End Croydon’s Planning Blight |
For some time, Croydon’s Labour-run council has been granting planning permissions indiscriminately. Over 90% of all applications are getting approved by the Planning Committee. In particular, they are routinely allowing family housing to be destroyed and replaced with small blocks of flats. Neighbouring Boroughs Bromley and Sutton do not allow this. The council should not destroy any family homes until all the brownfield sites in the Borough have been used – which we are at least 10 years away from doing. It is time for the council to stop destroying family homes and pursue a Brownfield First policy.
One way to make planning decisions more accountable would be to have local “Area Planning Committees” where you divide Croydon up into three areas (say, north, central and south) and only councillors from that area decide smaller applications in that area. At the moment, councillors from distant parts of Croydon who do not understand our area decide applications here – often imposing very bad schemes. Many other councils including the London Boroughs of Kingston and Barnet, and Wiltshire and Durham amongst others do this already. Let’s have Area Planning Committees in Croydon now.
One way to make planning decisions more accountable would be to have local “Area Planning Committees” where you divide Croydon up into three areas (say, north, central and south) and only councillors from that area decide smaller applications in that area. At the moment, councillors from distant parts of Croydon who do not understand our area decide applications here – often imposing very bad schemes. Many other councils including the London Boroughs of Kingston and Barnet, and Wiltshire and Durham amongst others do this already. Let’s have Area Planning Committees in Croydon now.