Strategic Development Committee - Meeting Tuesday 4th August - We do not forget (from the archive)

At the last meeting, 25 June, the Committee voted 3 against and 2 for the plans with 1 abstention. It was then decided that Council officers were to present a supplemental report setting out the reasons for refusal and the implications of the decision.

So you may have gone away from the last meeting under the impression that the application was to be refused - maybe not it seems....LBTH planning department had their own ideas.

It appears that the unelected and seemingly unaccountable planning officials at Tower Hamlets had been busy at work over the weeks before the meeting and had taken it on themselves to hand the planning application for our estates back to Eastendhomes and Leaside Regeneration to be "given chance to amend their scheme to address the concerns of Members". (Note not concerns of residents)

Any information relating to the progress of this application was extremely hard to come by for we lesser mortals - the public. The agenda for the 4th August makes no mention of the application. None of this would even be known to us without the help of some sympathetic Councillors and the people at London Planning Aid who have been looking at the case for us. Planning Officers wanted to ask the Members permission on the 4th to hand back the plans to Eastendhomes. If Members agree then a revised scheme will be drawn up and will be consulted upon for a period of 21 days before being taken back to a subsequent planning committee. The detailed report giving reasons for refusal requested by the committee apparently must have slipped their minds.

We did ask the case officer to comment on the acceptability of this line of action when the members of the Strategic Development Committee have voted against the plans. Unfortunately the officer went off on leave the Friday before the meeting (as he did before the previous meeting) and did not have time to address our questions. He has promised to respond on his return (so we knew he was coming back and it was'nt "leave" in the Martin Smith sense). Surely after the SDC Meeting was a little late.

Owen Whalley, the Council's Head of Planning, was asked by Cllr Archer for an update on the status of the application and an explanation of why there was no report on the agenda detailing the reasons for refusing the application.

Owen Whalley explained that if an application has not yet been formally determined (ie formally refused with detailed reasons at committee), an applicant can choose to revise the application and it is procedurally correct for an officer to accept that revised application. East End Homes had indicated that they wished to revise the application. However, he did not explain why he had chosen NOT to submit a report detailing legal reasons for refusal to committee which would enable the formal determination (ie refusal) of the application at the August meeting.

Councillors Haque, Archer, Eaton and Francis spoke on the topic. There was general agreement that once a decision has been made by committee that officers need to support the process of drawing the decision to a formal conclusion as quickly as possible. There was also general agreement that it was very unsatisfactory for local people to be left in the dark as to what is going on and for them to not know when the planning process will end.

Cllr Archer asked that the detailed reasons for refusal should be typed up and circulated to members at the earliest opportunity. Cllr Eaton asked that a timescale be prepared so that local residents can know what is going on. The Vice Chair, Cllr Francis stated that although he had originally voted in favour of the application, he now supported the view that once a decision has been made by the committee that it should be brought to a formal conclusion as quickly as possible. The Chair, Cllr Haque, instructed Whalley to bring a report to the next meeting of the Strategic Development Committee with the formal reasons for refusing the application. He also told Owen Whalley to tell East End Homes that they needed to submit a fresh planning application that "addresses the concerns of the Committee and members of the public"