When the Council established the Hammersmith Residents’ Working Party it emphasised its importance saying that it “will in large part govern what developers are permitted to do”.
According to the Council’s website:
“The Hammersmith Residents’ Working Party meets each month.”
But it would be closer to mark to say it meets annually – while the Council pushes through ugly, unpopular developments.
The Council’s Head of Policy & Spatial Planning says:
“The residents working party is still in operation and we will be scheduling new workshops with the group to review the first draft of the Grimshaw masterplan in due course. The masterplan will form an important component of the future Hammersmith Supplementary Planning Document (SPD). The contribution of the HRWP will be critical to this task.
“Since the last meeting (end of April) the views of the HRWP have been integrated into developing the masterplan.
“It is important to understand the master plan and SPD’s relationship to the new Local Plan. The SPD will need to sit within this higher level development plan document when adopted. The new Local Plan Examination in Public was last summer and the Inspector required a subsequent consultation on modifications to the plan over this Autumn/Winter, the document is now due for adoption on 28th February. This has therefore impacted on engagement with the HRWP.”
Grimshaw are a firm of modernist architects. We have yet to see what they are threatening for Hammersmith – but judging but the other “Master Planning” they have produced on their website it is likely to be pretty awful.
The Council’s Local Plan specifically backs more tower blacks for the Hammersmith Town Centre – see page 134. The “masterplan” will be a “component” of the Hammersmith Supplementary Planning Document which in turn “will need to sit within this higher level development plan document.”
So when the Council says “the views of the HRWP have been integrated into developing the masterplan” – what it means is that the Council’s policy is to have more tower blocks whether the HRWP wants it or not.
Does the HRWP feel that its views are being “integrated into developing the masterplan”? Since its members are sworn to secrecy and its deliberations are not published we will never know officially. But with it not meeting at all there can scarcely be much confidence – for them or the rest of us.
Even if the reality is that the Council ignores its deliberations the process is pretty chaotic and discourteous. Members who agreed to give up their time being told they would have monthly meetings on a body with genuine clout are left wondering what is happening.
Hammersmith and Fulham Forum 
Yes, it was supposed to be better than this. I take some interest in what happens to Hammersmith town centre and I have no idea what has been going on for the past year or so.
When any plans are actually revealed the big, irrevocable decisions will already have been made.
We are going to get 40-storey tower blocks that no one here wants. That is why the process is furtive and unsatisfactory.
The council pick and choose issues on which they want public input – they are perfectly happy to have rabble-rousing meetings on Charing Cross to boost their local election chances but not on other topics.
One peculiar omission is their reluctance to join with other local councils to launch legal challenges to Heathrow expansion. From this I conclude they are actually in favour of Heathrow expansion (as are Labour nationally) but are too scared to say so. How about organising a public meeting on that ?
On town hall development there would be a certain degree of schadenfreude to see tower blocks go up there given the amount of NIMBY resistance to the previous much more appealing plans.
Great share.. also you can celebrate at home through order food from pure veg restaurants in Nagpur, test delicious.