Friday 6 September 2013

Mahoosive South Grove planning application is in(visible)


The planning application for the South Grove Morrisons development is in according to the Waltham Forest Guardian. Not that you can see it on the council website - there's just a page with some very basic info.

The WF Guardian article says "Morrisons claim it has listened to the public during two consultations and changed the plans accordingly". But it still looks much the same to us: a huge development (shops + big supermarket + car park + 248 flats on top!). And it still looks to be insular, hoping to attract visitors and sell them stuff but in no way attempting to the rest of Walthamstow High Street's shops and cafes.

If you'd like to see the mahoosive development plans in all their ugliness glory then one of our contacts got this appropriately huge PDF file from the developers. Be warned: it's a 45MB download! Alternatively you can always trot along to the town hall and ask to see the plans.

You can make comments online - even though you can't see the application there yet - or better still email them to case officer Sonia Malcolm. Officially the deadline to comment on the plans looks to be 24th September, which doesn't give us long. In practice, submissions sent later will doubtless be accepted as this is a large and important application.

As for rallying the opposition, follow @SouthGrove_E17 on Twitter. Calling themselves Better South Grove, they're dot on: the South Grove site is ripe for development but these plans just aren't on the right scale for central Walthamstow and they're nowhere near good enough quality. As ever, our council needs to resist them and push the developers to return with something much better. And hey, why not go whole hog and engage the community to draw up better plans together rather than just holding "public exhibitions" and then changing nothing?

So... please object! (see above for how to do so) As ever, object on relevant planning grounds where possible. But do object - even a sentence or two registering your opinion counts for a lot.


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