The Planning Application – Late Objections From GAG

The final report to the Major Planning Development Committee, recommending the granting of planning permission for the Academy and Leisure Centre development, was published a few days ago, and the application is scheduled for decision on 26th September. The moment of truth is nearly upon us. It’s ironic that Senior Planning Officer Edward George, who has played a pivotal role in processing this application, wrote recently to one of our members saying;

“Whilst the Local Planning Authority sits within the Council we cannot be the applicants of any applications being assessed”.

The applicant for the KALC project is, of course, The Royal Borough of Kensington And Chelsea, the Local Planning Authority is also RBKC, and the application will be decided by a committee of Royal Borough Councillors.  What credibility we should give to Mr George’s attempt to assert the fairness and neutrality of the process is therefore a moot question. Our readers will no doubt form their own opinions on this.

Meanwhile, we have submitted a last minute letter of objection, raising a number of questions about the soundness and integrity of the application.  We presented a selection of the errors, contradictions, inconsistencies and false or misleading statements with which the planning application is riddled. We are quite sure that, had we the time and the patience to explore the documents in greater detail, and the technical skill to unpick the detail of the more complex technical drawings, we would have found many more flaws.

In our view this planning application has been so incompetently and so cynically drafted, and is so riddled with errors and inconsistencies, that it is unsafe, unsound and unworthy to receive planning permission.

We believe that the the dishonest and deceitful manner in which false and misleading information has been provided by the Applicant is an affront to the Committee and to the planning system, and that it would be reckless and irresponsible of the Major Planning Development Committee to grant planning permission based on the information provided in these deeply flawed and untrustworthy documents.

PLEASE READ THE FULL TEXT FOR A DETAILED EXPOSITION

You will find it via this link;  GAG OBJECTIONS

 

Dale Youth – A Source of Pride

Beijing Olympic Gold Medal winner, James DeGale, and current British and Commonwealth super middleweight boxing champion George Groves, have known each other since they were kids. Both trained since childhood at the Dale Youth Boxing Club in Grenfell Tower, and both found fame as champions thanks to the excellent training and support they received at Dale throughout their formative years.

Along with many others who live on Lancaster West Estate, we in the Grenfell Action Group are immensely proud of the achievements of the Dale Youth Boxing Club.  Lancaster West has been home to Dale Youth since they were forced to move from their old premises next to Avondale Park many years ago. The gym is situated in the base of Grenfell Tower and, through its work with young boxers, Dale Youth has been a positive force in the community and has helped local children and youth channel their energies and find focus in life.

Grenfell Tower is about to undergo major refurbishment work, and with the imposition of the KALC development on the surrounding Lancaster Green site, life will never be the same for this community. Despite these changes, it seems that the future of the prestigious boxing club will be safe on our Estate.

Initially there were plans to move Dale Youth into the garages adjacent to Grenfell Tower. This was until it was pointed out to the planners that the concrete ceilings of the garages are too low to accommodate a boxing ring and standing fighters.  Now it seems that the powers that be have set space aside on one of the lower floors of the refurbished Grenfell Tower and this will house Dale Youth in the years to come.

This is excellent news, but it got us thinking. With the Grenfell Tower planning application proceeding through Council like an unstoppable juggernaut, where will the boxing club be temporarily housed when building work commences early in 2013?

Let’s hope that the Council and the TMO have got this covered, and that Dale Youth will be able to continue training our future champions without disruption.

The Kensington Society Objections

We have now received from the Chair of The Kensington Society the full text of their letter of objection to the KALC Planning Application which was submitted on 12th September. We are enormously pleased to be able to publish this in full.  Below are some brief extracts from the letter which we present here merely as an introduction. We fully endorse the views and objections expressed and recommend to our readers to read the FULL TEXT which can be found via this link;   kensington-society-objections

I write for the Kensington Society to state our strongest objection to the Kensington Academy and Leisure Centre planning application.

There is no argument that there is a need for an additional school in Kensington. In addition, we recognise that the existing building housing the Leisure Centre is in need of repair and the cost for such repair could exceed the cost for replacement.

There is, in addition, no argument that this section of the Royal Borough contains above average levels of deprivation. This deprivation is almost exclusively concentrated in the north of the Borough, with the 5 northerly wards of Norland, Colville, St. Charles Notting Barns and Golbourne each including at least one Lower Super Output Area (LSOA) in the top 20% most deprived in the country, all except Colville containing an LSOA within the top 10% most deprived. All LSOAs in Notting Barns and Golbourne are in the top 20% most deprived. The percentage of children 0-15 living in income deprived households in the four wards of Colville, St Charles, Notting Barns and Golborne is 44% with an average of 814 homes in the income deprived level. Benchmark this against the catchment area for Holland Park School at 3.35 in 44 homes.

There is also no argument that the Royal Borough is the wealthiest in the nation and with a population of 179,000, the Borough is the most densely populated borough in the UK. Not all the residents may feel the social obligation to create an environment which will allow all the children to have the opportunities to prosper. It is the Kensington Society’s position that there is a social obligation to provide a school in the north which is equal to the Holland Park School. In fact, there is a Government requirement under the Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties) Regulations 2011 which requires the Council to take action to advance equality in the performance of all its functions…including the provision of equal education opportunity. Extremes of wealth and poverty exist side by side in this cosmopolitan, multi-ethnic and multi-faith Borough in which residents can trace their origins to all parts of the globe and over 100 different first languages are spoken. In RBKC’s schools, 70% of pupils are from ethnic minorities with over 100 different first languages spoken. A school for these multi-ethnic and multi-faith children must meet the same high standards set for the Holland Park School. If the school does not provide equal educational opportunities then it will not be meeting the Government’s Equality Act regulations which came into force in September 2011. We have been told that these concerns are not concerns of the Planning Department and we may not disagree, however, they are the concerns of the Council.

Objections:

• Contrary to SPD Kensington Academy and Leisure Centre;
• Loss of open space;
• Loss of amenity space;
• Sport England’s objection;
• Thames Water objection;
• New road;
• Unacceptable uses of Westway Sport Centre;
• Lack of parity to Holland Park School;
• Question facilities for autistic students;
• CCHP; and
• Misleading application description

It is understood that the School will be paid for from BSF government money, Aldridge Foundation sponsorship money, part of the surplus from the sale of the Holland Park school land and some Council reserves. As stated in the introduction…we need a school in the north, we do not disagree. But at what cost? Cost is more than the money to be spent…it is the cost also of under providing for the children in this Borough who may need the most assistance. We are the richest Borough in the nation and this is not the place to save money. These children deserve more.

The Planning Statement page 6, 4.10 states that the “proposals should only be refused where there are ‘demonstrable negative local impacts which substantially outweigh the desirability of establishing a new school and which cannot be addressed through the appropriate use of planning conditions or obligations’”. We have outlined 11 reasons which do demonstrate that the proposal will have a negative impact on the local area. We have asked 8 questions which have not been answered…and there may be more. As much as a school is needed, this is not an acceptable one.

Conclusion:

This application should be refused on the grounds that:

• The Core Strategy specifically states that housing on the site “does not form part of the allocation” and should only be considered if it does not compromise the objective of a new school and Leisure centre. The land loss to the housing is not acceptable especially when considering the overall loss of open space and the increase sense of enclosure which the residents of Lancaster Estates will suffer. Both the Core Strategy and the SPD give reasons to not accept the housing;
• The reduction of open space by 1,866 sqm, the increase in hard surfaces by 1,600 sqm is not acceptable. A green roof may be open but it is not usable space. A road may be open but is unusable. The calculations within the report are creative at best… there will be loss of open space;
• The residents of all of estates in the area use will be harmed by the loss of space, amenities and is supported by the NPPF, the LDF policies CR5 and CL5 and the saved UDP polices H2, CD23, and LR1;
• Sport England’s objections have not be addressed;
• The new road is opposed by all. It will increase the hard surface and reduce the usable open space;
• The Westway Sport Centre is not acceptable alternative for the loss of the amenities within the grounds of Grenfell tower;
• The education facilities are not of the same standard as provided for the new HPS;
• Though the planning statement states there will be “wide resource centre for autistic students” there is no information provided as to how these special needs will be provided; and
• The Core Strategy requirement to address the needs of the Lancaster Estates in particular the outdated heating system is not addressed.

The children of this Borough deserve more. We remind you of the Government requirement under the Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties) Regulations 2011 which requires the Council to take action to advance equality in the performance of all its functions…including the provision of equal education opportunity.

We ask that this application be refused.

Yours sincerely

Amanda Frame
Chairman
Kensington Society

CCHP – When Is A Policy Not A Policy?

Our readers will be well aware that climate change is one of the major issues of our time, and that the British Government has international obligations requiring significant improvements in energy efficiency and major reductions in carbon emissions. Government legislation aimed at furthering these objectives is reflected in the London Plan and again in the RBKC Core Strategy, which requires all new development in the Royal Borough to meet stringent standards in terms of energy efficiency and carbon emissions.

There are a number of Strategic Sites identified in the Core Strategy at which major development is planned in the near future. Among these are the Kensal Gasworks site, the Earls Court Exhibition Centre site, the Wornington Green site and the Kensington Leisure Centre site. At these four Strategic Sites the Core Strategy requires the provision of district heating networks, which it is presumed will be based on combined cooling heat and power technology (CCHP), to meet the required high standards of environmental protection and contribute to greatly improved energy efficiency and significantly lower carbon footprints in the surrounding areas.

These are noble aspirations which we would certainly support. We were shocked therefore, but not entirely surprised, to discover that plans to include a district-heating network in the KALC development have been quietly dropped by the Council. We were un-surprised because the KALC plans have already driven a coach and horses through other parts of the Core Strategy, and have unapologetically breached RBKC policies on housing, open space, residential amenity etc.

When we researched this latest breach we discovered the reasons for the U-turn.  When the Council’s KALC consultants studied the feasibility of the proposed district heating network they decided that the existing pipe network serving Lancaster West Estate would be too expensive and difficult to replace and would have to be retained as part of the proposed new district heating system. However, they also recognised that this same pipe system was so enormously wasteful and energy inefficient that using it would completely negate the energy savings and environmental gains that the new network was intended to achieve.

A choice would have to be made between delivering the district-heating network required by the Core Strategy, with improved energy efficiency for the whole neighbourhood, or delivering a less environmentally ambitious project that fit the Council’s preferred tight-fisted costings. Inevitably, environmental ambitions lost out to baser Tory instincts and it was decided to drop the district-heating network from the project.  As ever the Council’s alleged grand ambitions for the KALC project were not matched by a willingness to spend the money necessary to make the development truly exceptional.

In order to fully appreciate the significance of this decision, it’s important to have some knowledge of the history of the Lancaster West communal heating system, which has been the bane of residents’ lives for many years, and has been a source of ongoing conflict between Lancaster West EMB and RBKC/TMO. The TMO has repeatedly abdicated its’ responsibility for replacing this clapped out system, as have the Councillors with ultimate responsibility for oversight and scrutiny of the TMO’s activities. The TMO went so far as to commission at least two consultants reports, in 2005 and again in 2008, but has repeatedly failed to act on the urgent recommendations contained in those reports.

The feasibility study by KALC consultants Max Fordham looks likely to be another case in point. It describes the Lancaster West heating system thus;

“The existing heating systems within the Lancaster West housing blocks are considered by the TMO to be life expired. The pipework and boilers are both from the original installation in the 1970s. The boilers have become very unreliable and are costly to repair. There are also significant problems with the heating systems inside the flats which lead to wasted energy and uncomfortable conditions. The tenants have no control over the heating, it simply operates off the central, building-wide control whether it is needed or not. The hot water storage in each flat is uninsulated so loses heat constantly which causes overheating.”

Even though the TMO declared the Lancaster West heating system as ‘life expired’ in 2008, they subsequently failed to commit the funding needed to replace this obsolete, horribly expensive, and obscenely energy inefficient system, and the Council now look set to follow suit with a similarly negligent and disdainful attitude towards the Lancaster West community.

The great irony and scandal of this is that the very reason why the proposed district heating network is so urgently needed has instead become the excuse for it to be dropped from the scheme.  Councillors were well aware of the parlous condition of the Lancaster West heating system when they drew up the Core Strategy policy requiring the creation of a new district-heating network to serve this area. A requirement to include Lancaster West Estate within the new system was subsequently written into the KALC planning brief for this very reason.

Ultimately, the solution proposed by the KALC consultants is the same one previously proposed by the TMO – to replace the existing Lancaster West heating system with individual combi-boilers in all homes at an estimated cost of £5.5 million. Unfortunately the TMO stopped short of committing the funding to pay for these works. It would be a shame, and a disgrace, if the Council now followed suit by passing the buck straight back to the TMO, and missing yet another opportunity to finally put the Lancaster West heating scandal right.

The Council’s failure to act on this would be a double whammy. It would be yet another betrayal of the thousands of Lancaster West residents who are forced to pay exorbitant charges for an obsolete and dysfunctional heating system. But it would also be a betrayal of the Government’s global warming strategy, of the environmental policies in the London Plan, of the Council’s own environmental policy, and of its’ duty to make a meaningful contribution to solving to the climate change crisis threatening the entire planet.

The Council claims that on a cost/benefit analysis the proposed KALC district heating network comes up short, and that there are better and more cost-effective ways to deliver the energy efficiency gains that are required. Their consultants suggest that the TMO’s proposed solution of individual combi-boilers for Lancaster West can deliver the desired environmental benefits. This may indeed be true.

However, the Council’s current plans do not include any commitment to pursue the original objectives set out in the Core Strategy and the KALC planning brief. The plan to include Lancaster West as part of a new energy efficient district heating network has simply been dropped, and there is no commitment to deliver to Lancaster West the alternative combi-boiler system recommended by the consultants.

When the Council approved the KALC budget in December 2011 the original costings included an estimate of £5.3 million for the CCHP element of the project. By cancelling the CCHP they have contrived to save that £5.3 Million from the budget, but have not committed a single penny to replace the obsolete Lancaster West heating system that was part of the original plan. The buck has thus been passed straight back to the TMO with no certainty as to when or how the funding for these essential works will be found. This is not acceptable. The £5.3 million saving should be spent on the urgent replacement of the Lancaster West heating system,  just as Policies CE1 and CA4 of the Core Strategy intended.

When the KALC planning application comes before the Major Planning Development Committee on 26th September, the Committee should impose a S106 Planning Obligation (ie a unilateral undertaking), requiring the replacement of the Lancaster West heating system within a specific timeframe – we would suggest three years, and not a minute longer.

Anything less than this would be a disgraceful betrayal of many of the Royal Borough’s poorest residents, and a dishonest and dishonourable travesty of the rules that were supposed to govern delivery of the KALC project.  

£80+ million for Holland Park School
£36 million for Chelsea Academy
£32 million for a Crossrail station that might never happen
£20 million for Exhibition Road

£5.5 million for Lancaster West heating.

This is affordable and is URGENTLY NEEDED.

IT SHOULD BE MADE TO HAPPEN.

Weird Scenes Inside The Goldmine

Strange things are happening with the KALC Planning Application.  In June the Council posted all the Planning Application documents on their website – a total of 105 documents – and it was a daunting task for the consultees to make sense of, and respond to, such a massive quantity of material. In recognition of this the Council found it necessary to extend the consultation period to give us all extra time to do the work at hand.

Sport England managed to respond fairly quickly, and submitted their comments in mid July. Planning Aid For London submitted theirs, on behalf of the Lancaster West community, on 7th August, and the local ward councillors submitted theirs on 13th August. The Kensington Society are still working on their response.

Meanwhile the Council, unknown to any of us, were feverishly working behind the scenes producing a large quantity of new documents, all categorised as ‘revision content’. They began posting these online on 10th August, but didn’t bother to inform any of the consultees of this. They posted a second major tranche on 17th August, and a third on 22nd August. The situation currently is that, in addition to the 105 documents posted originally, they have now posted a further 102 so-called revisions, and there are a total of 207 documents for consultees to study, compare and contrast, and to somehow compose some meaningful reponse to.

The first conclusion we would draw from this is that the application now submitted to the Planning Committee, based on these 207 documents, is not the planning application on which we were consulted, and to which most of us have already responded.

Let’s be clear about that for starters.

We’ve all worked very hard to make sense of the fine detail of what we were assured was the KALC Planning Application. We now discover that many of the documents we have been studying are obsolete, either because details have been changed, or because they contained incomplete information to start with. Many of the so-called revision documents are technical reports, including an acoustics study, a gelogical study, ecological studies, and reports on transport, energy, water and sewerage issues, all of which should have been made available when the Planning Application was first submitted, but apparently were not. Some of the new documents may be revisions, but others clearly are not, and the only way to tell the difference is by painstakingkly sifting through the entire archive to compare original documents with revised versions, and to assimilate new and complex technical reports to make sense of what is being proposed.

This is an impossible task which we have no intention of attempting, particularly at this late stage, and we strongly believe that it is unreasonable of the Council to expect this of us. In any case the so-called revision documents have all the appearance of final versions. Why else would the Council and its’ consultants have expended so much time and effort preparing and publishing them at the eleventh hour?

The archive is also strewn with errors, inaccuracies and inconsistencies. Some errors are apparently due to the haste with which the documents were drawn up. Others, including many inconsistencies, have arisen from the complex inter-relationship of so many documents, such that references to a certain issue in one document are contradicted in another, or sometimes in another part of the same document. One has to wonder – if the job of untangling this Gordian knot is too difficult for us to accomplish, how then can the Planning Committee be expected to do so? – assuming of course that the job of the Planning Committee will not simply be to rubber-stamp this appalling mess and approve the planning application on the nod, regardless of what it proposes.

A question arises – why would the Council publish such a large quantity of new documentation – enough to radically alter the detail of the planning application – without formally notifying its’ consultees of the existence, location and significance of these new documents, and what does this say about the quality of the consultation they have conducted?

On Friday 24th August, right at the start of the bank holiday weekend, local residents received by post a revised site notice, informing them that the residential element of the project had been reduced from 35 to 32 units and the on-street parking provision increased from 32 to 35 spaces. We were invited to comment on these two changes, and on only these two changes, and given until 5th September to do so. We were not informed of any other changes to the planning application, and were not informed that the Council had posted 102 new documents during the previous fortnight, all of which contained new information and proposals, or revised information and proposals.

This notification was grossly inadequate and grossly misleading.

The Planning Application now runs to a massive 207 documents, many of which are mutually contradictory, and some of which are self contradictory.

Under such circumstances it is very hard to see how the Council can claim any legitimacy for the consultation that they have conducted, and we can legitimately argue that the consultation is fatally flawed, as is the planning application itself.

TMO Should Come Clean About Windows

Members of the Grenfell Action Group will be meeting our MP, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, at Westminster on 3rd September to discuss the continuing ill treatment of our community by Kensington and Chelsea Council and the TMO.

Sir Malcolm is well aware of the negligence shown by the Council and the TMO towards residents of Lancaster West Estate and the issues they face with the prospect of their homes being turned into a giant building site without any protection against dust or noise pollution.  Sir Malcolm has come to our aid by demanding that;

“…residents who can show that the building works will have a qualitatively detrimental effect on their lives will be given adequate support from the Council, including the instillation of double glazing if necessary”.

Sir Malcolm has also promised to inquire into the state of residents windows that we have claimed are no longer fit for purpose.  We thought we might be able to help by providing him with evidence of the dilapidated condition of the windows in properties on the frontline of the KALC project, so we wrote to the TMO and requested to see a report by Tudor Glass Ltd on the state of the windows in Verity Close.  This survey was requested by Councillor Coleridge after he visited one of the properties in question and was reportedly shocked by what he saw.

Below is the TMO’s response to our request:

It looks like Sir Malcolm will be denied access to the contents of this report, unless he is able to use his own power and influence to force a U-turn. This is a great pity. Anyone familiar with the Freedom Of Information Act will know that the TMO don’t really have a leg to stand on in witholding this report, and they certainly have no right to release it to selected residents of their choice, but not to others.

The Freedom Of Information Act applies equally to all citizens of the United Kingdom, and there are very limited circumstances in which a refusal is allowed. Even if they think they have reason to withold, public bodies are required to apply a public interest test as the final arbiter, and in most cases the public interest in disclosure will trump any perceived public interest in non-disclosure.  Indeed the presumption of the FOI Act always favours disclosure unless there are specific and compelling reasons to the contrary.

When responding to a request under the FOI Act public bodies are required to respond within 20 working days. On this occasion the TMO made the applicant wait 30 working days before they issued the refusal notice. This was a breach of the Act. When issuing a refusal notice public bodies are required by law to state their reasons for refusal. This the TMO clearly have not done, so they are in breach of the Act on this point also.  Finally, as if the first two breaches weren’t enough, they are also required to inform the applicant of his right of appeal against the refusal. They have also breached the Act by failing to do this.  Perhaps the TMO’s governance officers are simply ignorant of their responsibilities under the FOI Act, in which case we would suggest the TMO reconsider the fat salaries these officers are paid. We would also strongly suggest that they urgently need re-training.

However, anyone who has previously made FOI requests will be familiar with this routine, which is invariably designed to frustrate and discourage citizens from exercising their rights under the Act.

Another interesting detail of the TMO refusal notice is that it makes no mention of the EMB, the locally elected resident organisation who are supposedly the Council’s managing agents for Lancaster West Estate. They also should have sight of the report.  EMB members will not be surprised by this omission, as the TMO often ignores the Lancaster West Management Agreement, and excludes the EMB, when making plans that affect Lancaster West. This is just another indicator of the basically authoritarian mindset of TMO managers, which is already evidenced by their refusal of Mr Daffarn’s perfectly legitimate request, on behalf of Lancaster West residents, to see the Tudor Glass report.

How can the Grenfell Action Group, or the EMB for that matter, negotiate appropriate improvements to the windows of properties on the frontline of the KALC development, if they are denied access to the recommendations of the consultants who conducted the most relevant survey?

Last week Cllr Coleridge, the Cabinet Member for Housing and Property, chastised us for criticising the TMO. He seems to have forgotten that it is the TMO, and not us, which has the POWER to abuse, obstruct, and deny the rights of local residents, including ourselves, and who do so with apparent impunity. We can, of course, complain to the Information Commissioners Office, and in possibly eight or nine months time the TMO will have their wrists (gently) slapped and be advised to release the report – with an implied threat that if they don’t they will be ordered to do so.

NOT GOOD ENOUGH!

WE NEED THE REPORT NOW!