Plans still not been made available to Toland Square residents two weeks after launch date
PRESS RELEASE
Toland Square, Roehampton 20 February 2024
Controversial development plans for Toland Square have still not been made available to residents two weeks into an eight-week comment period, raising more questions over how Wandsworth Council’s 1,000 Homes for Wandsworth programme is being run.
The council filed its application to build on Toland Square to the Planning Committee on 5 February 2024 with a processing period of eight weeks. Two weeks later, however, those plans have still not appeared on the council’s website, and neither have they been provided to residents, making it impossible for them to review or comment on them.
“It feels like they are purposefully running down the clock on this to push their plans through,” said spokesperson for the Save Toland Square group, Zara Tomkinson. “The day after the plans were filed we asked for a copy and we still haven’t received them.”
The delay in providing the plans isn’t the only problem with the application. Only a handful of Toland Residents have been officially informed of the consultation, despite the council’s own requirement to let everyone affected know what is happening. And the website link that those who have been informed have received doesn’t lead to the actual application.
This entire process is a farce.
STS spokesperson
Not only that but the proposed eight-week processing period is supposed to be used for minor planning applications whereas the plans for Toland Square – which includes a new three-story building taking up most of the available green space, and a replacement play structure and recreation centre relocated to between two existing blocks – are a major application and so should require a minimum of 13 weeks processing.
“We have asked about the 13-week requirement but like so many of our other questions, the council has simply ignored us,” Tomkinson notes. “This entire process is a farce.”
What makes the failure to provide proper details that much worse is that earlier this month Roehampton’s three councillors – Councillors Graeme Henderson, Matthew Tiller and Jenny Yates – attended an emergency meeting at Toland Square on 10 February in which residents outlined their concerns in some detail and the councillors promised they would take back their concerns to the person in charge – fellow Labour cabinet member for housing, Aydin Dikerdem.
Toland Square residents have heard nothing since.
“It’s been the same story this entire process,” says Save Toland Square’s Tomkinson. “Our views are ignored, the plans are pushed forward, we complain, they promise to listen next time, the plans are pushed forward again, and we’re ignored again.”
To make matters worse, Wandsworth Council keep stressing that their consultation process is ‘gold standard’. Yet many residents were not able to respond to the consultations for a variety of reasons, including language barriers, no internet access or understanding how to use it, or because they are in the care of the community and require support for various daily activities.
One residents said: “I had to help two of my neighbours with the online consultation because English is their second language; they could not understand the consultation form and needed support formulating their responses'”.
Another said: “My neighbour was unaware of the proposed development until I told him. He did not know how to make his voice and opinion heard so I explained the proposals and helped him pass on his feedback”.
This is extremely concerning, as how many other residents have not been able to respond and have their voices heard?
Residents of Toland Square have been strongly opposed to the plans since they were first proposed under the Conservative-run council and have continued to oppose them under the new Labour-run administration.
The proposal would see most of Toland’s Square actual square disappear, while the space between two buildings would be taken up with a community centre, and the garages in the corner of the estate replaced with a third building.
There are approximately 125 homes in Toland Square; a petition opposing the plans has already received over 900 signatures.