Bunhill's Lib Dem councillors win changes to City Road Forum development

2.21.39pm BST (GMT +0100) Mon 6th Jul 2009

Bunhill's Lib Dem councillors Ruth Polling and Jyoti Vaja are celebrating their success in negotiating a good deal for local people from the new development.

Local Lib Dem councillors were celebrating after a planning meeting cemented six months of negotiation on affordable housing and open space at a new City Road Basin development - and yielded victories on student housing and a local lettings policy.

The development site, on the Hackney border by City Road Basin, currently has red-brick office buildings. Under the new plans the site will have shops, restaurants and cafes, a hotel, offices, some student accommodation, and 720 new homes. There will be new car parking spaces as well as spaces to park over 1000 bikes.

When the developers first presented a plan for the site to the council last year, Bunhill's Liberal Democrat councillors objected that it had too few affordable homes and virtually no open space. Council officers successfully negotiated with the developers, and a council planning committee this week agreed that the development will have 30% affordable housing - more than is legally required. They also got agreement from the developer that there would be high-quality public open space on the site.

Lib Dem councillors Ruth Polling and Jyoti Vaja won more assurances in the committee meeting itself- that that people living in EC1 would get priority for new homes, and that the entrances to the student housing would be located away from the entrances to family home.

Local Councillor Ruth Polling, said:

"The Lib Dems have pushed the developers to be more ambitious and got them to agree to almost a third of the homes being affordable housing when they could have legally got away with putting none on the site. Local people living in EC1 will have priority when it comes to letting homes on the new development, this is particularly good for children of local people who want to move out of the family home but stay close by.

"We also insisted that the City Road Forum development will have a new open space for residents and the local community to use. We've fought hard to make sure that this development benefits local people."

Local Councillor Jyoti Vaja, commented:

"The developers originally wanted lots of one and two bedroom flats but the Lib Dems argued for more family homes at City Road Forum and we got that at the planning meeting. The site is now going to have a really good mix of family homes, affordable homes and small flats.

"We have also asked the developers to look at moving the entrance for students away from family homes. This was something local people were really concerned about, so I'm pleased the developers are going to go away and look at this again."