Councillors on planning committee approve controversial Tottenham Hotspurs Football Academy.


 

Councillors on Enfields Planning Committee approved Tottenham Hotspur Football Clubs application to build a football academy the size of 11 football pitches on Enfields Green Belt at a packed marathon meeting on Monday 12 November 2007.

n

Tottenham Hotspurs rejected two alternative brownfield sites on the East of the Borough in favour of a Green Belt site.

n

Cllr Matthew Laban said: Whilst there are clearly community benefits to the Spurs academy, I would much rather have seen this scheme used to regenerate one of the more deprived parts of the borough.n We should be defending our Green Belt because it is under threat like never before from the present government and the Mayor of London."

n

Cllr Laban added: "The fact that every single Labour Councillor on the Planning Committee voted for this application shows that they can not be trusted with the defence of the borough's Green Belt."

n

Cllr Henry Lamprecht said: My colleagues that serve on this committee failed the residents of Enfield on two accounts with this decision. Firstly they failed to protect our valuable Green Belt land and secondly by giving them permission to build on an isolated site in the Green belt they missed a golden opportunity to secure redevelopment and investment in some of the most deprived areas of our Borough which ironically is predominantly represented by Labour Councillors who voted unanimously in favour of this application.

n

He continued with: The ideals of a sustainable Olympic Games in the Lower Lea Valley that will leave a lasting legacy in one of the most deprived areas of Britain simply was ignored in this application that could have transformed the Upper Lea Valley. It is a missed opportunity that could have replicated the key objectives of the Olympic Games that would have changed the Upper Lea Valley for generations to come.

nn

The key objectives of the 2012 Olympic Games are summarised as follows on the official Website of the Games:

n

We want London 2012 to be the first sustainable Games, setting new standards for major events.

n

Being sustainable means thinking about peoples current and long-term needs, improving quality of life and ensuring a healthy and thriving natural environment.

Since the London 2012 bid, we have been working towards an idea, developed with BioRegional and WWF, of a One Planet Olympics.


This idea forms the basis of our plans for sustainable development in the UK and, more broadly, the way in which we can use the Games as a platform to highlight global issues such as climate change.