Many thanks to our ever-efficient webmaster for his swift report on last night's planning meeting on further developments at Bell Green. Councillors who voted for the proposal (chair Terry Scott and our local Forest Hill councillor Councillor Dave Whiting) are both part of the ruling Labour Group. Those who voted against were either Liberal Democrats or Greens. Other local Labour councillors speaking from the floor (including Sydenham's Chris Best) were in favour of the proposal.
The lesson we should take from this is that you simply cannot trust the ruling Labour Group (who represent 5 out of 6 of our local councillors) when they tell you that their prime interest is to preserve our local communities and high streets. On the one hand they tell you that they are in favour of local shops and want to prevent the rise of car journeys in local streets and then they vote in favour of a proposal that will take £3m of turnover out of our local shopping areas and pour up to 15% more traffic into local roads.
When the next local elections come, let's make an issue out of this hypocrisy and vote for local councillors who really represent our views!
I speak as a lifetime Labour voter.