We met with our local councillors

This Saturday (10 February) we met with our three local councillors who came to the community centre to hear concerns about the proposed development.

It was a good and sometimes passionate discussion as we went through the large number of problems we see with the plans as they are, and pushed back against some of the claims made by the councillors. 

We asked them repeatedly if they would represent our views and go back to the council to recommend that the plans be put on hold. They would not agree to that. They said instead that they would let the key person at Wandsworth Council – the cabinet member for housing, Aydin Dikerdem – know how strongly we felt about the plans.

Roughly 25 residents from across Toland Square came to the meeting and all of them were opposed to the plans. Zara Tomkinson ran the meeting and we were joined by a resident of the Ashburton Estate, Paul Doorly, who has similar complaints over buildings planned for his estate. 

As well as the three Labour councillors Graeme Henderson, Matthew Tiller and Jenny Yates, we were joined by the Liberal Democrat candidate for Putney and Roehampton, Kieren McCarthy.

Plans for Toland Square have been submitted to the council’s planning committee which is expected to meet in April or May. We have yet to see a copy of them. Councillor Yates offered to address the Planning Committee on our behalf but it is not clear what she would say or if she would allow us to give her something to say on our behalf.

Councillor Henderson suggested there might be a compromise where the main building on the square is not built but a second one on the site of the garages goes ahead. 

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MEETING SUMMARY

There were a lot of points made against the plans – which would see the community centre torn down and replaced with a much bigger building that takes up most of the square in Toland Square. A new community centre would be built on the green space between the two buildings behind the centre – taking up most of the open green space there too.

The main points we made were:

• The plans would take up nearly all of our green space
• The green space is our back garden and would be lost
• Parking is already a problem and would get worse
• Everybody would lose some of their privacy and light
• Having more people packed into the square would damage the community 
• Kids won’t be able to play games together outside
• We don’t have any crime and part of that is due to the design of the square
• The square will get much noisier
• The equilibrium of the estate, which was well-thought-through by the original architects, will be lost

The councillors explained why they felt it was urgent that Wandsworth Council build a large number of new homes. They are all from the Labour Party and they put the blame on the previous Conservative-run council for selling off council homes without building new ones.

They did admit that the plan for Toland Square was the same one put forward by the Conservatives years earlier but claimed that because all the homes would be council-owned (instead of 60 per cent under the earlier plans) that it was a good plan. 

They argued that the high level of homelessness and people on council waiting lists meant they had to make hard decisions on where to build new homes. Three of our residents, who have been homeless in the past, did not accept that as a good argument and told the councillors it felt like an excuse.

Councillor Henderson said that the council did not have enough money to buy property or land to build houses on and so had to build on the land the council already owns. In response, several residents asked why the council was not focussing on other “brown field” sites first, or why it wasn’t sorting out the Alton Estate which has been waiting for 15 years for a redevelopment plan.

Councillor Yates said several times that she had been to previous consultations at Toland Square and felt she had listened to concerns by having the size of the main building reduced from 31 to 21 flats. She said she hoped the extra space would enable people to still have picnics on the grass.

That argument was met with strong disagreement and several residents said that it didn’t feel like the council was listening to us.

The councillors were then asked if they would support us and ask the council to retract the plans and come back with a better proposal. When they only promised to report back on what they had heard – instead of saying that they think the plans needed to be stopped – several of us pointed out that they were supposed to represent our interests. 

They were asked several more times to go back to the council and ask for the plans to be put on hold. They would not agree to do so. 

Councillor Henderson suggested there might be a possible compromise where the main building on the square is not built but the one proposed on the garages is allowed to go ahead but that he couldn’t promise anything. We said we would need to discuss that between ourselves before agreeing to anything. 

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