STRA call on residents to ask their ward councillors to reject the Local Plan at tomorrow's Full Council meeting

 

Sudbury Town Residents Association have launched a petition and are crowdfunding legal action over Brent Council's Local Plan, and are asking residents to lobby their ward councillors to vote against at tomorrow's Full Council meeting which will also adopt the budget for 2022-23.

This is their appeal:

Ask Your Ward Councillors to VOTE NO to the Draft Local Plan on Friday 24 February 2022

SAY NO TO MORE Development in Brent

Brent Council planning officers have created the Draft Local Plan.  Once this plan is adopted by Brent Council, planning officers can grant permission to build within and around our green spaces, force the sale of homes and turn our wonderful neighbourhood into rows of high rises.

We are all aware of the housing shortage in England, and like every borough, Brent was given a target to build new homes to help the Government minimise the shortage. 

To meet housing shortage in England, Brent’s target was 23,250 new homes from 2019 to 2029and it has already met this target via developments approved in Northwick Park Hospital, Wembley Park  Wembley Central, Beresford Avenue, Alperton House, MinavilHouse, Alperton Bus Garage and Bridgewater Road.  However, as per their own Draft Local Plan, Brent Council plans to continue  unnecessarily granting permission to build more new homes. An interesting observation is that there is insufficient planning to develop or add to vital infrastructure such as hospitals, schools, GP clinics and adult social services. 

Everyone living in Brent has a say on the Local Plan and it’s the Council’s duty to consult its residents, but most residents are not even aware of its existence!

We are challenging Brent Council’s plans on a number of issues that will affect all Brent residents:

• Tall Buildings
• Intensification Corridors
• HMOs
• Compulsory Purchase
• Demolition of rows of houses
• Residential dwellings in rear gardens
• Replacement of pavilions and other buildings within green spaces with residential dwellings
• Building on brownfield sites within green spaces

Our group of community minded volunteers are trying to spread the word and let people know. We are local residents volunteering our precious time and expertise to try and protect our area from unnecessary development.  We are non-political and independent.  We are just trying to take care of our area and borough.

If you are also unhappy about the excessive development in Brent and would like to help, please:

• Donate to support our legal challenge via our Go Fund Me page

GoFundMe, https://gofund.me/bbd06d51 

• sign the petition HERE
• ask your Ward Councillors to VOTE NO at the Full Council Meeting Friday 24 February 2022

Brent Council defends decision to go ahead with virtual Planning Committee despite residents' objections

Brent Council has put on record its reasons for rejecting deferral of the Sudbury Town Station planning application on lack of democracy grounds which presumably will also apply to other applications. LINK

The Meeting begins at 6pm tonight and the Livestream can be viewed HERE

…objections are raised concerning the 'virtual' nature of the committee meeting, and a perceived lack of transparency and public participation as a result of this. The Sudbury Town Residents Association have commented that certain statutory requirements have not been met and have asked that this item is deferred. However, they do not advise which statutory requirements they consider to not have been met. Officers consider that all statutory requirements have been met. The Government has legislated to enable Council meetings to take place virtually and has made it clear it wants Councils to continue to hold public meetings and make decisions to enable it to continue to carry out its functions. The Planning Committee will operate in the usual way but via Zoom rather than in the Civic Centre. People will continue to be able to register a request to address the Planning Committee and may speak on-line, using the Zoom app or using a telephone. The Committee will be live streamed as usual so anyone who might have come to the Civic Centre to watch, but not participate in the meeting, will still be able to observe proceedings. The planning committee meeting will continue to be transparent and public participation has not been reduced. The Council also has not extended “delegated powers” (i.e. the range of decisions determined by officers rather than committee) during the lock-down as some Councils have done. 

The absence of a Planning Committee site visit or a site meeting with residents has also been raised by objectors. The objectors have raised concern that the planning committee may not be able to fully understand a number of matters, such as the availability of disabled parking, levels of on-street parking, the relationship with adjoining sites (and associated impacts) and the relationship with the depot. Planning Committee site meetings are not held for committee items, either with residents or the applicant / agent. 

A planning application will have been already evaluated and the site inspected by planning staff and it is not necessary for a formal Planning Committee site visit to be made. There is no legal requirement for this to happen. Site visits may be held for a limited number of committee items when it is considered helpful to visit the site to understand the proposal and the site context. Committee members may visit a site in their own time should they consider it necessary to understand the site and its context. It is considered that members can evaluate the proposal using the application submission documents, site photos, committee report and other resources that area available (such as Google Earth and Google Streetview). The objectors state that such visits (or meetings) are important to enable the public to put their point of view forward. However Committee site visits are for observations only and not for conversations with members of the public or applicants – the place for this is at committee. There is a reasonable expectation the Planning Committee members are able to make a well informed decision from the information available to them.

Referendum on Sudbury Town Plan - details

On Monday, 27 July 2015 Brent Council's Cabinet approved for the Sudbury Town Neighbourhood Plan to progress to referendum. The referendum will take place on Thursday, 10 September 2015.

The plan has been produced by the Sudbury Town Residents' Association with involvement of the wider community. The neighbourhood plan’s overriding aim is “to create a greener, cleaner, safer Sudbury Town.” In summary, policies in the plan:

• set design criteria for shop fronts in Sudbury town centre and for the continuation of public realm works
•  seeks to protect open spaces and allow the reuse or redevelopment of buildings within Butlers Green and Barham Park, for uses which support the function of the green space
•  sets priorities for spending Neighbourhood Community Infrastructure Levy, including public realm improvements
• identifies uses which will be appropriate in Sudbury town centre and support development that strengthens Vale Farm as a regional centre for sports excellence, whilst preserving open space.

Anyone living in the neighbourhood area (see map below) who is registered to vote in a local election will be entitled to vote in the referendum. If the majority of those who vote in the referendum are in favour then the plan will be adopted as planning policy for Sudbury. The policies within the neighbourhood plan will then form part of Brent's Local Plan and will guide development in the neighbourhood area alongside other Development Plan policies.

If you have recently moved into the area or you are not currently registered to vote, you may complete an online application at www.gov.uk/register-to-vote or ask the Electoral Services office (020 8937 1372) for a paper form. The deadline to register to vote in time for the referendum is midnight on Monday 24 August 2015.

Further information and a copy of the plan is available at www.brent.gov.uk/stnp and on the Sudbury Town Residents' Association webpage http://stra.org.uk/.