Review of the year: December 2008

December, appropriately, brought together many of the campaigns I've been working hard on throughout the year.

I submitted a detailed objection to the Council's Danebury Avenue redevelopment plans - and was delighted to be joined in opposing the grant of planning permission by, among others, The Putney Society's Buildings Panel, Wandsworth Cycling Campaign, Roehampton Business Forum and, possibly most consequentially English Heritage.

Thames Water look set for a major fine over their terrible pollution of the Wandle in 2007 - the issue was referred by Sutton Magistrates to Crown Court which has unlimited powers to penalise Thames Water. I write regularly about issues affecting the Wandle, which I grew up alongside, and you can find these posts here.

While all local attention has been on the Putney Place, Tileman House and Roehampton redevelopment planning applications, the Conservatives sneaked through approval for a 16-storey tower block in Buckhold Road - Cockpen House. While the north end of King George's Park is dominated by tower blocks along its eastern side (Neville Gill Close), the significance of this planning permission is that it opens a new side of the park to overbearing buildings. Unless you, the voters, stand up to the Tories over their planning policies, King George's will be the first local park to resemble New York's Central Park - hemmed in on all sides by massive buildings. We need to say no, now, before it's too late.

At the same time as Conservatives nationally were lecturing us all on the evils of tax-and-spend policies, Wandsworth decided it would be the perfect time to announce an inflation-busting 27% hike in parking charges, taking the price of a permit to almost twice the cost of one in next door Fulham.

And I exposed the Housing Benefit scandal locally that costs taxpayers even more. The Tories really aren't the champions of fiscal responsibility they pretend they are - even the Taxpayer's Alliance has said so on this issue.