One of the key issues in the Inquiry is the ‘viability’ of the scheme. You and I might think this means the whole concept of the Mortlake development. But in fact the developer’s witness on this topic is Anthony Lee, BNP Paribas Real Estate’s Lead Director for Financial Viability and Affordable Housing, who bases his assessment on financial matters.

The criteria and his calculations are too obscure for this brain, but remarkably they produce an outcome which concludes that the affordable housing to be included in the residential development could be at zero and that the 7% offered ‘exceeds the maximum reasonable provision and this provision is therefore a benefit of the Appeal Scheme’.

In bald figures that means that of the proposed 1075 units, 65 would be affordable, 52 social rent and thirteen shared ownership. To be eligible for shared ownership in Richmond you need an income of £90,000 per annum. So you can exclude those.

Many of you will be familiar with other developments along the riverside into London. How many of the units in those are actually occupied? How many of those have been bought for investment by non-UK residents?

The Council data website ( Datarich – London Borough of Richmond upon Thames ) notes that the priorities for local people are the quality of education – existing schools to be diminished; affordable housing ‘ – 52 units; and transport – to be clogged by incomers. It seems that the aspirations for Twickenham and Teddington do not apply to the east end of the borough.

If this scheme goes through on this basis Richmond has no chance of achieving its objectives on affordable housing, a matter known to be causing concern to some councillors. Mortlake could be as much of a ghost town, fit only for filming scary movies, as it is now. The nationwide policy on broadening the availability of lower cost housing would need a rethink.

Meanwhile questions have been raised about whether Mr. Lee has a conflict of interest having assessed the viability of the Local Plan policies on behalf of the Council and the viability of the Appeal Scheme on behalf of the developers. Financial in both cases. He completely rejects that assertion.

I do so hate it when Goliath thinks he can play fast and loose with the rest of us and sends in his highly paid ‘experts’ to invade local territory. It just reminds me of the falsified ‘letters of support’. But it also takes me back to a planning inquiry in 1973 when as a two year qualified solicitor facing the leading planning counsel of his day, whose brief fee was ten times his annual salary, David won the day against the Bedford Settled Estates, with an innocent question to Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, the celebrated architectural historian, about the value of Montague Street by the British Museum.