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
Planning committee B met last Thursday night to consider the application to vary the planning permission awarded in September 2008 for the new Northbrook School building on Taunton Road. As you’ll remember, the applicants wanted to add louvres around the windows and also change the agreed colour of the render. This also brought to light the fact that a design had been agreed for the feature stained glass window behind closed doors.
The committee APPROVED the revised render and louvres – the render having being toned down from the initial variation proposals.
Given the huge controversy the Northbrook application has caused locally, I was amazed to read that the Conservative Party propose to take school planning applications even further from public scrutiny and have them decided by the Bristol-based planning inspectorate. We need more public scrutiny and democratic accountability for this huge school-building programme, not less!
