Opposition To Plan De-railed (From Borehamwood Times)

Opposition To Plan De-railed

12:00am Saturday 1st January 2000

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RESIDENTS are outraged after planning permission was granted for a controversial new development.

The development at the Cutty Sark Docklands Light Railway Station has been branded "profit-motivated vandalism" by a group of residents opposing it.

Permission was granted to developer Centros Miller Ltd by the Planning and Development committee, eight votes to six, at a special meeting last Wednesday.

Councillors who opposed the four storey retail and residential development will now register their disapproval at a meeting of Greenwich Council tonight.

Centros Miller Ltd is the preferred developer of site owner English Partnerships and will now develop the site despite planning permission also being granted to another developer MAB Ltd.

Speaking at the meeting, residents opposing the scheme said they feared the development will not be ready in time for the Millennium.

Spokesman for the DLR Monitoring Group Alan Brett said: "We are now at the end of July and we stand not a hope in hell of getting this scheme with this design finished by December 31 1999."

Councillor Carl Boothe expressed his unease at "big bully-boys riding shot-gun over people," after residents complained English Partnerships was not listening to them.

Concerns included the design of the building, the standard of the student residences included in the scheme and the amount of parking space available to visitors, students and residents.

Even statutory consultee English Heritage maintained its objection to the development on the grounds of its height and bulky design.

But Chairman Alistair Macrae pointed out Greenwich Council is merely the planning authority and could grant permission to any design it thought reasonable.

After the meeting the Monitoring Group branded the development "profit-motivated vandalism."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000.Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.

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