Kingston Council is "consulting" on its plans to over-develop the Borough
The consultation ends today
How do you want the over-developed Borough to look like?
Please send your views on what development should look like in Kingston and why the Kingfisher should NOT be demolished to the consultation today at localplan@kingston.gov.uk or via the council's online consultation portal where you can answer the very limited and closed questions being asked on the council's plans
I have noticed that in their summary of the Local Plan, the council does not state that development needs to be "sustainable", a core requirement of the National Planning Policy Framework 2021 for Local Plans
Why does Kingston Council want to trash the Borough? What price do we have to pay for their plans?
Tell the council that The Kingfisher Leisure Centre must not be demolished in order to facilitate mass development plans that will harm Kingston and areas beyond our Borough boundary
The council blames the Borough's vast base housing target of 964 units a year for 10 years on the Mayor of London and his London Plan. It is in order to build to these targets and MORE that the council wants to raze the Kingfisher Leisure Centre to the ground and clear the site for developers
But what the Council is conveniently overlooking is that it, Kingston Council, worked with the Mayor of London to create the basis for Kingston's London Plan growth targets using the so-called "Direction of Travel" non-statutory document, an "intention to grow" plan that the council rushed through over the summer of 2016 with no wide-spread publicity or consultation, ignoring the responses it did receive
What is truly appalling is that Direction of Travel document - having no apparent local statutory basis - was not accompanied by a Strategic Environmental Assessment or Equalities Impact Assessment of the effects that growth on the scale to which it agreed would have on communities, neighbourhoods, individuals and the historic and natural environment across and beyond Kingston
And no strategic environmental assessment or equalities impact assessment of planned growth accompany the consultation that ends today, making the consultation meaningless
In addition, Kingston has been designated as an ironically named "opportunity area"
The council has agreed with the Mayor of London that the Borough has capacity to deliver over 5,000 residential units and premises for 5000 jobs in these areas - meaning even bigger, denser, taller development across Kingston Town, Norbiton, New Malden and Tolworth
And that does not include a further 16,309 residential units that Kingston is expected to build as a result of CrossRail 2 (or other "infrastructure improvements"):
"In particular, those Boroughs with the greatest uplift LB Haringey, LB Enfield, RB Kingston and LB Merton would require between circa 770 and 1,600 additional units a year, with many of the additional units coming forward in new or expanded Opportunity Areas. Within this context, the uplift in additional housing increase would be broadly in line with current completion rates seen within other existing Opportunity Areas and is therefore considered achievable." SHLAA 2017 Point 8.23
The council has kept its EYES FIRMLY SHUT to the implications of its plans for us all
You can still oppose the opportunity area "targets" as these are only indicative in the London Plan, and you must do so TODAY
Nobody in authority locally who could have opposed the plans at that time or since bothered to do so
I have challenged the plans in letters and at council meetings for years and suffered threats, accusations and belittlement
I have asked questions to which the council has simply refused to respond
The silence of our council reveals how they know what it is that they have done