From 2006 to 2010, I was a councillor for Lee Green ward in the London Borough of Lewisham. During that time, I blogged regularly and in 2009 I won the Tim Garden Award for the Best Blog by a Liberal Democrat Holding Public Office. My blog posts from my term of office are archived here in case they prove of use to former constituents, or to those who share my annoyance with faulty street furniture
The old warehouse at 87 Old Road (behind the Council depot) has been an on-going issue for some time. I first became involved back in January 2007 when local residents approached me, concerned that windows had been installed in the building in breech of planning regulations. Eventually we got the Council to issue an enforcement notice. Then in November last year, we managed to get an application to turn the building into flats turned down. After that, the owners appealed against the enforcement notice regarding the windows.
The appeal against the enforcement notice was turned down in July. However, Council officers tell me they’re obliged to give the owners another 6 months grace to remove the windows before they can take further action.
So I’d stuck February 09 in my diary as the date to start chasing this and assumed it’d be quiet until then. So I was astonished to read this article on the NewsShopper website. It turns out an estimated £2million worth of cannabis was discovered at 87 Old Road in a police raid on Thursday.
If anyone has any information, they should call the Lee Green Safer Neighbourhood Team on 020 8721 2482 or talk to Crimestoppers
