A COALITION of community groups and Ealing Central and Acton MP Rupa Huq are dismayed at a decision to press ahead with another planning meeting, to approve the Perceval House redevelopment on Wednesday, March 31.
The meeting - set to take place controversially during pre-election time - was scheduled after an intervention by the Ealing Council’s monitoring officer.
The officer advised the committee chairman that interruptions to the live stream of a virtual meeting on March 10 meant the vote should not have taken place. This was already a second attempt to hold it.
The removal of dissenting councillors from the first vote has raised eyebrows. Historic England has also condemned the plans.
Ms Huq has previously questioned the “indecent haste” to approve the redevelopment, which would involve seven blocks comprising 477 mostly private units replacing the council’s current home of Perceval House in Uxbridge Road.
Ms Huq said: “Moving forward with yet another planning meeting, the third in almost as many weeks, during an election campaign is illogical.
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“It smacks of an attempt to ram through a controversial proposal with limited scrutiny.
“I pleaded that the vote must be pushed back until after the election season. The proposal is huge in scale and does not deliver the genuinely affordable housing that working families in Ealing are in desperate need of.”
Will French, chair of Save Ealing’s Centre, criticised the rush’ to hold the meeting, while the Stop the Towers group is anxious about creating what it sees as a socially-cleansed skyscraper ghetto.
An Ealing Civic Society spokesman said the groups were considering what further steps to take to ensure the decision is first reviewed by the Greater London Authority and then, hopefully, called in by the Secretary of State.
The council says it is possible to hold the meeting on March 31 as it is not a political issue. It says measures are being taken to avoid a repeat of the technical issues that blighted the second vote.
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