Wildlife Circus

Dear Councillors This is a friendly reminder that legally public bodies have a duty under the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006 to consider biodiversity in all of their functions. I attach the London Guidance from Natural England and some footnotes as to how this is legally applied. I also attach the Kingston Good Practice Guide, which I imagine most councillors and officers have never seen. I know some of you are concerned about this, as I have met with you; some of you think that there are officers taking account of these statutory obligations (well they are not) and there are others that think that housing targets are more important than biodiversity- but then you have decided what the law is, and that children don’t need access to nature and clean air for good physical and mental health. If areas are unfit for hedgehogs, are they really fit for us; and didn’t we sign up to the London National Park City? Remember that the council -as a public body- also...

The last 2 posts have been about this borough’s Core Strategy, which is our planning blueprint for the future of our borough, going forward into the next decade. It is important that the newly adopted document is sufficiently robust to repel inappropriate developments, especially at certain Key sites.  When the Filter beds were sold by their Australian owners (by the process known as asset stripping) it was marketed along with 20 other Thames Water sites across London  considered ‘hard to develop’. The 'easy' sites had long been sold off by the previous German owners, Kvaerner, and their new tenants were already sitting in their living rooms watching 'Eastenders' or gazing out over the London Wetlands Centre (the mitigation for the development of the reservoirs at Barnes).  Read the blurb about the likely planning outcomes for this site (emboldened below within the OLD For Sale notice) which was sold (relatively) cheaply on the basis that it would never realis...

Its a busy week for our new Local Development Framework, which is to have its own council meeting tonight where it will be recommended to councillors. There is a 6 week legal challenge period following the adoption decision by Council and consequently hard copy versions of the Core Strategy and Proposals Map changes will not be printed until after 29 May. For the present, hard copies of the changes recommended to the Core Strategy by the Council (the “Post Hearings Version”) are available in the public libraries together with a copy of the inspector’s report which supported the changes, with the addition of the inspector’s binding recommendation regarding the Hogsmill Valley. Make sure that you are happy with the content of this document which is our planing blueprint for the future and will be key in determining the fate of the Filter Beds. It will be expounded tomorrow at: Kingston Society Meeting 18 April 2012 at 7.30 p.m.Tiffin School The new Planning Polic...