Taylor Wimpey's planning permission suspended. SAVE GOLDEN LANE battles on

OPEN Golden Lane has been formed to help our local community fight environmental and social injustice. Because it is a company it has legal status, unlike a residents association or users' group, and so it can bring any necessary Court actions as well as protect individuals from personal liability. It acts as both a shield and a sword on behalf of its members. Local groups can apply to become members of OPEN Golden Lane      

There is only one week left to reach the £7,000 target needed to continue the fight against Taylor Wimpey's redevelopment of Bernard Morgan House. Please read our CrowdJustice fundraising website here and donate to help protect our community by stopping this monstrous, light stealing development of luxury apartments which will have no affordable housing.

Taylor Wimpey's proposed scheme

If the Taylor Wimpey scheme proceeds local homes in Golden Lane Estate, Barbican Estates and Viscount Street, as well as Prior Weston School, The Jewin Welsh Church and Fortune Street Park will be overshadowed and lose both day and sun light. The Park will lose its afternoon sunshine from September to March. At this time the Park is usually packed with children and parents leaving school at 3.30pm. If the sun is shining then they stay and play until it disappears behind Bernard Morgan House.

 

Sun setting behind Bernard Morgan House 4.30pm in October .
The proposed new block will be 10 storeys high and will block the sun at this time

The Secretary of State, in response to our community's request, has presently suspended Taylor Wimpey's planning permission while his Department considers whether to hold an Inquiry. You can read here the letter which our local community organisations wrote to the Secretary of State to request a Call-In of Taylor Wimpey's application. The request is that an independent  planning inspector, and not the City, must decide whether Taylor Wimpey should get planning permission. You can read a press report here.

Our local MPs Mark Field and Emily Thornberry, as well as the Twentieth Century Society, have also written letters to the Secretary of State to ask for a Call-in.

OPEN (Golden Lane)'s solicitors have also written to the Secretary of State listing the financial interests of some of the Planning Committee members. You can read a press report about that letter here. Some members of the Committee are, or were, employed by businesses for whom Taylor Wimpey is a major client.

The Secretary of States intervention is means demolition of Bernard Morgan House cannot presently go ahead.  Despite this the scaffold has continued to be erected.

If the Secretary of State decides to Call-in Taylor Wimpey's planning application we will need funds to pay for legal representation at a public Inquiry. But if his ruling allows the Planning Committee's decision to stand, then we will have only six weeks from the actual grant of planning permission to issue a legal claim requesting the Court's permission to proceed with a judicial review. Either way, we continue to need substantial funds for legal representation to ensure the best outcome for our community.  

Golden Lane Estate 

Thanks to generous donations so far we have now paid for some initial advice from a specialist sunlight/overshadowing consultant and we are commissioning a more detailed analysis. Our solicitors have also instructed Matthew Horton QC of 39 Essex Chambers to advise. He has now visited the Golden Lane Estate, walked around the area and viewed Bernard Morgan House, Fortune Street Park and Prior Weston School. 

Fortune Street Park - the green hub of our community

Matthew Horton QC expressed "great concern about the manner in which the decision to approve planning permission was taken and the quality of that decision.” We await his further advice. 

Prior Weston School will be overshadowed by Taylor Wimpey's planned scheme for 99 luxury flats which has no affordable housing

The Jewin Welsh Church will be engulfed and overshadowed  by Taylor Wimpey's planned scheme 

Many thanks to everyone who has supported our campaign and donated and shared the CrowdJustice link. The level of support shows how strongly people feel about this development and the terrible impact it will have on everyone in our community.

There have been many donations from people who have now moved away whose children went to Prior Weston and played in the park every day after school. We have been moved by these families’ generosity. It shows how much they valued their time in the park while their children were growing up. As one donor said: 

‘Our family have happy memories of over 15 years of afternoon gatherings, climbing, trees, fragrant blossom and lovely people. Long may those memories continue to be made by others.

Fortune Street Park and Bernard Morgan House 

Please donate to Crowd Justice Save Golden Lane and help save Bernard Morgan House from monstrous redevelopment. 

Help stop Taylor Wimpey's selfish, greedy overdevelopment which  will blight our community 

For more information about Bernard Morgan House and the proposed development please read this page Bernard Morgan House Background Information