Mayor defers Roman Road Bow Neighbourhood Forum decision yet again, flouting government guidance
The Roman Road Bow Neighbourhood Forum has been stuck applying for recognition since 2022 and has been delayed yet again due to the Mayor’s concerns about its diversity despite meeting requirements.
The Roman Road Bow Neighbourhood Forum (RRBNF) application to weigh in on local planning decisions has been delayed once again by the Council, potentially violating central government requirements on when a decision needs to be made.
Neighbourhood forums are community groups that help create guidelines for planning decisions in their local area – they need to be formally designated by their local government.
The RRBNF, which covers Bow West and Bow East, was officially designated in 2017 but needed to be formally re-designated in 2022 to continue weighing in on planning decisions.
The Forum had spent six years developing a Neighbourhood Plan, which was validated by the Council in 2021, underwent a public consultation in early 2022, and was voted in by public referendum in October 2022, but is now rendered powerless without the designation.
The plan includes guidelines for assessing upcoming development proposals, such as two pending applications for the development of Bow Wharf and the Texaco petrol station on Grove Road.
After a long delay, in 2023 Mayor Lutfur Rahman rejected the application for re-designation because the signatures did not reflect the ‘large Asian and Bangladeshi community in Tower Hamlets’.
There is no legal requirement for a neighbourhood forum to have members from specific ethnic backgrounds.
However after the initial rejection, the RRBNF followed the council’s request and re-submitted an application with a more diverse list of signatures, and a consultation period was started on August 28 2024.
The latest Cabinet report on the application said that the Forum met the necessary conditions and recommended that the Mayor approve it.
In addition, the Cabinet report said: ‘The Forum has made concerted efforts to widen their membership since the refusal of their previous application, and these efforts have been successful in attracting and wider range of members and changing their executive committee.’
According to government guidelines on neighbourhood planning the Council ‘must make a decision on applications for neighbourhood forum designations within 13 weeks of starting a consultation on the application.’ The final day of the 13 weeks was yesterday, November 28.
During yesterday’s Council meeting, Mayor Lutfur Rahman said he had made ‘a decision to defer,’ over concerns about the diversity of the management committee of the forum.
‘In this day and age we need to be an inclusive borough with inclusive forums,’ the Mayor said, ‘We’re not saying no to this, in principle we agree with this. But I just want to request officers to engage with the Forum, to have another look at the management committee.’
Stephen Halsey, the Council’s Chief Executive Officer, questioned in the same meeting whether a ‘decision to defer’ was a valid decision.
‘I just want to understand if a decision is a yes or no, as per the recommendations, or whether a decision to defer is a decision,’ Halsey said. ‘We just need to be clear from a legal perspective, this is not a moment for the Council to put itself at risk.’
Halsey was presumably referring to the recent Best Value Inspection of Tower Hamlets Council, which has seen envoys assigned from the central government to oversee the Mayor’s administration.
Mike Mitchell, the RRBNF’s interim chair said: ‘All of this [the diversity of the management committee] shouldn’t come into it because we meet the legal requirements.’
‘It is sad that the Lead Member and Mayor do not see neighbourhood forums as groups that can work in partnership with the Council and contribute to sustainable developments in the areas they serve. They don’t reach out to find out about our work but seem to perceive us as a threat. Our application for redesignation was submitted in April and the Council has had seven months to consider it.’
A Tower Hamlets Council spokesperson said: ‘Cabinet deferred the decision on the redesignation of the Roman Road Bow Neighbourhood Forum in order to better understand how concerns regarding a lack of Black, Asian and ethnic minority representation of the membership and management of the Forum have been addressed.
‘The decision has now been delegated to the Corporate Director Housing and Regeneration, in consultation with the Lead Member and Mayor, to determine the application.’
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