Conservative Parliamentary Spokesman against the project

1 min read

Jane Ellison, the Conservative Parliamentary Spokesperson for Battersea, delivered a special newsletter in January, raising her voice against the Clapham Junction Proposal.
Acknowledging the need of major improvement for Clapham Junction, she says:

“In considering the current planning application I have asked myself two key questions: firstly, will the changes to the station result in a substantially better experience for all of us who use it and, secondly, if this was the ‘once in a generation’ chance to make improvements, is this plan for the station ambitious enough? I believe the answer to both these questions is NO.
Given the record levels of public debt we now bear as a country, there is a third key question. If further improvements to the station can only come at a price (which seems to be Network Rail’s position) is the price of these changes one worth paying? I believe the answer, in the case of this application is, again, NO. I hope the current proposals are rejected by Councillors.“

As Jane Ellison added, local Councillors are always interested to hear your views about all planning applications. It is true that, since this application was submitted by Delancey (the developers), the Council had no choice but to consider the application and follow proper legal procedure. A councillor who is a member of the Planning Committee, has to be careful not to “pre-determine” the decision (otherwise it could occur legal action from the developers to overturn the decision).
However other members of the Council can relay the concern of their constituents and at least answer their general queries. This is what Councillors of Northcote ward or Latchmere ward have been doing. This is what Councillors of Shaftesbury ward have chosen to ignore. Until now the orientation of the Conservative Council of Wandsworth is dubious (I also asked the leader of the Council, Edward Lister,  if he could provide a speaker to answer general queries about the plan to the Public Meeting on the 28th, but did not get a positive answer). Therefore we welcome the position of the Conservative spokesperson, Jane Ellison,  in the debate on the Clapham Junction redevelopment. We also agree on her call that we should “now start a local discussion about the future of our station“, and, may we had, about the policy of developments in Wandsworth borough.

You can read her leaflet in full here: Battersea Residents’ News – Jane Ellison – January 2009

You can contact Jane Ellison here (contact form).
Or by Post:
Jane Ellison
1 & 3 Summerstown
London
SW17 0QB
Or by Telephone:
Constituency Office: 020 8944 0378

Did you like reading this article? Help us writing more!

Clapham Junction Insider (formerly called CJAG website) has been publishing local news for more than 14 years and remains committed to providing local community information and public interest journalism.

We aim to feature as much as possible on community campaigns and initiatives, local societies, charities based in the area, fundraising efforts by residents and helping residents.

We've always done that and won't be changing, in fact we'd like to do more.

Until recently, all stories, analysis and reports published have been made with the great help of many volunteers. However, at the end of the day it cost time and efforts and we are frustrated that we cannot do more: there are many subjects that we would like to cover but we need financial resources to help us providing regular information.

We are therefore asking our readers to consider offering financial support to these efforts. Any money given will help support community and public interest news and the expansion of our coverage in this area.

2 ways of supporting our project

Do you think what we are doing is helping the community and you want to encourage us to do more? We have set up two ways of supporting our project:

  1. Paypal: For one-off contributions, you can just use your bank card. However if you wish to encourage and support us regularly with a small amount, you will need a Paypal account to set up a monthly subscription. Click here to donate.
  2. Patreon: this is a well-known membership platform that connects content creators with supporters. Mainly, it offers financial tools that let supporters subscribe to projects that give creators a predictable income stream as they continue to create content. Click here to subscribe and support us regularly.

If you do support us in this way we'd be interested to hear what kind of articles you would like to see more of on the site – send your suggestions to the editor.

CJI editor and Clapham Junction Action Group co-founder and coordinator since 2008, Cyril has lived in Clapham Junction since 2001.
He is also funder and CEO of Habilis-Digital Ltd, a digital agency creating and managing websites and Internet solutions.

View all

You might be interested in

Latest from Blog