Having followed the recent postings about the Planning Department's about-turn over the complaints re. the validity of the said application, I cannot understand how it is that the Head of Planning Services, Ms Aileen Jones could have wrongly dismissed the complaints made by us about the defective application by DiversityInCare Limited dated 18th April 2011.On 29th August, I wrote a detailed letter to Mr Aileen Jones complaining that the application was flawed. Mr Victor Mishiku also wrote the following day that it was plain to see that the application was invalid with wrong names, incorrect spellings and obviously false signatures.Despite all these complaints and clear evidence in the hands of the Council itself, Ms Jones replied to Mr Mishiku on the morning of Friday 2nd September in an e-mail timed at 4.32pm saying: "Dear Mr Mishiku,P/2011/1656 - 53-55 Friars Place Lane, Acton W3 7AQThank you for bringing this matter to our attention in your email of 30th August 2011. From a review of the file I can see that Certificate B has been signed and copies of the forms, including the names of the persons, their address and the date on which the notice was served included with the application and in this respect the applicant would appear to have satisfied requirements. For your information, there is no requirement for the LPA to cross reference the information on certificate B with the land registry, the records of which may or may not be up to date.You are correct that it is an offence for an applicant to knowingly provide false information and as you have raised this as an issue, we have also raised this as a query with the applicant who has verbally advised that the notice was completed on the basis of the information provided to them and in good faith. As you will be aware Planning permission belongs to land/property - not to an individual. The fact that someone may successfully achieve planning permission for land in someone else’s ownership gives them no rights at all over that land and creates no obligation on the owner. However, it seems unlikely that there would be any obvious benefit for the applicant knowingly providing wrong information on certificate B as clearly the above planning permission if it were to be approved can only be implemented with the owner of both properties' consent.A full and thorough assessment of this application is provided within the planning committee report, which discusses the relative merits of the application in planning terms and this document is available to view on line www.ealing.gov.uk. It will now be for members of the committee to make a decision as to whether or not to accept the officer’s recommendation and grant planning permission. In response to the issue raised in your letter about restrictive covenants, as you will be aware restrictive covenants pertaining to a particular property are not generally planning matters. I trust that this addresses the points you have raised. Your Sincerely, Aileen"___________________________From the above, you can see that Ms Jones basically rejected the complaint and was quite prepared to proceed with the granting of planning permission later tonight at Committee completely brushing aside all our valid objections that the application was invalid.Not deterred by Ms Jones's incompetence, another resident Mr Hasan Ukra wrote to her, as Head of Planning Services in a very well-written letter again stressing all the defects in the developers' papers.Mr Ukra's letter of 4th September reads as below: 51 Friars Place Lane Acton London W3 7AQMs Aileen Jones - Head of PlanningEALING COUNCILPlanning ServicesPerceval House14 - 16 Uxbridge RoadEaling, London W5 2HL.Sunday 4th September 2011Dear Ms JonesProposed Hostel Uses at Nos. 53 and 55 Friars Place Lane, Acton W3.Application Ref: P/2011/1656I attended the Council’s site visit at Nos. 53 and 55 Friars Place Lane on Saturday 3rd September 2011 along with approximately 90 local residents to protest about and object to this planning application which is unacceptable on so many levels and has many serious legal implications attached to it.I have seen the ‘Ownership Certificate Notices’ submitted by the developers downloaded from the Web and I have serious concerns as to the validity of this application for the reasons listed below as well as a possible fraudulent signature which is a serious police matter that should be taken further.By inspection of the registered title deeds a record of which is shown on Land Registry Title NGL236387 dated 10th August 2011, the registered owner of 53 Friars Place Lane is stated to be SADIA WAHID.The application form does not mention her name at all as being the owner of any part of the land to which the application relates 21 days before the signing of the application. The developers have submitted accompanying Notices, one of which shows the name of “Mr Abid Hamed” with a signature dated 13th April 2011 as being the owner of the property served with the Notice. The correct spelling of the name is in fact “Hameed” (not “Hamed”) as written on the application form. Mr Abid Hameed is not the owner of No.53 Friars Place Lane, nor is Mr Majid Hamed whose name appears on the notice for No.55 Friars Place Lane (and is again misspelt). The signature is even more suspect as it has been written as “Muded-Hameed” and it appears to be the writing of a child who cannot spell his own name! In my opinion, this breach of the law and planning statute demands proper investigation both by the council and the police.Additional points that need to be considered with regards to the measurements are also crucial and I have highlighted some of the points below.Contrary to the requirement of the Council of having a minimum space for single and double bedrooms, the drawings provided on the Council’s website for the proposed plans ambiguously represents the measurements in two ways:The two drawings of the same floor show different figures of measurement. This has not gone unnoticed even though they are shown measured in inches as opposed to the metric system that is part of the Council requirements, possibly to disguise the true available space.- 2 -Location Plan submitted by the developersThe location plan submitted in the application papers is dated as received by the Council on 14th April 2011. However, this plan shows 4 properties as the development site! It includes my father’s house at No.51 and Mr & Mrs Abdul El-Tourgman’s house at No.57. Please note that we are nothing to do with these developers or any of their plans, which we vehemently oppose. Why did the planners accept such an inaccurate Location Plan?The Rooms and their Uses in the ApplicationThe measurement of certain rooms has included the landing areas as well as the stairs even though this does not constitute part of the living-space unless this is part of the proposed plan, the details of which have not been provided. The corridors and the stairs are too narrow to accommodate a wheelchair for the disabled or a stair lift.It is therefore the Council’s duty to have proper plans showing accurate measurements in the metric system with details of how each of the rooms indicated on the floor plans would be utilised and to make these available for public inspection. This is the only way to prove that the space is good enough for at least 19 persons (10 adults and 9 children) which we believe is not the case. The submitted plans are very amateurish and merely show 3 bedrooms in each property (total 6 bedrooms). How do 19 persons plus night sleepover staff fit into these bedrooms? The developers state that their “eight-bedroomed property” (although only three bedrooms in each house are shown in the Drawings) include accommodation for 19 persons (10 adults and 9 children), 24/7 staffed nursery facilities for 10 children, Training and Drug Treatment, Aromatherapy, Acupuncture and Yoga Classes and they will also be receiving offenders and clients from Drug and Alcohol Courts in various Boroughs.This is an awful lot of activity to take place in these two modest houses and we have no proper plans and drawings whatsoever to cover all these activities! This is outrageous.It is claimed that the temporary accommodation is to include vulnerable people and children which is all the more reason that the Council should know precisely what is being proposed here. It is unacceptable for approval to be even recommended let alone given on such incomplete and vague plans. One does not have to be an architect or a planning expert to appreciate these shortcomings. For any other developer the Council would have surely rejected such inadequate and poorly-presented plans long ago. Proposed 24/7 Nursery to be built in the Back Garden - not shown on the plansThe developers claim to be associated with Ms Sharon Bates of East Acton Primary School & Nursery and also Ms Michelle Smith of the Council’s “Maples Nursery” plus the “Carousel Nursery” (Manager: Gusie Fedyle), although enquiries made by residents suggest otherwise.The developers state on the Web that plans are to: “To support and nurture children aged 0 - 5 years during their stay at the residential provision” and “..to open a residential drug treatment service for single women and women with children aged 0 - 5 years old.” - 3 -“The large garden has space for a nursery to be built for up to 10 children can be accommodated while the women participate in a structured programme or go to educational programmes.” The Website says that planning permission is to be obtained from Ealing Council “to build the nursery”. In the developers’ published request for donations on “Big Give Funding Website” (www.new.the biggive.org.uk), they also write describing the premises and nursery and project:“Ealing Borough in the garden of a residential setting. Many support services within walking distance. The nursery would be on site and staffed 24/7.” “..open an on-site nursery to provide day care for children aged 0 - 5 years…to provide play therapy and parenting skills for the mothers.”Having examined every single Drawing and Plan on the Council’s Website as recently as this afternoon, I cannot find any Drawing or Plan showing this proposed Nursery Building in the back garden. This Nursery Building is critical to the whole application it seems from the above text, yet it is not shown in the Drawings.Our family’s own experience of Ealing Councils stringent Planning Drawings/Plans’ RequirementsOur experience with Ealing Council when applying for planning permission for a relatively simple extension (not involving accommodation for any extra members of the residential family) was rightly subjected to scrutiny, revisions, detailed drawings and amendments (records of which are available and will be known to the Council who demanded them) that were all professionally drawn up before the Planning Department would even consider recommending the application (to which not a single neighbour had objected). It is astonishing how this experience differs from the case now before the council, where the planning department has accepted and recommended a totally unprofessional, inadequate and incomplete set of plans and drawings, and in a case where over 1,000 local objections have been lodged to date and with a proposed Change of Use that is prohibited under the legal restrictions on this Estate as well as a change that will have a profoundly detrimental effect on the immediately adjoining neighbours and the whole area.I hope the above comments will be looked into seriously and the appropriate action taken by the Council in order to require the developers to rectify all of the defects in their submitted application as well as an overall replacement of the proposed plans for proper public scrutiny.Finally, will you kindly let us know what information has been withheld from the public domain as per the developers’ request to your department?Yours sincerely Hasan Ukra(on behalf of Dr & Mrs H.Ukra)- 4 -Copy to:Mr Noel Rutherford, Environment Group Director, Ealing CouncilActon Ward Councillors (all 3 Wards)Cllrs Hitesh Tailor, Kate Crawford, Atallah SaidCllrs Abdullah Gulaid, Daniel Crawford, Patricia WalkerCllrs Yvonne Johnson, Mik Sabiers, John Gallagher (The Mayor)Chair & Members of the Planning CommitteeCllr. Julian Bell, Leader of the CouncilMr Martin Smith, Chief Executive, LBE.Ms Angie Bray, Ealing & Acton MP.The Goldsmiths’ Company, EC2.Goldsmiths’ Residents AssociationThe Covenant Movement, Ealing."__________________________________The following day 5th September 2011, notwithstanding the overwhelming complaints, at 9.39am the case officer Mr Andrew Vaughan wrote to the Planning Manager Mr Neil Bleakley copying to him Ms Jones's response brushing aside our complaints.At 9.40am, the case officer Mr Andrew Vaughan forwarded to Mr Neil Bleakley a copy of the response from Ms Angela Edmondson which she had sent to Mr Vaughan on 2nd September 2011. In her e-mail to Mr Vaughan (she addresses him on first name terms!), Ms Edmondson claimed that "At the time I completed the application for "Change of Use" the information regarding the landlords and ownership of 53 - 55 Friars Place Lane was accurate and truthful when the form was completed and handed in. I am not aware of any changes in ownership since the application was submitted to the Planning Department".In fact, at the time Ms Edmondson completed the application form, the information she provided contained at least 7 errors including false ownership details and this was finally admitted to in an e-mail from Mr Neil Bleakley to the Director of the Environment Group, who by that time had intervened in this affair and legal advice had been taken overruling Ms Aileen Jones.It is beyond comprehension that us layman have to "educate" the expert Head of Planning Officer in basic matters of planning law and to ensure compliance by the Council with the very rules that her Department sets for others.Should there not be an investigation by the Police as to the false documentation? - additionally should there not be public scrutiny of the apparent incompetence and lack of care exhibited by the Head of Planning and the case officer involved in this matter, who appears to us to be actively promoting this development while brushing aside all our objections?It should be remembered that considerable stress and aggravation on a daily basis is being caused to our residents by these developers and the planning officer involved with these shenanigans!This has left us all wondering how much credence we can give to the Council's solemn pledge that: "COUNCIL PLANNERS WILL WORK CLOSELY WITH LOCAL COMMUNITIES" and that "PLANNING DECISIONS MUST TAKE ACCOUNT OF THE FEELINGS OF LOCAL PEOPLE". Unfortunately, we have experienced the exact opposite of this pledge in the Council's appalling handling of this application from the outset when information was deliberately withheld from the public at the request of the developers.Perhaps, the pledge needs to be amended to reflect the truth ie. "COUNCIL PLANNERS WILL WORK CLOSELY WITH DEVELOPERS REGARDLESS OF THE WISHES OF LOCAL COMMUNITIES"!
Charles Chara ● 5489d