An independent planning inquiry into the redevelopment of Greenwich Market will begin tomorrow (Tuesday).
The plan to revamp the market and build a 100-bedroom hotel was first rejected by Greenwich Council last year, and they reaffirmed their opposition just last week.
Owners of the market, Greenwich Hospital, have appealed that decision the independent Planning Inspectorate will be conducting an inquiry before making a recommendation on the market’s fate to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government.
The inquiry will begin tomorrow at Woolwich Town Hall and will run until this Friday and then continue next week between Tuesday and Friday.
Greenwich West councillors, who protested last month outside the market, will be staging another demonstration outside the town hall as the inquiry gets under way tomorrow.
I attended this morning. A decent show of opposition, at least 20. The other side had merely well-paid consultants in suits, although their barrister did claim, rather pathetically, that they might at some point be able to produce one member of the public to speak in support of their claim.
Many of the arguments are of course technical, but beyond losing the controversial roof and keeping the cobbles, Hospital Estates haven’t produced much in the way of rabbits out of a hat. They are seeking merely to add extra issues, not raised in the original decision, while denying the council the freedom to do so.
For instance, they claim the fact they’ve dropped the plastic roof now should count in their favour. But they also claim that other new developments, such as the council’s proposed pedestrianisation, should have no bearing on the decision as they weren’t raised at the original planning meeting.