Graham Love....Business Leader
This letter is required reading for all residents shocked at how the Council ignored the thousands of objections to the behaviour of the chair of the Planning Committee. Cllr Husband should retire.
Leader of the Council: Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea
Dear Councillor Campbell
Governance failures in Council proceedings
I am writing on behalf of my friends and neighbours of the Smith Street Residents Association to bring to your attention serious failings of governance in the way that the Planning Department and the Planning Committee currently function.
This is particularly concerning given that many of these issues were flagged in a report commissioned by you over 2 years ago, which identified a "qualitative and quantitative deficit in effective council engagement", but have apparently continued unchecked.
It is disappointing, to say the least, that a council that claims on its website to put residents' concerns at the centre of its decision-making, in practice pays no heed to these concerns at all.
We base our observations on the process we have seen followed during planning application PP/23/00968, which is the application to demolish the existing building at 81-103 Kings Road, currently majority occupied by M&S, and replace it with a new, much larger building.
You will be aware that there was very substantial local opposition to this proposal, with over 1300 residents submitting written objections and over 4,000 signing a petition asking for the application to be rejected.
In addition, local residents commissioned and submitted at their own expense reports by planning consultants, carbon consultants and heritage experts, which clearly demonstrated that the project breached the council's planning guidelines; was unnecessarily damaging to the environment, and was of an inappropriate scale for the heritage and conservation areas situated all around this site.
Our experience as residents seeking to engage with the planning process in the run-up to the Committee meeting itself was quite negative, and it was clear that the developer got much better access than we did as concerned local citizens.
Planning officers are reluctant to engage with residents or to provide information unless forced by FOI requests. The planning website is poorly organised making it very difficult to track documents, comments etc.
Turning to the Committee process itself, as an experienced Chairman myself I was surprised at how this was run.
The objectors had submitted detailed factual reports on the impact of this project from both a heritage and carbon emission perspective, as well as planning consultants who had identified a significant number of RBKC policy breaches, and these experts also presented their cases at the Committee.
An overwhelming concern was the excessive bulk of the proposed building on a site surrounded by listed buildings and conservation areas.
However, there was no 3D model presented to the committee, only scarcely intelligible drawings. The objectors had commissioned architect-drawn CAD drawings showing the new perspectives, but these were not permitted to be shown to the Committee.
Despite clear evidence to the contrary and extensive objection from local residents, the Chairman was happy to accept bland assurances from the applicant and from planning officers that "it was all ok", ignoring the additional evidence presented by the objectors.
The carbon emissions report, which clearly showed that rebuilding would create vastly more environmental damage than refurbishment, was not even addressed, other than obtaining equally bland assurances from the applicant that the existing building, despite being less than 40 years old "could not be brought up to modern standards".
At no time was there a proper discussion of the fundamental objections raised by residents to this development, nor any real acknowledgment of their concerns for the impact on the area.
As you will know, the normal practice in a meeting is for the Chair to request views from the members of the committee and then to sum up, adding any personal views of their own as appropriate.
In this case, the Chair led off with his own views, which paid no heed to the views of residents, and only afterward did he ask members of the committee to offer their own.
Despite this rather dictatorial approach, 3 of the 5 members of the committee expressed concerns about the proposal. In the end, the proposal was carried by only 2 votes (including the Chair) out of 5, with 2 members abstaining- which is itself an extraordinarily poor way to reach a decision.
In summary, we believe this preference for the interests of an overseas developer over those of local residents represents a clear failure of proper governance and a breakdown of local democracy, and we invite you to examine the processes currently followed by the Planning Committee with a view to putting urgent corrective measures in place.
Yours sincerely
Graham Love
Chelsea
10 October 2023
Excellect letter, but what a disappointing conclusion. Yes "lessons must be learned" and "improvements must be made" to use the old political clichés but is there no way this appalling decision can be revoked?
ReplyDeleteYes, good content but it lets Campbell off with a warning instead of warring. They only understand when residents put up Inde's against them. Unless they do that residents are pissing in the wind
ReplyDeletePutting up independent resident candidates has been done before & without success.
DeleteIndependent candidates just split the opposition so make it easier for incumbent Tories. They have the
Deletevery opposite effect of what you'd want
Take a look at the New look Labour Party as demonstrated at the Party Conference. Labour once again has credibility both nationally & locally. Starmer & Reeves seem ready to take the country forward but don't scare the horses. And the Labour Parliamentary Candidates in both Kensington ( Joe Powell ) and Chelsea/Fulham (Ben Coleman ) are the best candidates that Labour has ever put up . In the same way that Starmer got started by restoring the National Labour Party, Monica Press has helped Joe Powell to clean out the deadwood and extremists from Kensington Constituency. It is Coleman not Hands who is standing up for the Kings Road. Why not help him by voting Labour at the General Election ?
DeleteYou talk of times when the Conservatives were riding relatively high. Those are long gone days. At a national level they may turn out but locally people are fed up and could switch as easily as they now switch banks...something unheard of in the past. For example. Just suppose Sir Paul Lever said he was standing in Royal Hospital....?
DeleteHear hear @20:15 But a few issues that K & C Labour really needs to address.
ReplyDelete1 The 'south blindness', party history of not bothering with anything south of Notting Hill. General lack of interest in matters Chelsea & Earl's Court.
2 The appallingly poor calibre of people they have as local councillors. They let residents down, let Dizzy's side get away with everything & it puts off the voters.
The longer those people are there, the more Labour's credibility diminishes locally.
At least with Labour inspiring nationally and a strong likelihood of Joe Powell getting elected and even the possibility of Ben Coleman as Chelsea MP , there is already a positive effect on the membership. Under Monica Press there are already new people in with a different approach to the bad old days of "EDCLP" and likely with a Labour Government and some important wins (both of which would improve interest in the south of the borough), there will be more.
DeleteDo stick with it, and better yet, roll up your sleeves and work for a win. It can happen! Agree about the weak cllrs. Around 5 are not up to the job and a couple of them are an embarrassment. Hopefully if we get the wins, then members can call for immediate deselections of the crap cllrs and some by elections. Here's hoping!