Recently, Debby attended Camden‘s Planning Committee meeting to decide the application for a new development on the “garages site“ at the top of Raglan St, opposite Saint Patrick’s School. Only four members of the committee, plus the Chair, were present.
Debby went to support neighbours who will be hugely affected by this development. It will loom over gardens, causing a loss of privacy and serious overshadowing.
Neighbours had requested a deputation, pointing out that it breaches a number of Camden‘s own professed guidelines and other national guidelines. Of real concern is the fact that lengthy and complex documents were being filed only 3 working days before the relevant meeting, with no time therefore for residents to consider them properly.
Both speakers in the deputation, representing 20 surrounding homes as well as the Monmouth House TRA, emphasised that they support the provision and the need for increased housing in the borough but object to the very inferior design of the building, the impact on neighbours, the lack of genuine consultation and the undemocratic and unacceptable process by which the matter has been brought before the committee.
The committee were asked to defer making a decision until an appropriate amount of time had passed to allow for proper consideration. Two of our local councillors, Meric Apak and Joseph Ball, supported that request but it was rejected by Heather Johnson, the Chair of the committee.
Predictably the committee ignored the objections apart from suggesting a change in the colour of the bricks (which indeed many would welcome – but it was only a recommendation to the Design Team, who had made a late change from bricks that would roughly match local houses to an inexplicable pale grey).
The application was unanimously approved by the committee.
We post this not only because it profoundly affects some of our members but because much of what was said is a comment on Camden‘s entire planning approach and the genuineness or otherwise of their consultations.
This may be very relevant for the CFQ (Regis Road) application, now timetabled for the Planning Committee to hear on 4 June.
It’s worth remembering that local elections are scheduled for 7 May so possibly the Planning Committee may be differently constituted?