Labour Party HQ Planning Application Turned Down

Plan was to relocate constituency office outside W4 and turn building into flats

The Labour Party has had its application to convert its constituency offices on Chiswick High Road into flats turned down.

The party had applied for planning permission to convert the ground floor from office space to four self-contained studio flats.

According to the pending decisions list issued by Hounslow Council's planning department the application is to be refused even though there were no objections from local residents. This was because the studio flats would not have private amenity space, there was unacceptable access to one of the flats, there was a failure to demonstrate access to the retained offices at ground floor level and a failure to provide marketing evidence to support the loss of office space. This is necessary to show that there was insufficient demand at that location to support the site's continued use as offices.

However, it was noted that if marketing evidence was provided and amended plans were received with appropriate private amenity space for the proposed flats with adequate access the proposal would be recommended for approval under delegated powers.

Should approval be given then a source within the local Labour party has told us that they have agreed to investigate relocating their headquarters to a more central place in the constituency.

Membership has doubled in the local party in the run-up to the last General Election and during the leadership contest and total membership in Chiswick is estimated at around 400 at present.

March 4, 2016