The planning threats just keep on coming

The Wandsworth Borough News is reporting on a reception held by the council last night to unveil yet more overdevelopment they're championing - almost all in the Putney constituency.

The schemes unveiled included:

• The next phase of the Riverside Quarter development between Wandsworth Park and the River Wandle
• South Thames College on Putney Hill
• Hardwick's Quarter, which is presumably their fancy name for the Cockpen House development
• Southside shopping centre
• The nearly finished Parkside tower block beside King George's Park, which they are misleadingly calling affordable housing

The thing I find most disturbing is the relish with which the Conservatives keep rolling out these plans (just before Christmas, when they think we'll have our minds on other things, note) as if the views of local residents are irrelevent, the character of our area immaterial and the strain these developments will place on local infrastructure inconsequential.

Bizarrely, at the very reception the Conservatives were announcing their plans alongside their developer chums, they also announced a redesign of the Wandsworth one-way system to show off the "elegant Georgian terraces, churches and pubs that characterise the area": as if all this new development won't more than offset any small improvements to traffic flow a redesign may provide.

It's bad enough that they keep giving the green light to all this overdevelopment - but now they're actually wining and dining the developers in lavish receptions funded by local taxpayers: and putting out press releases to make sure we all know it.