Neighbourhood Planning Action Group

The Neighbourhood Planning meeting was a SEE3 meeting, following up the SEE3 Horniman meeting a fortnight previously.

The subjects ranged from Kirkdale to Forest Hill Town Centre to Honor Oak Park to traffic and air quality.

The following email about the future plans for Kirkdale from the Head of Planning to Cllr Chris Best was quoted during the meeting.

It was requested to ascertain whether Lewisham planners would be prepared to discuss the future of Kirkdale (which has a number of potential development sites) with members of the local community, under the auspices of SEE3. Up till now ad hoc planning decisions have left the street scape on one side of Kirkdale in a pretty abysmal state, despite the fact that it is surrounded by Conservation Areas and has an EH Grade 2 building at its heart. Some planning decisions have been ignored, permission has not been sought for work which has been done, and lack of resources means lack of enforcement from Lewisham.”

The Sydenham Society would like to see a masterplan (or a planning brief at the very least)for the Kirkdale area in view of development opportunities in the area, and judging by last night’s meeting so would others.”

The email from the Head of Planning to Chris Best is quoted below in full:

“We are certainly happy to have discussions on planning decisions and the actions of individual owners in respect of Kirkdale. We can also discuss the way forward on the Willow Way area. To do that discussion justice, we need to pull together some initial joint officer input on the planning and property fronts and, given that a number of people are away at present, I don’t think this could realistically be achieved during the course of the next week.

Can I therefore suggest that, at this stage, we confirm that we will have those internal discussions when the relevant officers are available and have had the chance to prepare a background note on the current position.”