Response to Labour Election Letter
You may have received a letter from the Labour party (dressed up as from “fellow residents”) claiming that there’s no threat of Labour building a towerblock in Queen’s Park.
We’d like to make sure you know the truth before casting your vote on Thursday.
• Labour Brent’s current policy is for a 20-storey tower on the station carpark. This is spelt out on page 84 of the 2005 Supplementary Planning Document. Labour Brent refuses to change this policy.
• Labour’s letter says it is “not true” that Labour is backing a 26-storey tower in Queen’s Park. But we never said they were. Their policy is for a 20-storey tower – something they don’t deny in their slippery letter.
• Stop the Tower has been trying for seven months to get Labour Brent to listen to the over 400 people who wrote to the Council objecting to the towerblock plans. But Labour Brent has refused even to consider the possibility of changing the 20-storey planning policy.
• Instead we’ve had a waffle-shop (the “Stakeholder Forum”) designed to kick the issue into touch until after the elections. The Forum has met once in the five months since it was promised by Labour leader Ann John. Its membership has been rigged by Brent. Local people have been excluded. And it hasn’t been allowed to consider building height.
• The Labour candidates’ woolly “commitment” that any new planning application must be “sympathetic and suitable” and have “wide community support” is the sort of bureaucratic blather we hear from Brent whenever we try to get a clear answer on anything tower-related.
Brent describe their policy for a 20-storey building as being “broadly supported by the community” despite having held only three public meetings on it, all in the same week, and with attendances of 10, 11, and “approximately 6″ people respectively.
• Labour Leader Ann John’s alleged promise that the tower “will be no higher than the surrounding buildings” is dangerously vague. Which surrounding buildings does she mean? Does she include the 15-storey blocks on Carlton Vale? Does she include Trellick Tower? Residents who attended the Area Consultative Forum in December 2005 will know how dismissive Ann John is of residents’ concerns over her towerblock plans.
• Labour quote QPARA’s Colin George saying “the tower is dead”. We have to ask - how would he know? We’ve been at the same meetings he has, and there has been no commitment to a low-rise building on the site. Indeed, a motion for a height cap was put to the council and Labour Councillors voted against it.
• Labour’s claim that the Genesis application for a 26-storey building was withdrawn thanks to pressure from Labour Councillors is laughable. 400 local people wrote to Brent to protest. Meanwhile, Labour Councillors manned the Genesis-sponsored tent at Queen’s Park day to try and sell the highrise development to the community.
• The Labour candidates were in office when Brent drew up the towerblock policy in the first place. How good a job did they do of involving you in the so-called public consultation on the policy? And, once it was adopted, how good a job did they do of letting you know about the new policy and what it meant for your neighbourhood?
• The Labour candidates were still our local councillors when the Genesis proposal was put in - how good a job did they do of informing you about the proposal and, in particular, the height of the buildings? Did they want your opinion, or did they try to slip the towerblock through on the quiet?
• One of the signatories to Labour’s letter, Steve Crabb, has written to us to say that neither he nor Natasha Finlayson gave permission for their names to be used in this way.
Stop the Tower is not a politically-aligned group. We receive no support, financial or otherwise, from any outside source. Many of us have been life-long Labour voters so taking this stand has not been easy. But we feel it’s essential that the people of Queen’s Park and South Kilburn know what’s going on.
A VOTE FOR LABOUR IS A VOTE FOR THE TOWER