• CAMDEN Council’s planning committee considered an application to convert an English language college on Finchley Road into housing.

As a local resident I was watching along at home and was aghast to see it approved, despite it containing no affordable housing or contributions to providing it elsewhere.

Owing to its size, in the absence of providing any affordable housing, planning policy required the developer to make £1.7million of section 106 payments to fund affordable housing nearby or elsewhere in the borough.

But it didn’t do that either! Instead, the applicant claimed it wasn’t financially viable to provide affordable housing.

Given £1.7million of much-needed funding was on the line, such a claim should be scrutinised closely and any applicant making it should be given a hard time.

However, Labour members of the planning committee, including three cabinet members, tried to wave the application through without it even being discussed at all.

This would have meant no scrutiny and no attempt to recover funds legitimately due to the council that could help deal with the borough’s chronic affordable housing shortage.

Even the local Liberal Democrat said she wanted just a very quick summary, without debate. Fortunately a Conservative councillor objected and forced a discussion, even if Labour members still voted the application through.

What is the point of having a planning committee if it will not scrutinise bad applications that lose the council millions of pounds?

The CNJ has reported before that Camden’s signed hundreds of section106 agreements in the past few years that let developers off providing affordable housing if they make payments instead, but that over £100million of payments in lieu have simply not been made.

This means there is no affordable housing in these developments, and no payments being made to provide affordable housing elsewhere in the borough. And the council is making no attempt to recover these funds.

It’s not just residents that watch these committee meetings. Developers do too.

When developers see almost the entire planning committee happy to wave through applications that make no contribution to affordable housing, without so much as a discussion, every developer will know Camden is a soft touch.

The residents of Camden deserve better.

AARTI JOSHI
Address supplied