Public Inquiry
Tuesday 16th and Wednesday 17th June
10am - 4pm at the Civic Centre, High Road N22
All welcome
A call for support from the Gladwell, Landrock and Cecile Park
Residents Action Group, N8
Developer Paul Simon is appealing against the Council's refusal to
grant planning permission for their backland (over-)development.
Our residents association has been fighting for ten years against all the odds to preserve a backland site in Crouch End
bordered by some 160 homes against plans by Paul Simon Developments
to replace the existing, unobtrusive and much needed lock-up garages
by cramming luxury housing completely out of chartacter with the surrounding terrace housing into an inappropriate site with an unsatisfactory and unsafe access.
We are grateful for the continuing support of the Federation and ask that
any members of residents associations or environmental groups who can attend the Public Inquiry at any point (it is likely to run from 10
to 4:30 on both Tuesday and Wednesday) to do so, to show their support for what must be the longest-running planning battle in the
Borough between a determined local community and what may well be one
of the greediest property speculators operating in the area as it reaches its culmination, as it surely will, next week.
Believe it or not, the Council will for once be fielding a strong team in defence of their refusal of consent (despite the absurdly limited grounds upon which they refused consent). John Murray and I
worked well together with them in objecting to a very similar appeal
at a Public Inquiry this week on the other big Crouch End backland
(garages) site and we are cautiously optimistic, though not at all
complacent, that our long, uphill struggle to save the site for the
community is winnable. But it won't be easy.
I appreciate that many Haringey residents will be focused on the Wards Corner judicial review taking place at the High Court at the
same time and am not suggesting at all that our campaign is in anyway
comparable to the magnificent campaign the Wards Corner Community Coalition, which we too support, has been waging. However, if anyone
can spare a little time during the two days to drop by the Civic Centre to show their support for us it would be very welcome.
Privatising the site by the erection of two land-guzzling and carbon-
emitting villas would permanently remove the site from continuing community use and the potential for ongoing sustainability gains which that could produce.
The applicant claims that there are only 2 options for the site: their luxury villas or dereliction. The existing consent for 38 lockup garages remains a viable and sustainable alternative, providing for an ongoing community need. And were the garages site to
be owned and operated by local residents, this would be, as we have
shown, by far the most economically, environmentally and socially sustainable solution for its future.
Many thanks.
Bob Maltz
for GLC-RAG
(Gladwell-Landrock-Cecile Park Residents Action Group)