9:00am Wednesday 27th January 2010
By Scott Mullins
A GOVERNMENT hearing into controversial plans for Bromley town centre is set to get under way in March.
The Area Action Plan (AAP) is the local authority’s 15-year design for the town centre and includes blueprints for a cinema, hotel and thousands of new homes on 14 different sites.
Around 2,000 jobs could be created in new bars, restaurants, shops and office blocks and the Glades Shopping Centre could be extended.
Bromley’s two train stations could also be refurbished and modernised.
A government inspector now has to decide if the plans can go ahead.
At a pre-hearing meeting yesterday (January 26), inspector Eric Searle said the process could last longer than the scheduled eight days.
He said: “All the basic evidence has been submitted.
“It will be necessary for me to carry out site visits before I write my report.
“The examination is not completed at the end of the public hearing but will close when my report is submitted.”
A decision on the AAP is not expected until the summer.
Bromley Civic Society
Some aspects of the plans have already caused concern in the community, particularly the mooted block of flats at the corner of Tweedy Road and London Road, next to the Grade I listed Bromley College.
When the AAP was announced, Bromley Civic Society claimed it would mean the “demolition of central Bromley on an unprecedented scale”.
Talking after this week's meeting, the society’s chairman Tony Banfield said: “We are looking forward to the hearing because a great number of aspects of the plans are unsound.”
The public hearing will begin at the Bromley Civic Centre in Stockwell Close, Bromley, on March 30.
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