Despite our best efforts, Tower Hamlets Council’s development committee has approved the\u00a0planning permission to build a new residential development on the site bordering Grove Hall Park and the Memorial Garden.<\/p>\n
The vote on\u00a0 6 August was 4-2 supporting the application, which means it went ahead. Those who voted to approve the propsal were councillors Akhtar,\u00a0 Alam,\u00a0 Choudury & Chapman, while those who opposed it were Francis and Khatun.This is despite the Building Research Establishment (BRE) stating that “a significant number of proposed habitable rooms” do not meet minimum daylight and sunlight values and that only two of the eight proposed amenity spaces achieve the recommended amount of sunlight.
\nSome of the buildings are closer to each other than usual “recommended separation distance” (including just an 8 metre gap between this building and the existing flats in Taylor Place), and the housing density is at the top end of what would be considered acceptable for “urban” areas.
\nOh, and it doesn’t offset enough carbon. But that’s OK because the developers will give the council \u00a325,200 to offset it.<\/p>\n
And\u00a0no-one could clearly say HOW it enhances the conservation area…<\/p>\n
But hey, that’s democracy in action.<\/p>\n
We shouldn’t consider this a complete defeat, however: we managed to get the main block bordering the park reduced by one storey to four and the wall between the park and development will be high and brick.
\nAlso, the amount of “affordable” housing (ie:\u00a0rent of\u00a0no more than 80% of the local market rent including service charges, where applicable) has been increased to 35% from 22%. And a 106 agreement will ensure that any trees damaged or which die as a result of the development in the next 5 years are replaced.<\/p>\n
Thanks to everyone who signed the petition and collected signatures: your support helped us get these small concessions. It could have been worse.<\/p>\n
FYI, here’s a list of the development committee members and how those who were there voted. Those with no “for” or “against” by their name were not present.<\/p>\n
Members: Deputies: Despite our best efforts, Tower Hamlets Council’s development committee approved the planning permission to build a new residential development on the site bordering Grove Hall Park and the Memorial Garden.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":396,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[21,2,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community-consultation","category-fcara-meetings","category-tower-hamlets-council"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fcara.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/IMG_0706.jpg?fit=1280%2C1101&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4GT9s-7C","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fcara.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fcara.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fcara.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fcara.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fcara.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=472"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.fcara.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":499,"href":"https:\/\/www.fcara.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472\/revisions\/499"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fcara.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fcara.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fcara.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fcara.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nChair: Marc Francis (Bow East, Labour) Against<\/strong>
\nSabina Akhtar (Stepney Green, Labour) For<\/strong>
\nRajib Ahmed (Lansbury, Labour)
\nVice-chair: Shiria Khatun (Lansbury, Labour) Against<\/strong>
\nSuluk Ahmed (Spitalfields & Banglatown, Independent Group)
\nGulan Kibria Choudhury (Poplar, Independent Group) For<\/strong>
\nChris Chapman (Blackwall & Cubitt Town, Conservative) For<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nSirajul Islam (Mile End, Independent Group)
\nAndrew Cregan (Island Gardens, Labour)
\nAmina Ali (Bow East, Labour)
\nShah Alam (Mile End, Independent Group) For<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/h3>\n
<\/h3>\n
<\/h3>\n
<\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"