first of all we should not mix Councillors voting as members of a planning committee and a party policies.
Planning committees (and licensing committees) are the two quasi-judicial committees of the Council and members are free to vote as they wish, their position is similar to those of Court Jurors as just like Courts they rule over private matters. it’s illegal for a party to put party pressure on an individual member to vote in a specific way at a planning committee.

The planning consent given in 2006 to the Kids Korner was given for the conversion of the existing building into residential on condition it would keep the present look on the high street.
I think it’s regrettable that such consent was given but those that are most to blame are the planning officers.
They go through the applications with the developers, advise them how to best present it, push for housing and give advise to members on how to vote and please note how to vote within the law.
If the officers’ advise does not contains ground for rejection and the objections don’t give ground for legally rejecting a planning application then committee members will have a hard time try to reject an application. They would in fact be doing an illegality if they were to reject an application on grounds that are not contemplated by the law, and if the owner of the Kids Korner could put a convincing argument that the a lawful possible use for that site was residential and no one stepped forward with a stronger argument then there’s nothing extraordinary in the fact that the application was consented.

The recent application for new built on the Kids Korner site saw popular reaction led by a Liberal Democrat, i.e. me.
The leaflets distributed around the neighbourhood explaining why that corner was important for the locality that moved 49 people to write in objections to the development were my brainchild, the content was my vision, but in an individual nature, not as a Libdem.
Likewise I wrote the petition to oppose it and pretty much all of the literature of the campaign for the transformation of the Kids Korner into an Arts and Commuit Centre.
I also set up the residents’ association “Hither Green Community Hall and Arts Society” to produce events like the recent cinema day, an association that is obviously missing from the area and whose existance is a precondition to using the Kids Korner building for the arts as until now there wasn’t a residents’ group to ask for it, hence the lack of opposition to the planning application of 2006.

Speaking of the Loampit Vale site the two Liberal Democrats sitting on the Strategic Planning Committee voted against it. A third Liberal Democrat, Cllr Milton, not a member of the committee, spoke against it as Local Councillor, I also spoke against it.
The panel was split 3 votes for and 3 against and so the planning application was consented on the vote of the Chair of the committtee.
But I had already made a detailed report of that committee here on this blog. Click on the Loampit Vale tag below the post or in the tag cloud to see all my posts about this development, I think that this blog together with the previous blog http://www.saveladywellpool.com are the places where you’ll find the most exaustive information about this development (for the Kids Korner see hithergreenhall.org , also full of content by yours truly).

will the liberal democrats vote for the loampit vale project then campaign against it in leaflets?

because with kidz korner you voted for it to be turned into flats, now you are against it becoming flats.

IAN

For a full list of 24 hour off-licences in Lewisham, see http://www.24houralcohol.co.uk/lewisham-off-licences