Greenheath Business Centre application refused despite Labour councillors voting in favour of scheme

I have just received a letter from the council’s planning office notifying me that the application for building a new tower block at the Greenheath Business Centre has been refused.

This is great news as the plans for the new development were pretty awful.

What’s interesting is that two of the Labour councillors voted in favour of the application and two didn’t seem to take part in the voting exercise at all. It was left to the single member of each of the three minority parties – Conservative, LibDem and Respect to unite and vote the application down (according to Cllr Phil Briscoe: Keeping the Sunlight in Sunlight Square).

This is pretty appalling news. I’ve always found it difficult to trace the contributions that local councillors make to their wards. Some are particularly active such as Lib Dem councillor Louise Alexander. Unfortunately most councillors fail miserably.

I’ll be keeping all this in mind during May at the next local election.