Wornington Green planning decision goes down to the wire

1.10.00pm GMT Wed 3rd Mar 2010

Kensington Town Hall

On 2nd March, Kensington & Chelsea's Major Planning Development Committee passed - but only just - a controversial development plan to demolish the Wornington Green estate in North Kensington in order to replace it with a an estate with almost double the number of residents.

Liberal Democrat Prospective Parliamentary candidate Robin Meltzer said: "This is to be funded by adding top market accommodation to the site, changing the demographics over night without providing any extra open space, play space or community facilities. In addition, the basement flat bedrooms with poor access to sunlight are going to be disproportionately allocated to social rented housing and the total number of bedrooms of social rented housing is actually going to fall. To top it all off, the design for the blocks is at best boring and at worst deeply unattractive. In short, I believe this was an application which should have been rejected."

The Committee were split exactly half and half, but because the number of members was ten, this meant there was no majority on either side. The Chairman then cast the deciding vote in favour. Robin said: "Leaving aside for a moment the merits of (or lack of) this particular development, this is about governance. When members of the majority party assert their independence, it is a good thing for democracy. The 'casting vote' along the lines of the Cabinet line sticks in the craw because there was genuine cross-party doubt and anger about the application."

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Read Robin's blog post on the controversy.