A funny thing happened at the last KALC exhibition at Lancaster Road Methodist Church on 21st June. That was the one with the flashy 3d scale model and not much else to see make or do. Anyway, Council officers were full of apologies because someone, they said, had screwed up with the Planning Application and one of the essential documents had been omitted. Consequently, we were told, there had been a delay in registering the application and the documents would not be published until 29th June, leaving just the bare minimum three weeks consultation between then and 20th July, and not a ha-penny more. This cock-up story had also been shared with members of the KALC Forum who had met several days earlier.
Imagine our surprise when we discovered midweek that the Planning Application had been submitted on 28th May, had been registered on 19th June, and all the documents but one had been published online (in the Planning section deep in the bowels of the RBKC website) on 22nd June.
What a pity we couldn’t be told where this confusing pot-pourri of no less than 105 individual documents was located just atiny bit earlier so that we might actually have enough time to study them in all their gory detail.
What a pity also, or more likely what a disgrace, that the Council held this last exhibition on the day before they published the Planning Application, so that not a single one of these 105 crucial documents was available for inspection by the public.
SHAME ON THEM!
So here’s the rub:
Councillor Coleridge reported back to Cabinet from the community forum in December 2011. He told them ‘local parents were hugely in favour of the scheme’.
In the Planning Application Council Officers claimed that during consultation they had found ‘clear evidence of support for both the academy and the leisure centre’.
The question is this: With all this alleged support why are they so determined to allow us only the bare minimum three weeks consultation on the Planning Application?
One has to wonder what it is that they’re afraid of?
PS. The Council Officer reponsible for giving us that bum steer on the publication date has since been curiously reluctant to repeat in writing what she earlier said. One wonders why!
Grenfell Action Group 