| Label | Content |
|---|---|
| Meeting: | Plenary on 11 November 2021 |
| Session name: | Plenary on 11/11/2021 between 10:00 and 13:00 |
| Question by: | Tony Devenish |
| Organisation: | City Hall Conservatives |
| Asked of: | Lyn Garner, Chief Executive of the LLDC and Sir Peter Hendy CBE, Chair of the LLDC |
Question
Question and Answer Session: Functional Bodies - London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC) (Supplementary) [5]
Tony Devenish AM: In my five years on the Assembly, of all the Mayoral bodies it comes up time and time again that LLDC in terms of community engagement is not terribly responsive. “Opaque” is another word I have been asked to use, “tick box consultation”. I wanted to read back to you a letter that one of your team had written to a community group only very recently where you had to hold your hands up because you had not uploaded an awful lot of documents related to the application on the online planning register. You did not apologise, unfortunately, but you said it was an administrative issue and you could confirm that they will now be uploaded. Do you think that the way you handle the very important process of planning is best in class?
Answer
Lyn Garner (Chief Executive, London Legacy Development Corporation): I am not aware that we do not do the right levels of consultation. I was just flicking through my notes for the consultation statistics on East Bank, for example. I think there were well over 160,000 people consulted around that programme and counting between 2015 and 2019 and so there are thousands of people who have been consulted on that project. I do not have all of the consultation numbers in front of me obviously, but I am not aware that we are deficient in that place. I am happy to look at it. If there has been an error, then that is one thing and it could be a one-off, but I am not aware that there is an issue across the piece with consultation.
Tony Devenish AM: I will put it another way. As I should declare an interest, I sit on planning applications myself in Westminster Council. In London boroughs, if you have got, for example, several thousand people saying they were not happy with an application over many years, including the MP and the Council, we probably would not put it through, but you have a habit of putting it through. Is that fair?
Lyn Garner (Chief Executive, London Legacy Development Corporation): Well, it depends on the application, doesn’t itt? Every application is different. Are you making a comparison to a particular application in an LLDC area?
Tony Devenish AM: OK, I will put it a final way and then I will run out of time. Is there anything you are going to do differently in terms of how you engage with local people’s obvious concerns in terms of the major applications during the last couple of years that you are LLDC before planning powers go back to the boroughs?
Lyn Garner (Chief Executive, London Legacy Development Corporation): What I will do is, on the back of what you have said here today, have a look at the consultation process and make sure that it is as exemplary as it ought to be for an area of this nature.
Tony Devenish AM: Thank you. Would you mind writing back to the Assembly?
Lyn Garner (Chief Executive, London Legacy Development Corporation): Of course. Yes, no problem.