A synopsis

Overall balance and conclusion

a. A number of [the alleged] benefits are premised on accepting the evidence
of the Appellant’s witnesses on matters such as townscape and heritage, or the Council’s case
on the provision of the school. If you do not, those fall away.

b. Second … a number of [the alleged benefits] are intrinsic to any
redevelopment of the site, and tell you nothing about the acceptability of this scheme.

c. Third, we say, a number of the benefits could also be delivered by a different, policy
compliant scheme. The weight can therefore be moderated.

d. Fourth, the weight to be given to affordable housing should be reduced, as there
remains a significant shortfall below the policy expectation.

70. The Appellant has, somewhat belatedly …. suggested there is some real urgency
    about this appeal which means that this permission should be granted. Notwithstanding Mr
    Henderson suggesting that there has always been an urgency, the phrase “urgent” does not
    appear in the Town Planning Statement, in the Appellant’s Statement of Case, in his
    Proof or Rebuttal, and the only reference to it in his Supplementary Proof is quoting speeches
    from others. Similarly, it does not feature in any of Ms Thatcher’s proofs or the OR. We are
    not entirely clear what the source of this urgency is, other than (i) a generalised housing need
    and (ii) the fact the site has not yet been granted permission. Neither goes anywhere.
    Fundamentally as Mr Henderson accepted, if this permission is refused realistically a
    re-worked design will come forward for this site, which has a lot of policy support. The fact that this site has not been developed yet is spurious in the extreme: it cannot possibly be a material consideration in the grant of planning permission that the Appellant has spent time trying, and failing, to obtain planning permission for other, unacceptable schemes. MBCG urges you therefore to put aside the hyperbole and focus on whether this scheme should be granted permission.

71. Fundamentally, it should not. This scheme is not the right one to stand on the bank of the
    Thames for decades, if not centuries, to come. The Design does not work in this area, it is too
    harmful to too many heritage assets, it imposes the creation of a school for which there is no
    need, and – to the extent one can draw any conclusions from the Appellant’s transport work – looks likely to result in an unacceptable impact on highway safety. There are some benefits,
    but when properly moderated those carry far less weight than that attributed by Mr
    Henderson. The cons outweigh the pros, and by a substantial margin. Refuse this scheme,
    and let a better, more realistic scheme come forward in its place.
    

For the full submission see https://gat04-live-1517c8a4486c41609369c68f30c8-aa81074.divio-media.org/filer_public/ad/ee/adeefed8-8f71-4664-b705-bb967fc3c117/mbcg_closing_final2.pdf

Nick Grant Counsel for the Mortlake Brewery Community Group