EastSheenMatters

Work is continuing on a new project at the allotment site at Hertford Avenue which is scheduled to be completed in the Spring.

The project is to create a community garden, including wheel-chair accessible raised beds, which will be a new facility for allotment holders, two partner charities and a local primary school. The funding is provided by a grant from the Richmond Community Fund with objectives of:

• A new wheel-chair accessible area of five raised allotment ‘beds’ for horticulture and ‘learning through cultivation’.
• A new platform or patio bordering Beverley Brook, with an adjacent pond and wildlife area, for teaching/training, showcasing biodiversity and well-being support.
• More intensive use of an existing lawned Green to promote health and well-being and community cohesion.

The access arrangements for those to benefit from this project will be available at a later date.

The All Saints Christmas carol service is this evening at 6.30pm, with mulled wine and mince pies following.

You will be familiar with this block near the crossroads of Sheen Lane and the Upper Richmond Road. It appears it has now been sold with completion expected early in the New Year. The vendor company has given notice to current occupiers; licences for parking spaces in the basement have been terminated.

Questions arise as to the future use of the property. The purchaser is a company called Little House Developments. It is understood that their plans do not include a change of use requiring a planning application and that they intend to refurbish the property with a view to running it as a ”family club”. Whatever that means! Watch this space.

And see https://www.littlehousesgroup.com/

Shrewsbury Avenue Street Party Shrewsbury Avenue, East Sheen will be closed from 12pm-6pm on Sunday 22 December.

In accordance with the procedure discussed by the Inspector and the main parties during the Inquiry, the following post-Inquiry documents and dates were agreed. The participation by the Rule 6 parties is optional, but all documents must be submitted in accordance with the timetable:

INQ-37 concerns the Richmond Housing Land Supply. Technical stuff and there appears to be more to come, so it is probably not ideal Christmas reading. BUT no doubt the Council will use it to add to its case for the planning applications. So it warrants careful reading in due course. No doubt MBCG will have something to say.

It is not thought that these documents will delay publication of the Inspector’s decision.

On 28 November 2024 AELTC representatives told representatives of the Bank of England Sports Centre Members Group that they would need to cross all bridges before they could start work on the Wimbledon Expansion. They were granted planning permission by the Mayor of London on 27 September 2024.

On 11 December 2024 the club revealed that it wanted to resolve lingering questions over the plan’s legality, which opponents of the project had been looking at as a potential avenue to block it. It is now intending to make an application to the High Court for a judicial declaration.

At the heart of the matter is the issue of whether the relevant land is held subject to a statutory recreation trust. Campaigners against the scheme have long argued that it is. The Mayor decided it was not.

AELTC appear to have themselves constructed a legal bridge. A previous case has been to the Supreme Court, which could take time. But the worry in the alternative would be that progress might have been held up by late legal intervention on the part of the Save Wimbledon Park Group.

Counsel’s Submissions run to 81 pages, although it is worth adding that there are a substantial number of pictures. There will be no attempt to provide a synopsis here. It contains no closing summary. To give you a taste:

“the interventions of GLA in this case have been rootless, partial, opportunistic and political. It seeks reductions in height (where previously it sought increases) but with no consideration as to whether such schemes would be remotely deliverable, and it seeks to increase affordable housing when its suggested reductions in volume however disposed would necessarily reduce any reasonable maximum provision of affordable housing. …. [It] studiously avoided any real reference to this history, wiping it from the page in the way that embarrassing former colleagues were removed from photographs by Soviet
propaganda agents.”

There are no doubt some important points to be put in the balance but given the context of this approach they might be lost along the way.