Mayor of London Boris Johnson has for the first time used new planning powers to call in a major planning application.
Commercial Estates Group' plans for the 63 storey Columbus Tower - on the site of Hertsmere House in Canary Wharf - were thrown out by Tower Hamlets on 4 August.
CEG, the property company of Swedish magnate Gerard Versteegh - ranked 111th in the Estates Gazette Rich List 2008, with a £200m fortune - proposed 315,000 sq ft of offices, a 192-room hotel and over 70 apartments.
Today the mayor said for that the first time he was to excercise his new powers to reconsider the scheme.
The Mayor said: "This is a decision I have not taken lightly. However the Columbus Tower proposal clearly meets the test of a planning application of major significance to the whole of London.
"Canary Wharf and the Isle of Dogs form a key part of my economic development strategy and I have also made it clear that I consider Canary Wharf to be suitable for tall buildings.
"There is already a planning consent for a tall building on this site and the development itself would deliver a significant contribution to Crossrail, the most important new infrastructure project London has seen since the first tube tunnels were dug by the Victorians. For these reasons, I believe this application requires me to scrutinise it in greater detail."
Until April 2008, when considering planning applications submitted to him, the Mayor could either leave London's local borough planning committees to decide whether to approve or refuse them or, if they did not conform with London Plan policies, direct the borough to refuse them.
Since then, where development proposals have implications for the capital as a whole, his new powers allow him to completely take over such planning applications from local planning authorities.
What has this got to do with the Olympics you may ask? Well I think Boris has decided he has had his feet under the table long enough and now he is going to start flexing his muscles on key planning issues a little more. Perhaps he will start becoming a little more vocal on the Olympics developments.
Leave a comment
What a user pic? Get a Gravatar!