Taylor Talks-‘Politicians need to be bold about planning’-The UK faces a housing crisis as well as pockets of over developments.

Romford Councillor David Taylor continues his ‘Taylor Talks’ column in the Havering Daily.

Politicians need to be bold about planning.

There are few topics that divide the public as much as planning. The UK is facing a housing crisis, decades in the making, yet we’re also facing pockets of overdevelopment. 

The balance is tough to find but, it can be found if politicians put principle before party and embraced boldness and honesty. 

So, here we go… 

How to reject a planning application. 

It is very difficult for a planning committee, made up of Councillors, to reject the big planning proposals. As someone who has experience working with developers, as well as voting on planning applications, I can tell you that it’s very in favour of developers. 

Councillors cannot just object because they don’t like a development. They must give very good, material reasons. The neighbours will lose some light or privacy, traffic will be too high, trees will be destroyed. 

Developers are not stupid; they know the rules and they plan around them. The age of developers bribing Councillors is well and truly past because it simply isn’t needed. Developers will tick every box. 

This means that, if councillors reject a proposal, the developer will go to appeal and win. The council will then have less control over what is built. 

We all remember how angry the HRA councillors were, when the Upminster Pitch and Putt was sold. Yet, the HRA councillors approved planning permission on the site. They’ll explain that they had to, for exactly the above.

Housing Targets

Housing targets, set at both a national and London level, are what gets blamed. By every administration. 

We’ve seen it already from Havering’s HRA political party. The Leader, Ray Morgon, has replied to some residents telling them that his hands are tied, as Khan and the Conservative government want new homes. 

We’ve seen it from every previous administration. 

To a degree, this is correct. The government and London do want Havering to build more homes. This is how developers get their planning permission through, they show that they are helping to meet that target. 

If planning permission isn’t given, then the local council can be stripped of its planning power. The only counter to this is that Councils put together a ‘local plan’. This will assure the government and London that homes will be developed, but in certain places. 

Over 1 year into this new administration and we’re still seeing consultations on the local plan. Meanwhile, the council is pushing ahead with selling more land to developers. 

The right homes in the right places. 

Homes do need to be built. 

We’ve got families forced to live in homes too small for them. We have social housing tenants moved to the other end of the country. The only properties developers can afford to build are flats (largely because they must build a certain % as ‘affordable). 

The only solution is that we build. But, it must be done in the right places. 

When I look around my ward, I see development everywhere. Some of it is good. Other bits are very questionable. 

Take the site next to the North Street roundabout. This is a good development for Romford. It’s a disused site, it’s not too close to residential areas, I support it. 

Yet a site just further up the road, closer to the A12, has flats looking right down into family gardens. It is squeezed between a major road and the river, in an area that suffers flooding. 

We’ve got greenbelt land being destroyed to host a data centre, creating very few jobs. If that land is good to build on, why not have spacious family homes with gardens? 

Romford’s car parks. 

All the above combines to show why we must stop the sale of Romford’s car parks, as proposed by the HRA political party. 

Angel Way, Como St, and Slaney Way are all due to be sold to a developer. The developer, Mercury Land Holdings, is mostly owned by the council. They will be building flats. 

The Leader, Ray Morgon, is getting the excuses in early… “housing targets forced on us”. But that only matters when planning is applied for. If we don’t sell them the land, they won’t submit a planning application. It’s very simple. 

What about the location of the sites? Are they not the same as the North Street development that I like? I’d argue not, except maybe for Angel Way. 

Slaney Way is a much used and relied on car park. When it closed, for a short period of time before Covid, ticket sales at the Brookside Theatre took a massive cut. Punters don’t want to park in the Liberty, especially the elderly. A multi-storey at night is much less pleasant. 

Slaney Way and Como Street, both sit adjacent to areas of flooding. The River Rom runs through Como St car park and the Brookside Theatre isn’t named after a much loved TV soap. 

Como Street can only be access by a residential area and anything built there, above 4 storeys, is going to look right into hundreds of gardens. The area around Slaney Way is already dense, with low quality office to home conversions. It doesn’t need any more homes. 

Meanwhile, as the council prepares to sell the car parks and develop unsuitable homes, it’s struggling to develop what is already in the pipeline. 

The Waterloo Estate, which saw hundreds of families moved, is on pause. Bridge Close hasn’t completed its first few stages. Both of these are council led developments. 

The Ice-rink site, a private developer, hasn’t even broken ground. 

How can our council justify closing and tearing up Romford Town Centre, when it hasn’t yet delivered on its other projects? 

Perhaps the Leader of the council, HRA’s Ray Morgon, views Romford as a ‘treasure island’. The phrase he used to describe the sale of greenbelt. 

If it is that, then it’s time to be honest and bold. Tell the people why these sites have to be developed, consult with them properly. Don’t sell the land and blame someone else. 

It’s time Havering politicians, on all side, got bolder about planning.

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