Praise was given to the drafting of the Manifesto by Croydon's Andrew Fisher who works in Jeremy Corbyn and John Macdonald's team. Patsy Cumming, another Croydon Labour member, who had been working in the team during the Election, stressed that the Manifesto is a work in progress and that ideas for improvement should continue to be sent in. It was clear that there was a need to continue to campaign against the Conservative Government and its austerity cuts and other damaging policies, and to promote the Assembly's own Plan for Croydon.
I discussed the problem of the way in which Croydon Labour's administration is a growing problem. This is what I said at the Assembly.
Gavin Barwell and the Whitgift development
Labour’s snatching of Croydon Central from Gavin
Barwell, the Minister for Housing and London, was a triumph.
One of his many contributions to Croydon was the
behind the scenes negotiations that persuaded Hammerson and Westfield to become
partners for the redevelopment of the Whitgift Shopping Centre, that obscene
£1bn plus redevelopment scheme.
These developers are now proposing five tower
blocks at the West Croydon end of Wellesley Rd. The tragedy of Grenfell Tower
is a reminder of the dangers of tower block developments. It is not just in
Council and housing association since among the fires elsewhere was one of
those luxury ones in Dubai.
The Grenfell disaster
The Grenfell disaster has pushed the whole issue
of social and affordable housing centre stage. The fact that 67 luxury flats
have had to be purchased highlights the way in which new housing in London is
not meeting the real needs of Londoners. Such flats should be requisitioned.
Croydon Council’s reaction has been excellent
starting a number of actions to ensure safety for residents in its tower blocks
including the provision of sprinklers and wanting an investigation of the
office blocks what were turned into homes without planning permission under the
Tories relaxation of planning rules.
The importance of listening to residents
A key lesson from the Grenfell disaster is the
importance that politicians, local authorities, Government and officials must
listen to residents.
Unfortunately led by Planning Chair Paul Scott Croydon’s
Labour administration is obsessed with meeting the housing target required by
the Government and the London Plan regardless of whether it will meeting
housing need, whether it will provide the right mix of dwellings, whether will maximise affordable housing, and whether it will damage the other aspects of the Plan,
such as environment, green spaces, heritage, air pollution and flooding.
The Developer Driver
It has been putting too much faith in the
developers who have parasitically seen Croydon as a profitable milk-cow. It is
they that have been driving the redevelopment of the Town Centre with its
ripple effect on increasing house prices and private rents elsewhere in the
Borough.
Too much trust is being placed in developers elsewhere as well. Two
days ago the developer at Battersea Power Station announced it would halve the
amount of affordable housing there. Let us not forget that the developer and
building industries have been pressing for less planning and other regulations.
Brick by Brick
The Council has itself become a developer through
its Brick by Brick company. It is alienating residents on Council estates by putting
in planning permissions for new blocks on green spaces.
All across the Borough the Council has alienated
growing numbers of residents over its planning decisions. The irony is that it
plans to erode the Green Belt while at the same time the national Labour Party
manifesto promises to protect it.
Let us not forget that the Green Belt began
under Herbert Morrison when the he was Labour Leader of the London County
Council in the 1930s and then backed by Clem Attlee’s Government in Town and
Country Planning legislation. That same Government introduced National Parks. 50
years ago Harold Wilson’s introduced Conservation
Areas.
Planning and voting
In an article in Croydon Citizen in the lead up to the General Election I argued
that those angry with Croydon Council over planning should look at the wider
picture when deciding how to vote. They needed to remember that the Tories were
planning to loosen planning controls further and if necessary would overrule
approved Local Plans.
During the Election period the Croydon Local Plan
Public Hearings in front of an independent Planning Inspector took place. I
spoke at 18 of the 19 sessions on behalf of the Croydon TUC and Assembly
working group on local housing and economy and its Environment Forum, and the Norbury
Residents Associations Joint Planning Committee. I have submitted to the Inspector
a request that he rejects the Plan because it is unsound, poorly evidenced,
unsustainable and undeliverable.
I have also written to all Councillors urging them to meet together to see what changes they
can agree to offer the Inspector, rather than leave it to Officers. Whichever
Party wins the local elections in May will have to work to the planning
framework of the Local Plan.
Electoral blindness
Paul Scott, the Planning Chair has rejected this
idea. He argues that the General Election result shows that people support what
the Council is doing. What arrogance and blindness. The way people vote is
different in local elections to the way they vote at national elections. May’s
Council elections in will be won or lost for Labour in up to six wards
depending on the final ward boundary changes introduced by the Boundaries
Commission. There is no certainty that Labour will win.
The Executive Leader and Cabinet system
At the root of this arrogance and blindness is the
governance model: the executive Leader and Cabinet system. This leads to top
down decision making, tokenistic consultation ignoring people’s concerns, and the
exclusion of most Councillors from decision making. Croydon TUC has long argued
that this system needs to be abandoned and it is a demand in the Assembly
manifesto.
That debate needs to be taken into the Labour
Party to try and get a commitment to changing the system into its manifesto. It
also requires a change in the planning. The outcome is awaited of a series of
formal complaints against the Chair about his pressure on a Labour Councillor
not to vote against an application.
Campaigns are needed:
(1) against
new developer tower blocks, improvements in safety for existing social tenants,
and for tougher action against private landlords;
(2) to urge
the Labour Party to abandon the Executive Leader Cabinet model of governance.
