A TROUBLED redevelopment can go ahead after a planning board ignored the objections of people living nearby.

The previous scheme for Grove Market Place in Eltham was rejected by Greenwich Council - a decision overturned on appeal in 2009.

That application was modified to include a six-storey building, supermarket and 86-bed Travelodge there, and a planning committee has now approved it.

Veronica Denyer, of Court Road, who along with others had opposed the scheme, said afterwards: “We’re very disappointed. We feel let down because although we desperately want that site worked on we felt it was a gross overdevelopment.”

Among the campaigners objections were the scale of the building, a lack of parking and concerns about congestion on Court Road - judged to be the capital’s eighth busiest in a recent poll.

Ms Denyer said she hoped there would now be progress on the site, which has been left derelict, attracting vermin and squatters.

She said: “It’s been left for the last two-and-a-half years and its been neglected.”

Councillor Dermot Poston, who voted against the proposal, claimed the development would be out of keeping with the conservation area, creating a “cliff-like structure”.

He said afterwards: “I do believe that in years to come when this scheme is up, people will say this was not a good example of planning.”

But the committee backed planning officers’ recommendations that, though the scheme would increase traffic, it would also bring “significant benefits to the town centre.

Developer Cathedral Group’s chief executive Richard Upton said: “Eltham town centre has been sorely in need of investment for some time.

“We’ve been working hard on the Grove as we recognize the importance of this site to the long term health of the town centre.”

He said: “The scheme will bring 300 jobs directly to Eltham town centre in businesses based in the scheme - in the supermarket, the Travelodge hotel, the cafe and in the businesses that will service the flats. A further 50 jobs will be created in businesses serving those in our scheme.”

Work is expected to start in November.