• I WRITE in response to Cllr Danny Beales’s misleading letter about planning in Camden, (Tories’ planning reforms are disastrous, June 3).

The letter claimed Camden Conservatives support proposed national reforms and urged CNJ readers to speak to Conservative councillors about this.

Had he followed his own advice, I could have told him that we did object to the proposals.

In fact we wrote a detailed 19-page response to the consultation, which he can view at: https://camden.team/PlanningResponse.

We abstained because councillors solve local issues and scrutinise the local council. We elect MPs to discuss national issues.

While Labour and Liberal Democrat councillors talk almost exclusively about national issues, Camden Conservatives abstain on all matters outside the control of the council.

That means residents’ issues have our full focus. But Cllr Beales knows this.

He is merely trying to distract attention from the day-job and the litany of Camden’s failings in the department he runs.

The highlights include:

• The CIP development programme which is running years behind schedule and has to have social housing removed from it because it’s tens of millions of pounds over budget.

• Camden missing its house-building targets so badly that its own Local Plan is now treated as “out of date”, despite being adopted only four years ago.

• An appalling record on affordable housing which has seen Camden miss out on £150million of affordable housing through sweetheart deals it has made with developers.

There is only one part of Cllr Beales’s letter which is accurate. Sitting on Camden’s planning committee, as I do, is a frustrating experience.

It’s frustrating that Labour have stacked Camden’s planning committee with cabinet members to be yes-men to wave through officers’ recommendations time and time again. This leads many residents to think the outcome of the meeting is a done deal.

It is frustrating to see Labour members not standing up to developers and insisting on the delivery of affordable housing.

A recent application would have seen the council lose £1.7million of affordable housing, but Cllr Beales didn’t even want the committee to debate it! Labour members voted it through.

It’s frustrating to see development that is totally out of character being recommended for approval by Camden’s officers.

Cllr Beales should focus on his and Labour’s local record, rather than trying to distract from this by talking about things outside our control.

But Cllr Beales has a lot of failures to distract from.

CLLR ANDREW PARKINSON
Conservative
Frognal and Fitzjohns ward