Southwark Lib Dems Call for Review After Shocking Play Spaces Warnings

The Southwark Liberal Democrats called on Thursday for the council to review whether any developers have failed to provide promised play spaces in the past ten years.

This follows on from news that landlords warned off children living in social housing, in a multimillion-pound London development, from playing in shared spaces on the site.

The Guardian reported that there was no allocated play space for children on the One Tower Bridge site, which has social and private housing.

Berkeley Homes developed the property and Southwark Council, which owns the land, is investigating whether it failed to provide play space promised in its original planning permission.

Commenting, Cllr Victor Chamberlain, Southwark Liberal Democrat Group Leader said:

“It would surprise nobody if Southwark Council’s investigation confirms that Labour has let developers get away with not fulfilling their promises again. It’s not enough for the council to look into this one case of lack of play space and it should, instead, be pro-actively reviewing whether other sites on Southwark land have had similar issues in the past ten years.

“We are incredibly concerned about how unsuitable our borough is becoming for families. We have a school places crisis partly due to expensive housing, which Labour could improve if it demanded at least 50% genuinely affordable homes from developers.”