Can anyone explain what this job is for?

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Permalink Reply by Nick Rider on November 9, 2015 at 12:07

To present the basic point I was trying to make in the later bit of this thread one more time, briefly. In a democratic system there is supposed to be some level of transparency, authorities and politicians are supposed to publish their policies so that people know what they are, and then attempt to carry them out. Obviously there are all sorts of if and buts about this in practice, that's politics, but this at least is the theory. And if a political authority says one thing and then does something completely different, it is entirely legitimate to criticise it. The more so if it has concealed and misrepresented the fact that this is what is doing. This is not a matter of 'standards I set for them', this is how the system is supposed to work, in theory.

And in the area I raised as this thread has gone on, large-scale developments in Haringey – which have big effects on the places around them – there are extensive and ambitious guidelines, especially the Haringey plan. which constitute published policy on the subject. And in this specific instance of the Hornsey Depot the council planning department and its supervisors made no attempt to enforce these guidelines but did something completely different, as has been acknowledged in various documents. But, it only acknowledged this at the very last minute, when it was a fait accompli, having presented the Depot application in a completely different (and so misleading) way in the 1-2 years leading up to the final meetings and in various 'public consultations'. 

Therefore it is entirely legitimate to criticise them for this, ask them to justify it honestly, and get some clarity on such subjects as what the actual planning guidelines are, if the Haringey Plan is to be ignored....

But, I forgot, I am just a deluded fantasist, this didn't happen, C.Setz says so. All the other people who I thought were as angry as me after those meetings must have been a figment of my imagination, or... oh, of course, they were from the class of baying residents that the council is so right to ignore. I'm obviously completely out of touch with reality, which is something defined by C.Setz. I apparently think I am the 'voice of the people', something I never remotely said, I just passed on things that had come up between me and some actual people (not 'the people'). And this is pretty damn rich anyway coming from someone who clearly thinks they have sole right to the voice of the people role themselves.

You know what, Mr Setz, I'm not interested in being patronised by you anymore, and I haven't got the time. So enjoy your unbreakable sense of your own rightness. That's it from me. Have a happily smug Christmas.

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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on November 9, 2015 at 13:32

Nick, to put this discussion into a bit of context, and not to detract from issues around the Hornsey Depot site, planning is a hierarchy. Top of the tree is the National Planning Policy Framework which is published by the Department for Communities and Local Government.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-planning-policy...
Next come regional spatial plans and the one for London is the Mayor's London Plan.
http://www.london.gov.uk/priorities/planning
Finally, at the bottom the pecking order come Local Development Frameworks developed by individual planning authorities like councils, National Park Authorthorities and so on.
The plans have to "read up" so the must not contradict the plan "above" them. And that's part of the problem. Because a local plan as to agree, ultimately, with the national plan, room for manoeuvre can be limited. But that can also be seen as an advantage by some as planning in neighbouring boroughs also cannot vary massively.

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Permalink Reply by Nick Rider on November 10, 2015 at 11:17

Michael – I wasn't going to say any more on this but – I'm aware of the planning hierarchy as you call it. In this particular field the standards theoretically applied by Haringey are actually supposed to be higher in terms of housing density, housing mix etc than those in the London Plan from the Mayor's Office and the GLA (as is announced in rather grand terms in the Haringey Plan). 

However in this case the Depot proposals were so at variance not just with Haringey's standards but with the London Plan that there was a strong possibility it would be rejected by the Mayor's office. Yes, that's it, Boris Johnson's office was more interested in social and community standards in a development than Labour Haringey... But, this didn't happen, it wasn't clear why. So in this case the project 'read down' in the sense that from the outset it applied lower standards than those at the higher level, which is not what I think you mean.

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