Waiting for Sadiq “Godot” Khan

IT’S JUST OVER A YEAR since residents on the Isle of Dogs asked John Biggs to invite Sadiq Khan down to the area to discuss local planning policy. Like the characters in Samuel Beckett’s play, they are still “waiting for Godot”.

It all began when residents held a public meeting to discuss local planning policy with Mayor John Biggs (and Council and GLA officials). The first meeting, at Jack Dash House, was so full that people had to be turned away. An overspill meeting was held a few days later, at George Green School.

As residents explained that the Island was full, its creaking infrastructure failing to cope with the over-development, Biggs explained that his hands were tied.

He does not deal with ordinary planning applications, which go to a Planning Committee of Councillors – who act in accordance with local planning guidelines. (Who sets the planning guidelines? The Mayor and the Councillors do – unless London Mayor Sadiq Khan over-rules them.)

He does not deal with the biggest planning applications, which are determined by Sadiq Khan direct.

Residents sympathised with Mayor Biggs and his tied hands and suggested that, when his hands were free, he should invite Mayor Khan to come and meet the residents – to help him gauge the strength of feeling locally.

Residents are still waiting to meet Khan in person – but a picture of him shaking hands with John Biggs is starting to pop through letterboxes. It’s on the front page of the Mayor John Biggs Party (sometimes known as the Labour Party) election leaflet.

Has Khan been able to sneak into Tower Hamlets for a photo-call with the Mayor, but avoided those Island residents who are so keen to see him?  No: the photo has been recycled. It was originally taken when the London Mayor popped down to help Mayor Biggs open the Watts Grove development of Council housing.

That’s the housing development commissioned by Cllr Rabina Khan, then Cabinet Member for Housing in Mayor Lutfur Rahman’s Administration. Given that they had done so much to get the development underway, they received very little credit from these two dignitaries who came to open it.

So Island residents need not worry that Sadiq Khan has looked in to the borough without coming over to say hi. Nor has he been to Bow – where residents are up in arms over a road bridge that the London Mayor agreed to build, to turn the hitherto peaceful Fish Island in Bow into a through-traffic zone.

Keep on waiting, Islanders!

•Read more about it:
John Biggs: investing in water, not children!
Biggs refuses to bow to public pressure on nurseries

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