Email Newsletter 07/07/2021

Manor Road Planning Appeal

The long awaited Planning Inspectorate appeal hearing into the 20 storey Manor Road tower starts next week (13th July) and runs for two weeks (Tuesday 13th to Friday 23rd July). We expect it to last eight days in total (with no hearing on Monday 19th).

There are two main parties – the Developers (Southern Grove) against London Borough of Ealing (LBE) with their own counsel.  Legally the developers are appealing the council’s decision to turn down the Manor Road tower planning application. LBE is defending its (correct in our opinion) decision to turn down the planning application.

Site Visit

The Planning Inspector makes a site visit with parties after the hearing. But we suspect the inspector is also informally visiting the site incognito this week. So if you haven’t done so already please put up a poster.  You can download your poster by clicking here .

The hearing

It is going to be like a court case presided over by the Planning Inspector with the parties submitting evidence from witnesses and the witnesses being cross-examined by counsel (barristers)  This is all going to be done virtually by Microsoft Teams.

Stop The Towers (STT) has been granted an active role in the appeal process, allowing our barrister to cross-examine the witnesses. STT has instructed Nick Grant of Landmark Chambers (a leading planning set).  Various people from the local community have also submitted evidence to the Inspectorate including Gerald Power (DCA), James Murray MP, Cllr Linda Burke and Will French (Save Ealing Centre and Ealing Matters).  

LBE have their own planning barrister (also from Landmark Chambers) and an expert planning and housing witness (Michael Lowndes) who has prepared a characterisation study showing the disastrous impact of this proposed scheme on the surrounding area. 

The Developer has submitted 7 witness statements in addition to their main planning consultant. They are throwing a lot of resource at this. It’s a real life David and Goliath struggle. The Developers witnesses are:

Planning Evidence – Mr Will Edmonds – Monatagu Evans Planning Consultant
Townscape and Heritage Mr Chris Mield of Montague Evans
Architectural Appearance – Stephen Levant of Heritage Architecture
Affordable Housing – Claire Dickinson of Quod
Architectural Standards – Jeff Stokes of DMWR Architects
Transport – Joe Ellis of WSP
Sustainability – Matt Sealby of Sweco
Daylight/sunlight – Jonathan Lonergan

How you can watch:

Members of the public can join the teams meeting and observe the proceedings. The Planning Inspector is not just deciding on the legal validity of LBE’s decision to turn down the planning application. The planning inspector consider all the matters LBE considered afresh. It is essentially a rehearing of the original planning application. The Planning Inspector will have had access and read (hopefully) all the original objections from residents.

If you want to observe the inquiry click here to email the Planning Inspectorate for joining details.

Thank you for your support, The STT team
www.stopthetowers.org

Click here to download a Stop The Towers poster
To donate to our fundraising click here