Dear everyone

I hope you have all had a peaceful Easter weekend.

I am writing to tell you that, after careful deliberation, I have reluctantly decided that I am not able to support any further action against the London Plan. I have reached this decision having conducted extensive research and sought advice on my situation and potential liability. This means that I have now personally stopped all my activities to challenge the London Plan.

I hope that other challenges will continue and surface that will stop a plan that is so obviously harmful to Kingston and to neighbourhoods, communities and the environment across London.

The approval last week by Kingston Council of a massive, dense and high-rise development for Unilever right in the heart of our historic town, shadowing heritage assets of the highest significance, and towering over the Hogsmill River chalk stream, provides no better example of what there is to come for all of us.

I have, with your support, been fighting The London Plan for over two years, and undemocratic and harmful development plans for Kingston for over five years. I have also run an active communications campaign to inform people on as broad a basis as possible about these plans and why I believe that they are unsound. I have formally challenged decisions made by Kingston Council and by the Mayor of London - with the support of petitions that I have run - on a number of issues. I also spoke - with the help of Just Space - at several sessions of the Examination in Public of the London Plan in my attempt to help decision-makers understand the harm to London in general and Kingston in particular that will come from their plans. I stood to be a local councillor in Kingston in 2018 and as MP for Richmond Park in 2019 in order to raise awareness of what is planned for The Royal Borough of Kingston-upon-Thames and the Richmond Park constituency, including the effect of development plans on the protected habitats in Richmond Park itself.

You will understand how difficult the decision to stop has been for me to take.

As we leave the Easter weekend behind us, I tell myself that we must each keep believing that we can make a difference and keep fighting for positive change, and that wider events may yet overtake the Mayor of London and Robert Jenrick's plans for London and for the rest of England.

After all, Easter is about hope – "a message that endures through times of pestilence".

Thank you again for all your support.

Caroline