Waitrose Planning Inquiry
Thank you to everyone for their huge generosity. Together we have managed to raise just over £30,000 toward our legal fees. We still need more but we wanted to say a massive thank you!
Planning Inquiry update
While less intense than week 1, week 2 of the inquiry had much to interest anyone with concerns about the way West Ealing is changing, or the borough as a whole for that matter.
Thursday was taken up with a site visit that saw the Inspector, accompanied by representatives from STT and JLP, tour the area. The tour carefully examined views provided by John Lewis showing the heights and the extent of their proposed towers. The inspector also visited a resident on Drayton Gardens and one in Drayton Grove who at great personal cost has installed solar roof panels on his roof which will be seriously compromised by the Waitrose towers in the winter months when he needs them most.
After a further critical submission from a Manor Road resident, Friday featured the evidence of Julian Carter, JLP’s planner and the man who has steered the plans from the start.
Piers Riley Smith, STT’s barrister, began his cross examination by questioning the ‘statement of common ground’ (SOCG) agreed between JLP and LBE’s head of development planning. This agreement says the only dispute between the two is how much harm the development would do to West Ealing’s heritage assets. JLP says there will be none while LBE thinks harm would be ‘at the lower end of less than substantial’. Apart from this, the SOCG suggests LBE accepts every aspect of the development, including building four towers up to 20 storeys high on a site that the Council’s new local plan says should accommodate a single 13 storey tower. If conservation and heritage are LBE’s only concerns why was it unable to perform its statutory duty and send the scheme to the planning committee to decide?
Carter claims in his evidence that the development would confer great benefits to Ealing and do no harm. Through his cross examination, Piers picked away at this claim. He exposed the extent to which the development conflicted with Ealing’s own new local plan which the Council has now submitted to the planning inspectorate for examination. He showed how much larger and more obtrusive Waitrose’s scheme is than the Local Plan proposes and yet provides less than the expected levels of affordable housing. Piers also flagged the considerable areas of harm that the Waitrose development will cause to local people, especially through the impacts of their ‘car-free development’, and on the loss of daylight to many nearby homes.
Piers clearly landed some significant points through his cross examination especially on the main grounds that STT is fighting on – design policy, the centrality of tall building policy to the emerging plan, and prematurity.
LIVE STREAM TEAMS LINK
The final day of the inquiry will be tomorrow Tuesday 3rd December in Perceval House starting at 2pm when the two barristers make their closing statements. STT would encourage you to come if you can and show the inspector that West Ealing cares about this development. Not just that; it will also be a very interesting couple of hours. But if you can’t come, you can watch on line.
The Inspector, who has listened carefully to the evidence will then weigh up the merits of the case for himself, deciding whether the Government’s concerns about the national housing crisis outweigh the harms Piers clearly exposed.
Time will then tell whether STT’s intervention has succeeded in overcoming the Council’s indifference to what Waitrose want to do.
We can be certain that had STT not joined the Inquiry as a Rule 6 party the scheme would have been waved through by the Inspector on the understanding nobody cared one way or the other. But even if the inspector finds in favour of Waitrose, local people have, for once, been able to effectively register their views on a development about which they feel strongly. They have been heard with respect and what they’ve said has been replied to. Quite a contrast to the tightly controlled representations at Ealing’s planning committees, in which committee members show no interest at all. Unfortunately, no planning committee members have been at the inquiry, and so they’ve not seen how things could be done.
Thank you again for your support. And once again a plea, that if you have not already done so, please chip in to help pay STT’s costs which have been considerable.
If you can help, please do so by any of the methods,
1) through this link to our Go Fund Me page PLEASE DONATE TO OUR FUNDS or scan the QR code below
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2) To avoid any fees, donations can be made by direct bank transfer.
Click here to email for STT bank details
3) Cheques to ‘Stop The Towers’ can be posted to 40 Hastings Road Ealing W13 8QH
We will do a further update next week!
Other news around Ealing: please see Central Ealing Resident’s association update here:
Link to CERA’s newsletter
Many thanks in advance
Stop The Towers
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