‘A very significant level of development is envisaged for the town-this makes the situation in Romford one of concern.’
Romford Civic Society members are concerned about the level of development in the new London Plan. Today the team share their concerns in the Havering Daily.
The new London Plan, adopted last year, establishes that tall buildings should only be developed in sites which have been identified as suitable in boroughs’ local plans. The London Forum of Civic and Amenity Societies, the umbrella group for all organisations such as ours in the capital, notes that where local policies are not in place it is difficult to defend refusal of proposals for tall buildings on appeal to the government’s National Planning Inspectorate and recommends that (where local plans are deficient in this respect) Supplementary Planning Documents or Area Plans are in place to fill the gap.
This makes the situation in Romford one of concern.
A very significant level of development is envisaged for the town.
Timing issues mean that the borough’s local plan, adopted last November, is out of step with the London Plan adopted earlier in the year. This is inevitable and no criticism of the local authority, however Romford Civic Society has long advocated the adoption of a realistic and rational masterplan for the town, giving shape and positive green ambition to the future of the environment of the town in a context in which major development is inevitable.
It is just such a document that the London Forum recommends local authorities produce to give substance to London Plan policies on the location of tall buildings.
That such a Romford masterplan has not been adopted, despite work having begun on it over three years ago, is a matter of enormous concern. This is particularly the case given that the borough’s political Administration forced through their own application for tall buildings on the Waterloo Road site in central Romford last year without having identified the site as suitable for a tall building and over-riding the requirements of the London Plan. They did this despite knowing that the London Plan had been adopted and was policy by then. Their actions seem to give weight to the London Forum’s warning that without a rational and realistic plan in place it will be very difficult to defend against such applications in the future.
We look forward to the development of a masterplan for the environment of the town as a matter of urgency.
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The Civic Society are right to highlight thes concerns as we have a Residents Association. The Conservatives blame everything on the Mayor of London but the Local Tories and their Conservative Government are equally if not more to blame for the over-development of Havering.
The reason why we Conservatives and some others within Havering Council blame the Mayor is because of systematic power struggle between the two administrations over who gets to decide on the building of houses. There is also a social cleansing problem attached to this as well. Some of the working class communities in the inner London boroughs are being systematically deprived of decent housing and are being migrated by either their councils or the GLA to the outer boroughs. This is so that they can gentrify the areas around places like Kensington and Chelsea and Peckham and make them more attractive to the Middle classes or to corporations looking to make something for themselves. London is just too big for it’s boundaries and the GLA has made like a city state that represents the wealth of metropolitan elite.
I am appalled at the way all these tower blocks have no consideration for the wellbeing of the community, children and traffic. Houses is what we need, children need gardens to play in, our road network can’t support all the traffic now. Consider what it will be like in the future.