November 2015 update on planning news – mostly good

As most local residents will have heard, the news in recent weeks has been good.  Our sister website at www.stqw.org carries the details on the outcome of the ‘examination’ of the St Quintin and Woodlands Neighbourhood Plan.

Independent examiner John Parmiter FRICS MRTPI supported the main proposals in the Draft Plan, put together by local residents over the past two years.  Provided that the Council (RB Kensington and Chelsea) does not attempt to overturn his recommendations, our three ‘backland’ green spaces will be protected for the forseeable future as Local Green Space, including the site at Nursery Lane.  And we should see more life restored to Latimer Road and to our shopping parades.

This should spell the end of proposals by Metropolis Property Ltd to build 20 new townhouses at Nursery Lane.  Their planning application emerged a year after we had written to the Legard family, owners of the site, telling them of our intentions for a neighbourhood plan.  The application was withdrawn in the summer, and we hope never to see re-surface.

Neither the Legard family as landowners, nor the developers, chose to speak to local residents until detailed plans had been drawn up for a scheme that few if any in the area wanted.  So if their plans are now derailed and prospective windfall profits lost, local sympathy is limited.

Meanwhile the Westway Trust has once again failed to talk to local residents before entering into a new deal with JC Decaux to add a digital advertising screen to the southern advertising tower at the Westway Sports Centre.  Since being built in 2008, the southern face of this tower (which is aimed at drivers on the West Cross Route) has remained blank.

JC Decaux and the Westway Trust clearly cannot resist the temptation to add an extra digital screen to part of a structure which they claim  is currently ‘devoid of advertising’ (as if local residents and motorists see this as a deprivation).

So this will be a further test case of the Council’s willingness to be firm in saying ‘no’ to further outdoor advertising along Westway.  No one needs it, and the Westway Trust should know better.  Our objection letter to the application can be seen here SHRA_to_RBKC on Decaux application Nov 2015..