Claustrophobia!

Ever felt like sardines in a can? Some of you are as we are inundated with calls from Chadwell Residents concerned about the overdevelopment of local land. More often than not, any land that prospectors seek permission to purchase in our ward, is sold to the highest bidder resulting in high density residential accommodation, without the appropriate infrastructure to support the new communities.

On the 14th of October East Thames presented a design for a Housing Estate project with 389 potential rooms (126 units) that includes a 7 Storey Commercial/Community building and a range of residential building up to 6 storeys. The project is proposed for the Grove Farm Area (opposite Chadwell Heath Primary School). The design included a 75% parking allocation which they deemed acceptable with a potential entrance point opposite the school car park entrance

Click here to see the brochure.

Your Green Party Activist for Chadwell… Wilson Chowdhry, queried the overall scale of the project, the height of the buildings (in a planning brief at a February 2008 Area 5 Committee Meeting Wilson coerced Councillors to support and ratify a motion for a maximum height of 3storeys?!), the potential congestion caused by traffic entering and leaving the School and Car Park at the same point on a busy road? Wilson has also asked for guarantees that Safety measures and good environmental practices are adopted for proposed roof gardens as crime such as hurling of missiles and voyeurisms have been noted on similar projects.

East Thames agreed to review their plans and on the 30th January 2009 presented a design at the Keith Axon that now indicates that the roof gardens are to remain, that a ghost right turn lane into the car park will be placed on the High Road - to enable better filtering of traffic and that the Commercial building will be reduced to 6 Storeys with residential buildings at 5 Storeys (still above the agreed 3 storey level?!). Parking allocation has been increased to 80% when compared to the 116 units now proposed, rather than the 336 rooms.

The Green Party believes that;

“Planning decisions should always be made at the most local practical level. The deemed regional, national or global importance of proposed developments should be weighed alongside the needs and expressed opinions of the local communities in the areas in which they are sited”

We do not oppose increased affordable housing, however we believe that the community is being ignored in this design. We are still dissatisfied with the overall design and scale of this project and encourage you to contact East Thames Homes directly on the email below:

lauren.gee@east-polential.org.uk


Redbridge Planning Department can also be contacted on:

Please copy Wilson Chowdhry our Green Party Activist into any communication: see contact details in the side bar.

Wilson will be attending the Planning meeting at which this design is to be discussed - Which will be held at 19:00 on the 18th March 2009 at Redbridge Town hall.