Our sister website at www.stqw.org carries details of the current ‘examination’ of the St Quintin and Woodlands Draft Neighbourhood Plan. Independent examiner John Parmiter FRICS MRTPI has been engaged by Kensington and Chelsea Council to review to Draft Plan, and to ensure that it meets to necessary legal conditions to proceed to a local referendum.
His examination will include a public hearing on September 22nd, starting at 10.00 at St Helens Church. More details of the agenda for this hearing are at www,stqw.org.
The main issues which will arise at the public hearing are the future of Latimer Road, and of the backland at Nursery Lane. Housing developers Metropolis Property Ltd have withdrawn their application for 20 four bedroom homes, pending the examination of the StQW Draft Plan, and have submitted lengthy objections to the StQW Draft Plan during the recent round of consultation.
The Neighbourhood Plan offers local residents and businesses a real opportunity to have a greater influence on planning decisions in our local area. We are hoping that the Plan’s proposals will be supported by the independent examiner, and that a referendum on the Plan will be organised by RBKC before Christmas 2015.
The long-running saga of the advertising tower at the Westway Sports Centre continues. In the latest development, advertisers JCDecaux have appealed against a discontinuance notice, finally issued by Kensington and Chelsea Council in June.
The notice follows the decision by the Council in March 2015 to grant planning permission for a replacement tower, of a design that will be much less obtrusive in its impact on this part of the Oxford Gardens Conservation Area. It seems that Westway Trust and JCDecaux have been unable to agree commercial terms on the deal for the replacement tower.
The Association has written to the Planning Inspectorate to ask that the appeal be dismissed, and the Council allowed to proceed with discontinuance action. Local residents have been waiting since 2009 for the Council to honour its commitment to ensure that the present tower structure is dismantled.