Continue to wrestle with final rewrite of edits on my chapter for forthcoming Centre Forum book Britain after Blair. It’s worse than having a baby!

Today’s emergency is the granting of planning permission to a backland site in Crouch End. Local residents, local Cllr Dave Winskill, myself and others have long campaigned against this sort of cramming development that does nothing to add to our social housing stock and everything to add to developers’ profits. However, I get a desperate email from the residents’ group to telephone them to try and get the permission certificate stopped on the basis of the proper procedures not being followed when the Planning Committee considered the application.

The residents , angry at the conduct of the meeting, want me to get the Chief Executive to delay the Permission Certificate pending an inquiry into whether these transgressions have gone as far as to open Haringey Council up to judicial review. I suspect they have and that there are grounds for judicial review. I agree with the residents. To my mind it would simply be much better to refer the decision back to Planning Committee to consider properly under proper procedures before having to go through such a lengthy and probably costly process. I make my request to Dr Donovan (Haringey CE) who promises me she is looking into it and will get back to me.