Planning Committee

Comments found on the Guardian web site sum up the meeting well:

Well, this was yet another typical Council 'consultation' evening. A plan drawn up by outside consultants to a remit intended to provide the answers the Council wanted to hear, without the input of any local resident, proposing to cram as many new homes into as small a space as possible; presented in almost incomprehensible English by an official who kept recycling the same meaningless buzzwords about 'mixed development', who could not answer any of the detailed and relevant questions put to him by courteous and well-informed local residents, and promising, to general disbelief, that our input would help form the final plan.
Owners of local businesses learned that the council had drawn up plans to replace their premises with housing, without the courtesy of informing them first.

The only consolation is to see the numbers of local residents who care enough about their neighbourhoods to turn out to a gathering stage-managed by patronising officials, on salaries they can only dream of themselves, yet willing to put up with all this because they are determined to make their voices heard.
No ward councillors were present, by the way.



Interestingly the meeting was organised for the Tuesday when the councillors were available but it got changed to Monday when all 3 councillors were not available as they were attending another meeting. Nobody thought to inform Stella Creasy MP of the change so her newsletter gave out the wrong information. The whole process of the AAP for Wood Street has been organised to ensure the least amount of people know what is going on!

Wood Street