Public Hearing re 123 Grove Park conservation area

[Bloggsy08]

The Public Hearing for the appeal of previously denied planning permission for development at 123 Grove Park continues this afternoon at the Learning and Business Centre, Cator Street at Commercial Way, in Peckham, Room 26, with ecology on the agenda after the lunch break. The hearing is being "chaired" by Government Inspector Lloyd Rodgers, who has a mixed history in similar cases. He is due to go to the site after the hearing for a personal look at the physical environment. We expect he'll be there sometime after 4pm. To his chagrin, developers hadn't give all documentation to the Council and so local residents hadn't had a look at some revisions. No idea how this will impact the appeal. We also learned that the bat population will be affected and that besides 83 trees slated for felling within the development, 40 more would be expected to be removed due to hazards of construction. You can look at numerous case files at:

http://planningonline.southwark.gov.uk/AcolNetCGI.exe?ACTION=UNWRAP&RIPNAME=Root.PgeResultDetail&TheSystemkey=9538576

[the-e-dealer]

Is he not a very good "chair" ?

[Bloggsy08]

about the term Chair - at times it was such a bizarre meeting we wondered if there was a chair! re decisionmaking, this remains to be seen. Rodgers finally showed up at 123 Grove Park around 5 with a battalion of folk surrounding - including Southwark's questionable (moderately cast aspersion) tree officer and oddly enough, a member of the Camberwell Society who'd featured in the recently-aired BBC production The Secret History of Our Streets, Camberwell Grove. Who'd been relatively quiet at the hearing. Plus the architect minions. Inspector Lloyd Rodgers is a mixed bag who has been at this kind of adjudication for a long time. He has agreed with greenbelt developers, making no bones about "pragmatic" development requirements, but he's also opposed them. What we're?talking about at 123 is an ex-probation office and before that, a soldier's hospital. The Ivanhoe Residents Assoc holds that being an ex hospital, the building in question is already quite large and there should be no need for tree felling to accomodate expansion, let alone collateral damage (83 + 40 trees). Yet given the fairly recent Grove Park Sui Generis convent raffle off and its convent development (with insufficient archaelogy re buried nuns around the lower chapel and scant consideration of the covent's order bequeath to Southwark for the poor and destitute), all bets are WAY off.

See recent web post:

http://www.thisisgloucestershire.co.uk/Appeal-build-homes-greenbelt-rejected-inspector/story-16421200-detail/story.html