Richard White is a retired solicitor and former Tribunal Judge

I have been living in the area of East Sheen for over forty years. In the last few years since retirement I have become more interested in what is happening in the local community. Having worked in and with local authorities in a variety of ways it is perhaps a natural development.

Working on the aftermath of the closure of the Bank of England Sports Centre, much used by Richmond residents in the east end of the borough, was an eye-opener on the lack of consideration for the community.

Being a member of the Barnes Home Guard Club (based in Sheen) for thirty years and watching its modernisation in the last couple of years, provided links in the local community.

Joining the committee of the Mortlake with East Sheen Society (MESS) provided another perspective. The increase in its membership over the last year is illustrative of a need and the monthly newsletter from an independent Civic Society is important.

Attendance at the East Sheen Police Liaison Group and taking minutes of their meetings has shown how little interest there appears to be on matters of importance to local community welfare. Unless of course you are a victim. Efforts are ongoing to try to improve methods of communication.

All these activities have demonstrated the difficulty of developing reliable sources of news and the exchange of well-informed opinion.

One of the most useful publications is Sarah Olney’s Weekly Newsletter, but, while informative, it is inevitably politically biased. The refusal to address the Stag Brewery planning applications in spite of the huge local opposition demonstrates this all too clearly. The Richmond Council Community News available by email is a useful factual source of information but it too naturally comes from a source where you would not expect to find anything remotely critical of services.

By comparison the Barnes Bugle appears, on recent examination, to be a useful independent medium for Barnes residents. One might have hoped that Next Door East Sheen would have provided a useful and reliable source of information and thinking. Sometimes it does but all too often it has descended into a bearpit of vituperation.

The Richmond and Twickenham Times ought to be for the whole borough but its primary local focus is on the other side of the river, and its knowledge of East Sheen and Mortlake can perhaps best be summed up by its report of the major incident at the junction of the Upper Richmond Road and Sheen Lane on 24 April as having happened in Putney. [Nowhere reported the closure of the junction between Waitrose and Milton Road which continued from 930am to 6pm to facilitate the necessary forensic investigations. News of the resulting traffic chaos appears to have been left to local Whats App groups.]

The Stag Brewery

The context for this analysis of what might benefit East Sheen and Mortlake is that Richmond Council is becoming worryingly autocratic and authoritarian. Their conduct of the Stag Brewery planning applications is of course the prime example. Ignoring the local expertise aimed at improving the proposals for the benefit of the local community in East Sheen and Mortlake is unforgivable and will cause dissension for years to come. That is especially so if the developers succeed in their appeals at the Planning Inquiry which is now to start on 29 May 2024.

Somewhat belatedly at the Planning Committee meeting on 31 January 2024 the Chair apologised for the failures in consultation. Hollow you might think, when in the next breath the Committee approves the applications on the basis that it has all taken too long and must now be pushed through.

The 1200 pupil secondary school to be imposed on the site will be a white elephant dominating the area. It will cause all kinds of problems for access to the area for pupils and staff, use of Mortlake Station at rush hours, residents and business people getting in and out east and west, medical facilities. These are all questions which the Council has refused to address.

Why you might wonder have such a large school on that site in the face of opposition from other local secondary schools who openly state that they could provide more spaces. Not that the need is likely given the falling primary school rolls. Could the answer to this conundrum be anything to do with the fact that the Council would acquire a nice status symbol in the shape of a shiny new school, paid for by the Department for Education, on the banks of the River Thames.

Where does one find out accurately what is going on with the Stag Brewery development other than the Mortlake Brewery Community Group website? That was originally set up only for ensuring adequate discussion of plans but has now also had to become a fundraising site, to enable the local community to be represented at the Planning Inquiry. Our interests are certainly not being represented by Richmond Council, which has a single-minded and determined approach to the scheme. It is galling to realise that one’s council tax is being used to pay for representation of a scheme which lacks viability, while having to pay again to ensure that arguments are fairly put before the Planning Inspector.

Just as awful we have discovered recently that the developers, so well supported by the Council, uploaded to the Council Planning website, detailed letters of support for the planning applications about which some of the alleged authors knew nothing. What was the motivation for that? Was it perhaps that they could see the growing opposition and wanted to paint an alternative picture of support for their plans, which they assumed no-one would cross-check? The numbers involved and the wrongful assertions that consents were given suggest it was no accident.

Electric Car Charging Points

In the same vein we now find that electric car charging points have been constructed by private contractors acting on behalf of TFL outside shops from 199-207 Upper Richmond Road, severely reducing the available parking for short stays to use those shops. Planning permission is required but seems to have been regarded as a formality. The Council website states that notices were sent to 40 properties in the area on 11 December 2023. Only two people can be found who received them. It is possible that they all got lost in the Christmas post. But it seems improbable.

And now the responsible Council officer says that the notices were only sent as a courtesy in any event. If that is so why does the Council website refer to the notices as if they were part of a consultation process? And the local councillor responds ‘well it is a done deal’. Does it all sound familiar?

Enough for now but it seems to me we do need an independent, apolitical East Sheen and Mortlake outlet, which ensures that information circulates freely among residents and retailers.