Urgent! Please write to Secretary of State Eric Pickles, asking for the decision to be called in for a public inquiry.
Our suggested text is:
‘Dear Eric Pickles,
The City of London Corporation Planning and Transport Committee has voted 19 to 2 to give planning permission to a highly controversial proposal from Henderson Global Investors to gut the handsome market halls of the Smithfield General Market and replace them with office blocks, and construct an even taller office block behind the façade of the Red House.
This application concerns an important London landmark. It is contested by substantial parties on both sides and it is clearly a matter of national significance.
The City of London owns the freehold: there is a conflict of interest in them granting planning permission on the site.
The case raises many important issues that can only be properly examined, tested and weighed in the open forum of a public inquiry.
We ask you as Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government to use your powers to ask for this decision to be called in.
Yours, etc'
Please send to Eric Pickles ([email protected]), copying in the Minister for Planning Nick Boles ([email protected]). Alternatively, please send your letters to The Department of Communities and Local Government, Eland House, Bressenden Place, London, SW1E 5DU
