Here's the latest update from the Pinkham Way Alliance:
Good news. The Inspector’s final report on the Council’s Local Plan is out. There’s much for us to celebrate.
Thank you again for your support at the hearing last August, and in the consultation over the New Year.
PINKHAM WAY REMOVED FROM SITE ALLOCATIONS
All trace of Pinkham Way will be removed from Haringey’s ‘Site Allocations' document - the Council admitted at the hearings that it was not needed for its employment strategy.
The result is that potential developers of the site will no longer be able to argue that a development’s benefit, ie its contribution to the council’s employment needs, outweighs the harm to nature conservation.
This is a very big win indeed for residents.
‘EMPLOYMENT’ DESIGNATION REMAINS ...
We’ve long argued that this green site is environmentally valuable and should be protected as such, and that its current planning designation for ‘employment’ is wrong.
Reading the Report, it’s clear that the Inspector agrees with us. However she didn’t have the power to recommend removal of the employment designation. This is because the matters before her were ‘modifications’ to policies rather than the policies themselves.
Very significantly though, she makes extensive comment about Pinkham Way, citing its long period as vacant land, its conservation value, and the length of the PWA campaign to remove the employment designation. She restates that a Planning Authority should not retain an employment designation where there is no reasonable prospect of development.
She ends by pointing out that any planning application there will have to conform to national and local policies, which are all dead against development on a site such as this. She also makes pertinent comments about open space and brownfield land.
…BUT FOR HOW LONG?
It’s our firm opinion that, had the Inspector had discretion to recommend the designation’s removal, she would have done so. There now seems little chance it’ll survive the next review of Haringey’s Local plan.
WHAT NEXT?
With the weight of this report behind us, we can concentrate on pushing for the removal of the site from the next version of the North London Waste Plan (NLWP), due towards the end of the year. As ever, please watch this space…
Replies
New update from Pinkham Way Alliance:
'As we recently reported, the Inspector told Haringey Council that retaining a planning designation for a site where it’s not necessary or justifiable is against planning policy.
Sadly, the council has taken no notice of this, and voted through its Local Plan with Pinkham Way still designated for Employment.
In fact, the guidance it sent round to councillors before the vote made no mention of the Inspector’s comments on Pinkham Way, and misrepresented her reasoning.
To counter this, we wrote to all councillors individually, to point out what the Inspector had said and how Haringey planners had distorted it.
We also made it clear that multiple biodiversity studies at the site since 2012 have much strengthened its conservation value.
You can read our letter sent to councillors in July.
It was written knowing the Council was unlikely to take notice, and indeed it didn’t. In the proverbial nutshell, as the site still has its 'employment' designation, it therefore remains under threat of development.'
Excellent news.
Keep vigilant