Tory targets home of London Mayor

10:48am Wednesday 18th April 2007

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A CONSERVATIVE councillor hoping to be the next London Mayor has submitted a planning application to replace Ken Livingstone's house and garden with flats.

Bromley Councillor Simon Fawthrop submitted the application to highlight issues with Ken Livingstone's planning policy.

He hopes to be the Conservative candidate for the mayoral elections in May next year.

Under current planning law, an applicant does not have to own a property to be able to apply for planning permission on the site.

Councillor Fawthrop said: "I wanted to highlight the fact so many back gardens across London are vulnerable and not just Mr Livingstone's."

He added: "They are the lungs of the city, and at the moment you can make an application and then approach the owner to buy the land.

"It is our duty to protect them.

"One of the key components of my bid for the Conservative party nomination is to scrap the London Plan and defer to boroughs' own local development plans."

The application is for a block of flats at the Mayor's private home address in London and was submitted to Brent Council.

Under the plans, Mayor Livingstone's terrace house and back garden would be transformed into a four-storey block of flats.

However, Councillor Fawthrop, who represents the Petts Wood and Knoll ward, is not expecting the application to succeed.

He said: "If it did succeed, Mr Livingstone stands to make a lot of money if he sold his house."

A spokesman for the Mayor's office said: "The claim the London Plan supports building on back gardens is silly and shows the low level criticisms of policies to plan for London's future have reached."