Lewisham Gateway Meeting Fiasco (7th Septmeber 2007)
Last night's meeting was postponed at the last minute.
It was 5:50pm, just an hour and forty minutes before it was due to start, that we were advised last night's Strategic Planning Committee meeting had been postponed.
The reason? "The Environment Agency has been unable to satisfy itself on the remodelling of the Ravensbourne River channel design prior to tonight's meeting as had previously been anticipated and it is not therefore appropriate to consider the planning application at this stage."
When we asked why the decision had not been made earlier, John Miller (Head of Planning Services) explained "The wording of the committee report at paragraphs 7.8.3 and 7.8.4 was agreed with the Environment Agency and the Council had anticipated that conditions would be submitted well before now. Despite a series of conversations over the past weeks, only today has it become apparent that this would not be possible."
It's a curious explanation, given that Planning Services seemed quite content to hold the meeting before other vital pieces of information regarding the Gateway application have been released. For example, regarding the "Quaggy East" planning application "The Council has maintained throughout that a planning application for this part of the Quaggy should be submitted by the applicants before the main application is determined and has been supported by the GLA and Environment Agency in this regard." So has this application been submitted? No.
This fiasco has been caused by the unseemly rush to ram this planning application through as quickly as possible before all the information is available. But why such haste for a scheme that's going to take at least six years to build and shape the face of Lewisham town centre for the next fifty? The answer's simple. The more the people of Lewisham learn about the scheme, about the polluted, traffic-choked, user-hostile ghetto it will create, the less they like it. The opposition's growing fast - and can only grow faster.
Planning Services state that the application is likely to be reported to the Strategic Planning Committee on the 4th October. We shall see. In the meantime keep those objections rolling in!