so quickly on something we all know is wrong.

John Wills
Secretary, Downtown Defence Campaign

15th August 2008

Mayor of London report re land at Downtown Road

Please see an extract, below, from a letter from the Mayor’s office regarding the Downtown site.  This is very good news for the Downtown Defence Campaign:

Town & Country Planning Act 1990 (as amended); Greater London Authority Acts 1999 and 2007; Town & Country Planning (Mayor of London) Order 2008, Land at Downtown Road, planning reference 08-AP-1563

I refer to the copy of the above planning application, which was received from you on 8 July 2008. The Mayor has delegated his planning function to his Deputy Mayor, Government Relations, and on 13 August 2008 the latter considered a report on this proposal, reference PDU/221S/0l. A copy of the report is attached, in full. This letter comprises the statement that the Mayor is required to provide under Article 4(2) of the Order.

The Deputy Mayor considers that the application does not comply with the London Plan, for the reasons set out in paragraph 86 of the above-mentioned report; but that the possible remedies set out in paragraph 88 of this report could address these deficiencies. The application represents EIA development for the purposes of the Town and Country Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) (England and Wales) Regulations 1999. The environmental information made available to date has been taken into consideration in formulating these comments.

If your Council subsequently resolves to make a draft decision on the application, it must consult the Mayor again under Article 5 of the Order and allow him fourteen days to decide whether to allow the draft decision to proceed unchanged, or direct the Council under Article 6 to refuse the application, or issue a direction under Article 7 that he is to act as the local planning authority for the purpose of determining the application and any connected application.

The full letter and the accompanying report can be viewed here (15 pages in PDF format). 

5th August 2008

Val Shawcross objection to revised Downtown planning application

Thanks very much to Kam Hong Leung for forwarding the letter from Val Shawcross which puts forth her objections to the revised Downtown planning application.

You can download it from this link, in PDF format.

 

4th August 2008

Latest News re development of the Downtown Site

1) Members of the Friends hand delivered over 300 objection letters to the councilâ’s planning offices last week where they were all stamped and approved. This is clearly a massive number of objections.  Once again local Downtown Defence Campaign supporters have put time aside to help our cause by knocking on doors and collecting their neighbours’ objection letters. Well done and thanks to them.

2)  All three of our local councillors accepted a Friends invitation to meet as a matter of urgency, and the meeting took place on site last Thursday, 31st July August. It the first meeting to take place on site with the local councillors. Steve and Friends senior members have now met representatives from all four major political parties. they are:

• Jenny Jones (Green Party & London Assembly Member)
• Valarie Shawcross ( Labour Party & London Assembly Member)
• Andrew Boff (Conservative Party & London Assembly Member)
• Lisa Rajan, Paul Noblet, & David Hubber, (our three local Surrey Docks councillors.)

We talked about the latest application from Barratt Homes and whether it addresses the three grounds for refusal received at last years planning failure. It would be fair to say that all agreed that there are still major issues with the removal of the community benefits i.e.

• community hall re-provision
• breakfast club and creche
• failure to  address the poor urban design and poor traffic flows through the new proposal
• the size of the new 'buffer zone' extension' that has been achieved by removing the above.

The best thing to come from the meeting was that our councillors are going to request that the planning committee visit the Downtown site to take a closer look for themselves in order to assess the physical reality of site, and the proximity of the buffer zone to the  Russia Dock Woodlands ponds and waterways.

28th July 2008

Downtown Site update

Steve and other volunteers spent over two hours with Andrew Boff, walking all around the Downtown Site, as well as other parts of Russia Dock Woodland and Stave Hill Ecological Park. Everyone agreed that it was amazing to think that the Downtown site came under the heading of a brownfield site.  Andrew Boff has promised to bring this to the attention of Boris Johnson as a matter of urgency. Steve has explained to him that other assembly members such as Valarie Shawcross, and Jenny Jones, have opposed this development from the very start.

Good news is that Steve was able to hand in 251 individual objection letters to the planning department last Friday afternoon. We still have more to deliver over the next couple of days.

The local public have responded to our call for help once again.

 

18th July 2008

Help required

Steve Cornish and the DDC need as much help as possible this coming weekend:

We now have a couple of hundred downtown site objection letters printed. We now need some help to knock on a few doors this Saturday/Sunday to get local residents names, and addresses, plus post codes, put on the letters, which will then be hand delivered to the planning office by the end of next week. Please let Steve know if you are available to help this coming Sat/Sun. you can get anyone to fill in the objection letters. It’s all about numbers. if you need some please contact Steve direct on telephone

0207 237 7586 or 07947 275386

or collect at

5 Somerford Way, off Downtown Road.

 

9th July 2008

Information and objection package

Please be aware that the DDC team have been working hard on getting an overall information and objection package together for the general public to take on board, in order to make a judgment on the new application.

The DDC has also put together a letter to the supporters of the DDC.  Please view it on this site.

Our  objection letter for the general public will be finalised and printed by this weekend and we will be knocking on their doors for members of the public to put their names and addresses down if they agree that this application still does not go anywhere near satisfying the people of Rotherhithe.

As Chairman of the DDC Steve Cornish has written an objection letter, which may be viewed here.

5th July 2008

Jenny Jones letter re proposed Downtown Development

A letter to the South London Press from Jenny Jones, from the Green Party Group, London Assembly, has raised some of the concerns about the Barratt Homes Downtown development proposals. She writes:

With Southwark Executive's decision to grant Barratt Homes a "new contract" for the sale of the Downtown site in the north of Southwark, who have moved a step close to losing public land, plus its valuable 300 mature trees. Whilst most people accept that some development is necessary, it seems unwise to do this now, in a time of falling prices and unresolved planning applications with Barratt Homes.
 

4th July 2008

Thanks very much to Steve Cornish, Chairman of the Friends of Russia Dock Woodland, for the following email, received this morning:

The application for full planning permission landed on local residents doormats this morning. The 21 day consultation period started from the 1/07/08. So we now only have 19 days to object to the latest proposal. Will the council ever learn. I sometimes wonder who's side they are on.

The new application remarks on the 'new children's play area' which Barratts had to address because of the last applications failure to provide amenity play space. But in no way whatsoever do they mention that to make way for this 'new children's play area' they have taken away the Downtown Community hall re- provision that has always been part of the plans from day one, six years ago. In effect to address this ground for refusal from the previous application Barratts have taken away a large part of the community benefits along with Redriff Schools creche, and breakfast club. Removing these community benefits also helps to address Barratt Homes’s other grounds for refusal 'poor urban design'. . . the planning committee stated that the school drop off point would be a disaster with only 15 spaces available to park while the entire school, plus the youngsters at the new creche/breakfast were being taken into the school by their parents. Removing these facilities has created a win, win, win, situation for Barratts and a lose lose lose situation for the people of Downtown.

Ruth Kelly's reasons for overruling her own planning inspector were "that the community benefits outweigh the dis-benefits". We must remind ourselves that Southwark council unanimously decided to challenge her decision at judicial review. So I am now completely lost. We have gone full circle.

We will of course be knocking on doors once again to canvas peoples views on whether this application is in anyway acceptable to them. Early opinion is much to be expected. This new application gives slightly with one hand, while taking massively with the other. with some members of the public stating 'this is now an insult to the local community'. . . .

We will be drafting our objection letter over the weekend so that local people can fill in their names addresses, post code, then we will hand deliver them to the planning dept.

If anyone wishes to look at the new proposals and drawings, they can do so by visiting;

REGENERATION AND NEIGHBOURHOODS
COUNCIL OFFICES
CHILTERN
PORTLAND ST
LONDON SE17 2ES

Between the hours of 10:00 & 4:00, Monday to Friday

 

25th June 2008

On the 24th June 2008 Southwark Council’s Executive Committee decided to grant Barratt Homes a 'new contract' for the sale of the Downtown site. The Downtown Defence Campaign put its case to the executive but they decided to go with the Planning Department recommendation to delegate the power of sale to an un-elected council officer. One executive member stated How do you think we will get the pot holes in our roads repaired if we don’t get the money in capital receipts from this type of development?.

Barratt Homes will now put in their revised application some time in September 2008. If this gets the nod then the 300 + trees on the downtown site will be cut down before Christmas 2008. Its now down to you, the local public, to make your voices heard loud and clear.

We will be holding our D.D.C AGM very shortly (before September) to decide on on our future plans. All is not lost, Barratts still have to address the three grounds for refusal received after the last planning failure.

Please see the deputation presented by Steve Cornish on behalf of the Downtown Defence Campaign on the next page.

The news archive for the Downtown Defence Campaign is available here.