Save Catford

finally a reply arrived in my inbox today in relation to some questions i asked back in november/december 2007, i say a reply rather than an answer to my questions however…

the questions asked are numbered in the post below titled ‘unanswered questions’, and here are the responses

Q1: Why are the developers allowed to state that 57% of the homes offered for sale will be affordable. Only 36% of the homes offered truly meet the definition of affordable. The other 21% which are categorised as affordable do not even have to be offered to qualifying key worker purchasers in the first place, let alone any safeguards in place to ensure they will remain available to this category in the future

A1:Key worker homes are classed as affordable housing. This is confirmedin Annex B of PPS3 ‘Housing’:
http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/housing/pdf/152897

poor answer, key worker homes can be classed as affordable housing if they meet certain conditions (some of which are set out in the link quoted in the reply). These key worker homes however do not meet these conditions, and indeed the fact that they do not meet the necessary conditions is more or less stated in the development documentation itself

However in the event that these units are not taken up as initially intended, they will then be offered for private sale. However, whilst not conforming to strict Policy guidelines, these units do provide ‘affordable’ housing

so although these units don’t even need to be sold to key workers under the LWI in the first place (or indeed any provision put in place to ensure that they remain in the stock of available housing for key workers) and the development documentation itself acknowledges this, the official council response it to ignore both the policy detail and the comments of the developers and continue to justify the inclusion of these houses as affordable

Q2: So with the actual affordable percentage at 36% this is some way below the 50% proportion set out in the Mayor of London’s London Plan. As i understand it, it is possible for the affordable element to be less than 50% if the development will bring about other benefits to the existing community. I would appreciate a run down on what these benefits are expected to be, my following concerns appear would appear to denote that far from the development bringing benefits for the existing community it poses several significant downsides.

A2:The Council’s Affordable housing target is 35%, with a split of 35% Social rented and 10% Shared Ownership. This is lower than the Mayors strategic target of 50% (which includes Social rented and Shared Ownership in a 70/30 split) due to specific circumstances in Lewisham. In any case, although it will be the planning committee who will make the ultimate decision, but the GLA has the power to direct refusal on this planning application would they feel that there was insufficient affordable housing provided.

a complete avoidance of the question asked here, the point of the question was to find out what were the reasons as to why this development will provide a much lower level of affordable housing to that recommended in the london plan, the ‘answer’ to the question merely points to ’specific circumstances in Lewisham’, no mention of what these are or any attempt to answer the specifics of the question asked

Q3:What plans are in place to deal with the expected 17% increase in peak hour rail travel brought about by the development. The development transport document proposes that nothing needs to be done to cope with this substantial increase as they expect existing rail travel to reduce year on year up to 2014 which will offset the increased usage due to the development. Is the council comfortable with this rather cavalier assumption, and are they happy that this assumption is consistent with statements elsewhere in the transport document that road congestion will not be a problem due to the encouragement of the use of public, namely rail, transport?

A3: This again is something for Councillors to consider at the planning committee. However, traffic flows of the development should be compared with traffic flows from the previous use, i.e. the Dogtrack. This previously created peak travel in the evenings.

more avoidance. the key issue was peak rail travel (in the mornings) are set to increase by 17% (as per the transport assessment document) with no plans to provide further resources to mitigate this additional pressure. as far as i am aware when the greyhound track was operational it did not have any impact on peak morning rail traffic. nor was there any comment on the inconsistency of the transport assessment document itself which states in one section that nothing needs to be done about the increased rail usage due to observed declining usage over the last few years, yet however in another section it states that impact on road traffic will not be a problem because sustained effort will be put in to encourage more residents to use the rail system. however it seems to be the case that all this is just for the councillors to consider at their planning meeting and not for us residents to bother our pretty little heads about

Q4: the council happy with the assumptions made in relation to growth assumption in road traffic made in the transport assessment document? Only two different scenarios are looked at, i) a reduction in traffic over time, or ii) no further growth in traffic. Should a third scenario not have been looked at, that of rising road traffic? Additionally where is the expected reduction in rail usage going to come from if people are being encouraged to drive less and use the rail network more?

Q5: Are the council happy that because the existing Catford Road/Ravensbourne Road junction is already deemed to be unsatisfactory in terms of Ratio of Flow to Capacity (RFC), that the increased usage of this junction brought about by the development is being categorised as having no impact on traffic flow, i.e. because it’s not satisfactory at present, adding a substantial amount of additional traffic to it won’t have any effect, because it’s already unsatisfactory. This binary logic used by the development documentation seems incredibly naive

A4 & 5: This is mostly down to our Highways engineers. However, this is obviously one of the main issues, and there are currently detailed discussions with the developers’ transport consultants, our highways consultants and TfL. You will understand however that any development on the site will create some impact on local infrastructure

more avoidance, no comment on the highly optimistic ‘growth’ assumptions made about future road traffic, no comments about the binary logic used to justify making an already unsatisfactory road junction even worse, nothing, again it’s not for residents to concern themselves over, what do you think this is after all, some form of consultation? (i also like the quite patronising comment about development creating impact on infrastructure - yes i do understand this which is why i’m asking question as to what will be done to ensure the local infrastructure is provided with the necessary resources to cope with this impact)

Q6:Will existing residents of sub-standard social housing in the borough (i.e. Milford Towers etc..) be offered first refusal on properties in the development?

A6: Although this is not part of the application, I believe that this is the aim of the developer.

finally an actual answer to a question asked! this is good news if true, it’s odd though that it’s not been mentioned in any publications of either the developer or the council however, i wonder if the residents association in milford towers are aware of this…..

Q7:As i understand it, over 4,000 homes have been consulted in relation to this development. However only one person out of this vast amount of people will be allowed to speak at the planning committee meeting in relation to the development, and furthermore only for a period of 5 minutes. The chance for the local community to input into this process seems to be severely restricted, especially given the no doubt substantial amount of time that the development consortium will have had to put their side of the case to the council. In terms of practicalities can you outline how this one person will be chosen and how you can ensure that they will be able to articulate the no doubt multi-faceted objections that will exist within the community?

A7: This is the normal procedure for all planning applications. Consultation letters received (about 100 letters and a petition) will be relayed in the committee report, and individual letters are available for Members’ perusal (including your own). Planning committees are not public meetings, they are meetings of the planning committee where the public can attend

the joy of a direct answer to Q6 soon subsides however and normal service has been resumed with another complete ignoral of the question asked, a comfortably unassuring pattern