Residents will have noticed that the demolition of 39A Eaton Road has taken place.

Sutton Council consistently rejected planning applications involving the demolition of this house. The reason why demolition is now taking place is that the Planning Inspectorate, based in Bristol, over-ruled your local Council when an appeal was made.

Richard spoke against the application when it came to the Council’s Development Control Committee, and helped persuade the Committee to throw the application out. But we cannot overturn a decision by the Planning Inspectorate, whose decisions have been – in our view – inconsistent and unhelpful to planning policies in our area.

We remain concerned that the continuing demolition of family houses and their replacement by small blocks of small flats without gardens is leading to an unbalanced housing stock in the area, and we will continue to oppose this trend in dealing with planning applications. There is more information on our position on the page on planning on this site.