Cllr Barry Kendler’s letter confirmed that he and I have fundamentally differing views on what Harrow council’s planning committee is actually for.

My view is the committee should support the delivery of high-quality developments and housing for Harrow, scrutinising plans that do not meet that standard and questioning officer recommendations.

This was the case with Sudbury Hill, where major traffic concerns were present.

By contrast, Cllr Kendler seems to think the role of the committee is to rubber-stamp pretty much any application put in front of it – just because Harrow has housing targets to meet.

Planning is there to serve the best interests of Harrow residents, and approving applications that could have a detrimental impact on those who live nearby is a failure of that responsibility.

Now Cllr. Kendler and his Labour colleagues have voted for and passed Sudbury Hill there can be no appeal, and only time will tell if the traffic mitigation Cllr Kendler boasts of will work.

As for his fear-sowing about costly appeals arising from applications being rejected on spurious grounds, the sad fact is that in the case of Sudbury Hill – and indeed other applications Labour have passed – there were legitimate and substantive reasons to refuse them.

It’s just that Labour’s councillors on planning either don’t know or don’t care about their responsibility to stand up for Harrow residents when casting their votes.

Cllr Marilyn Ashton

Cons/Stanmore Park ward

Harrow Council