Thank you for the email with the note from the Inspector [concerning the livestream of the Inquiry hearings]. I see that you have copied others into your email, so I have included them in this response. I have added the Leader of the Council, as I am aware that he has been in email correspondence with a local resident who has drawn his attention to my blog EastSheenMatters.

I am not disposed to pursue this matter further.

The position is obvious. The final decision on livestreaming rests with the Council. They have decided that the cost is too high. They alone know why this should differ from other occasions which they do choose to livestream. They alone know the true financial cost, estimates for which I have seen to vary between £5,000 and £25,000.

I would only add this. It does seem to me to be a missed opportunity to involve the local community, especially for example those working from home or less able to travel or who cannot afford to spend a day or days at hearings. We all know the importance of developing the Brewery site. Given the level of local opposition to some aspects of the development, it would have been an opportunity to lay the case before the public. Once the decision was taken that the hearings could not be arranged closer to the development site, getting to York House during the rush hour was never going to be easy. So regrettably one is left to deduce that the Council would prefer not to expose its position to greater public gaze.
 

While writing I must mention one other point. I raised with the Council earlier in the year, the matter of the false letters of support for the development filed by or on behalf of the developers at the time of the Planning Committee meeting in July 2023 and posted to the Council planning website for more than six months thereafter. That has caused considerable disquiet locally. I have sought but never received a satisfactory explanation. As I have written in the statement I have filed for the hearing, were an explanation to be forthcoming, I would not seek to take up the Inspector’s time on the matter.