July 10th turned out not to be decision day for the Imperial West planning application. The council withdrew the report at the last minute, following our letter threatening legal action. A revised version of the report is back on the agenda for the next Planning Applications Committee, on July 25th at Hammersmith Town Hall (first agenda item at 7pm). For more info see at www.imperialfolly.org.uk.
Tuesday July 10th at 7pm, at the meeting of the Hammersmith & Fulham Planning Applications Committee in the Small Hall at Hammersmith Town Hall, King Street, London W69JU.
See our campaign website at www.imperialfolly.org.uk for more details, and join us in our efforts to force a rethink on this completely inappropriate development in Wood Lane.
Our public meeting on 30th June discussed the threat of closures, and the 3 options on which NHS North West London are consulting.
The consultation runs from July 2nd to October 8th. The consultation document is 80 pages long (with much space wasted with the usual full page photos of cheery nurses etc). It has 33 complicated questions and no simple way of expressing a view. It can be found here
There is an online petition, started by Andy Slaughter MP for Hammersmith, which can be accessed at the button below.
As explained in the post below, two of the three options mean the end of A&E services at Charing Cross and at Hammermsith, leaving St marys and Chelsea & Westminster as our nearest hospital for emergencies.
It is not yet clear whether any consultation meetings will be organised by the NHS in RBKC or in LBHF. We will keep this site updated as the consultation exercise progresses.
Our next open meeting is this Saturday June 30th at 4pm in St Helens Church Hall (St Helens Gardens W10). Anyone living or working in the surrounding area is welcome to attend.
There are several issues to discuss. This week we learned of the threat of closure of the A&E Departments at both Charing Cross and Hammersmith Hospitals. This would leave local residents with St Mary’s and Chelsea & Westminster as the nearest hospitals in an emergency. The latter might as well be in another city, in terms of travel times at peak hours.
Andrew Slaughter (MP for Hammersmith) is organising a campaign against these closures. For more details see at http://www.andyslaughter.co.uk/
NHS North West London has launched a consultation on the changes, with 3 options – their preferred option and two alternatives. All 3 would see A&E at Hammersmith Hospital close and 2 of them, including their preferred option, would see A&E at Charing Cross close as well.
At our June 30th meeting, we will also be discussing the latest position on the Imperial West planning application. This may be decided by Hammersmith & Fulham’s Planning Applications Committee on July 10th, or on July 30th. Or it may be deferred again, given that H&F are having to respond to two sets of legal challenges on their approach to planning decisions (on the Shepherds Bush Market redevelopment and at Earls Court .
We will also be explaining the proposals for a new Neighbourhood Forum for this area, as a first step in developing a Neighbourhood Plan. The area to be covered is at this link Neighbourhood_forum_sketchmap. Information on how to respond to the current consultation is in our earlier June post. A reminder that the deadline for responses is July 20th.
Hammersmith & Fulham and Kensington & Chelsea councils have now published the proposals for a new Neighbourhood Forum, to develop a Neighbourhood Plan for the St Quintins and Woodlands area.
This signals the start of a formal six week public consultation period, which will run until July 20th. The details appear here on the RBKC website, and here on the LBHF website.
We hope that many local residents and businesses will respond to the consultation, with a majority in favour. This is an opportunity to strengthen the influence of local people in planning decisions in the area, ranging from conservation policies to major developments and future infrastructure projects such as Crossrail and the proposed HS2 railway line.
The next open meeting of the Association, on Saturday June 30th at 4pm in St Helens Church Hall, will discuss initial ideas for neighbourhood planning and for establishing the new Forum on a formal basis, subject to approval of the application by both councils.
Apologies for the delay in the start of the 6 week consultation period on the application that we (and Woodlands Area Residents) have submitted to our two local councils, for a new Neighbourhood Forum for the area.
It has become clear that Hammersmith and Fulham Council were not geared up for the start of the new powers under the Localism Act. This part of the Act came into effect on April 6th 2012, but the council does not yet have arrangements or a staff team in place to handle applications for designation.
RB Kensington & Chelsea, on the other hand, were well prepared. They already have one such consultation exercise in progress (for the Norland Society) and were ready to advertise our applicatiion on their website (as the Act requires) within days of its submission. But they wanted to wait for LBHF so that the 6 week periods could run concurrently.
We have now asked RBKC to go ahead, and for LBHF to follow when they are ready. It is a month since the application was submitted, and the Act requires councils to advertise such proposals ‘as soon as possible’. A delay of a month to carry out a simple task is not impressive.
There will be a stall at the Helens Festival on June 9th (in St Helens Gardens) at which the public will have the opportunity to suggest issues that should be covered in the Neighbourhood Plan. We hope that by then both councils will have published our application and started the 6 week consultation period on the proposed new St Quintin and Woodlands Neighbourhood Forum.
A regular open meeting of the St Helens Residents Association, at 4pm on June 30th in the St Helens Church Hall, will then provide the next occasion to discuss ideas for the plan.
Details of the application, including a map of the neighbourhood plan area and the proposed constitution for the new Forum, can be accessed from the links in the posting below.
We have now submitted our application for a St Quintin and Woodlands Neighbourhood Forum. The two councils involved (RBKC and LBHF) are being a bit slow about posting it on their websites, but it should appear next week. There will then be a 6 week consultation period before a decision on the application is issued.
The details are as in the post below, which gives links to documents that you can download.
The St Helens Residents Association is intending to submit an application to RB Kensington and Chelsea, to establish a ‘neighbourhood forum’ and to develop a ‘neighbourhood plan’ for this part of North Kensington.
Over 100 local residents attended the Association’s open meeting on February 20th, to discuss campaign plans to halt or change the planning application for Phase 2 of Imperial College’s development in Wood Lane W12.
We heard from a RB Kensington & Chelsea planner and from Julie Bundy (involved in the recent Big Table campaign, which has persuaded Crossrail to drop plans to demolish this well-known furniture shop).
William Cooper (from Woodlands Area Residents) and SHRA member Jenny Harborne showed a set of visualisations of the impact of the Imperial West proposals. These come from the computer model developed by Imperial’s architects, to which the Association has been granted access following our concerns last year about the accuracy of visualisations used for the Phase 1 planning application.
See the page on our campaign site at what the development will look like for visual images from this computer model.
Overshadowing of neighbouring streets and houses will now be investigated further, thanks to financial contributions from a number of local residents.
The Evening Standard came along to the meeting, and their subsequent feature on the development proposals can be seen at http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-24037813-this-poor-mans-shard-will-cast-a-blight-on-our-homes.do We will be following up with a wider media campaign.
Our next open meeting is on Monday February 20th, at 8pm in St Helens Church Hall. We will be discussing the planning application submitted by Imperial College for their development at Imperial West. The deadline for public consultation on the application has been extended until March 8th, and please see our site at www.imperialfolly.org.uk for more information.
Our petition, asking the Mayor of London and Leader of Hammersmith & Fulham Council to refuse the present application, so that Imperial can think again, is at http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/overdevelopment-at-white-city/