The Friends of Mais House Campaign will be featured on BBC London News tonight [late breaking news stories permitting].
In the item, to be broadcast as part of BBC1’s London News at 18.30 tonight [Weds 07.04.2021]reporter Luke Hanrahan films the next generation enjoying an Easter Egg Hunt on the communal area that will be impacted by the City of London’s redevelopment of their homes. Luke speaks with campaigners, including long term tenants and investigates just what the City’s plans will mean for the environment.
Following the broadcast, the programme will be available on Catch Up.
UPDATE: Apologies, this didn’t broadcast last night. It will go out on a future broadcast, date TBA. I will post again when I know. So sorry if anyone tried to watch.
Sorry Robert it was postponed because of other news stories. It will still go out, but I just don’t know when. There was a BBC London Radio interview that was transmitted live at 17.50 and I’ll try to post a link later today.
Thanks for trying to view and I’m really sorry for the disappointment. I’ll update my post now.
Hi @marymck I’ve just been watching the BBC lunchtime news and at the end of the London news the report you mentioned above was shown, so I imagine it will be included again in the evening news at 6.30pm. .As the lunchtime London news is only 10 minutes I don’t know if the report was shown in full or not but the BBC iPlayer link is https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000v5gf/bbc-london-lunchtime-news-12042021 and the report starts at 5:18.
Following the Judicial Review, Mrs Justice Lang handed down her Judgment at 10.00 hrs this morning [18.05.2021]. She concluded:
“Given the number of significant errors made by the Council, and the possibility that, absent such errors, a different conclusion could have been reached by the Planning Committee, I consider that the decision to grant planning permission ought to be quashed.”
The Judicial Review hearing on 27/28 April found a number of failures in the way Lewisham Council handled the planning application by the Corporation of the City of London to redevelop its Sydenham Hill estate, including that the Planning Committee were given an incomplete picture of the heritage harm and were materially misled on some aspects of the heritage issues.
Thank you to everyone whose support - both financially and emotionally - made it possible for the community to challenge Lewisham.
Out of interest, as the Council made these ‘significant errors’, which may well have amounted to negligence on their part, did the Judge award costs in your favour?
One of the greatest failures in the planning system is the £30,000 that local residents needed to raise to seek to overturn a flawed decision and a ‘significant number of errors’ in the planning process that appears to favour social housing development for the council over the council’s own policies and the rights of neighbours.
I have a great deal of admiration for people who are willing to take on the might of the council and property developers when there has been an injustice. But how many more injustices happen without ever going to court?
In this case the council knew it had a weak argument but did not present the council’s own reports that would be negative for the developer. It is possible that the opportunity for more social housing for the council clouded their judgement and led to serious omissions in the presentation of the application to the planning committee. It is tough for residents to fight such injustice and makes other very suspicious of the planning process when it comes to other similar developments (Valentine Court, Dacres Road, Drakes Court, Greystead Road and many more).
How can the council restore faith in the planning system for local residents so that more housing can be built legally and with appropriate scrutiny?
I made a comment elsewhere about it sometimes feeling that the Council maybe ‘marking it’s own homework’, and this case is exactly a demonstration of that.
It was also £35,000 that was raised - but whats and extra £5k between fundraisers
They know their policies and the parameters - and they know the procedure - so do it with honesty and integrity; and if a proposal merits it, it should succeed.
Excellent news; well done FoMH and all who helped.
Lets hope that LBL & CoLC can now swiftly devise a sympathetic plan that both blends in with the local environment and provides the social housing we so desperately need.
For those that are interested, Grainne Cuffe has an excellent summary of these projects, which were apparently mentioned at Wednesday’s council meeting and are still being pursued, subject to feedback and planning permission:
Here’s an interesting letter into the Architects’ Journal from a (local - I think?) architect offering her point of view on in-fill developments in London, and specifically referencing the errors in the Mais House case:
Clicking through to the tweet should allow you to see the image at a readable size, where the relevant correspondence is outlined in red:
