It appears that Heather Cheesbrough, Croydon Council’s former “director of planning and sustainable regeneration”, has been busy trying to rewrite history since leaving her £130,000-plus job earlier this month.
New LinkedIn profile: but same old half-truths from former planning chief Heather Cheesbrough
An internal council memo gave the reason for Cheesbrough’s departure as the desire to take a “career break”.
It’s not clear how long the career break was supposed to last, but since she stepped out of the exit door of Fisher’s Folly for a final time, 57-year-old Cheesbrough has used social media to try to polish the turd that is her record of nine disastrous years in charge of planning in Croydon.
Cheesbrough joined Croydon Council in 2016, as the first and most significant appointment made by Jo Negrini after she had become chief executive and was seeking her own replacement at director level.
Cheesbrough’s somewhat high-handed approach towards the borough’s residents and councillors saw her swiftly become a figure of public distrust and anger second only to “Negreedy” herself.
Cheesbrough’s cover-up of an undeclared relationship between a senior member of her planning staff and private developers (usually a sackable offence), her secret promotion within her department of someone who had been working for a developer, and years of highly dubious reports by her staff sanctioning questionable, sometimes even unlawful, overdevelopment around the borough, saw Cheesbrough come to embody residents’ frustrations with their council.
Cheesbrough championed the unpopular planning policy, SPD2, which helped to push through block after block of flats in a relentless overdevelopment of suburban areas. Mayor Jason Perry scrapped that planning policy.
During her time in charge, using her online profile on LinkedIn, Cheesbrough also made false claims about her membership of a professional body. She still describes her profession as “landscape architect”. With Cheesbrough, old habits, it would seem, die hard.
This is how the head of the newly formed Heather Cheesbrough Associates is describing herself on LinkedIn now…
“After over nine eventful years at Croydon, it’s time to step away, take a breather and consider new opportunities and avenues to explore,” Cheesbrough writes.
“During my time at Croydon, I am proud to have played a part in bringing forward a wealth of new tall buildings and development to transform the town centre, attracting a new urban population and generating vibrancy and creativity to shape Croydon’s next chapter. Key highlights include Greystar’s tallest modular build in Europe, the iconic Box Park.”
It is actually Boxpark, and whatever it might be, it ain’t iconic.
Planning blight: the town centre has been left to decay by 15 years of development delay, and poor decisions by the council’s planners
Cheesbrough’s laying claim to “transforming” Croydon town centre, beyond creating a wind tunnel down George Street that regularly knocks pedestrians off their feet and has ripped the glass awning from the front of East Croydon Station, might be judged to be a bit rich by anyone who has seen the way the town centre has been devastated by a decade on stubborn non-development by Westfield.
Cheesbrough does not dodge the W word, though… “Throughout this time, I worked closely with Westfield, Hammerson and latterly Unibail Rodamco Westfield (URW) to navigate the complexities of shopping centre regeneration to prepare new consents and a masterplan framework to adapt to rapidly changing retail and lifestyle behaviours.”
“Worked closely”, she claims. And with what result?
“… In the wider borough, I worked on estate regeneration and the redevelopment of over 30 large and small sites by Brick by Brick delivering over 50% affordable housing with award-winning new homes.”
Yes, that’s Cheesbrough bigging up the company that bankrupted the borough. Cheesbrough makes a false claim about Brick by Brick delivering “over 50% affordable housing” (it did not), while forgetting to mention that many of the people now living in BxB-built properties are finding a worrying number of faults and flaws with their homes.
“As a football philistine, it was a mind-expanding journey to deliver two new stadium consents for Crystal Palace Football Club…”. It was actually planning consent for a single stand, rather than a whole stadium (you’d expect a planning chief to recognise the difference), and all for a stand which some are wondering whether it will now ever be built.
“While in Purley, newly consented sport facilities underpin regeneration proposals to deliver a replacement leisure centre and swimming pool within extensive public realm.” This is a development that her own officer’s planning report said would cause “harm” to the local community.
Those who have suffered at the brusque carelessness of Cheesbrough’s planning department in Croydon might be surprised to see her claim, “it has been an absolute pleasure to grapple with… the importance of seeking fair and equitable outcomes for both individuals and wider society”.
Further on in her desperately deranged plea for work, Cheesbrough writes: “Integral to my role has also been improving resident’s [sic] life chances.” Maybe it was just a single resident?
She even tries to claim some credit for the council’s adult education service getting a “Good” rating from Ofsted.
Planning approvals: the council’s own figures seem to suggest that Cheesbrough’s claims on workload have been exaggerated
Cheesbrough’s dodgy CV includes other errors and exaggerations…
She calls the deeply unpopular SPG “trail-blazing suburban intensification”, although she does not mention that that policy has been binned.
She then claims credit for “the transformation of a busy planning service dealing with over 5000 applications a year”.
Croydon Council’s own official figures for housing approvals, going back 20 years, suggest that it might be a bit of a stretch to claim that its planning department has ever handled 5,000 applications in one year. Approvals got to a peak of around 3,800 in 2014-2015 – before Cheesbrough arrived in Croydon. By 2023-2024, the latest full year for which figures are available, the number of approvals handled by Cheesbrough’s planning department was fewer than 500.
In 2022, the council’s planning department under Cheesbrough had been assessed as being “all but broken”, according to a Planning Advisory Service report. That report found “a hollowed-out department”, which was unable to recruit “good people” because of the council’s “toxic reputation”.
If Croydon, and its planning department, has a toxic reputation, it is one which Cheesbrough played an important part in creating.
Cheesbrough wraps up her exercise in self-praise and sycophancy by claiming to have transformed Croydon’s building control service, and she concludes: “Throughout all the nine years, none of this would have been possible without my wonderful and professional colleagues, who were a joy to work with and made every day one of learning, enrichment and development.”
Well, Cheesbrough has certainly been personally enriched, and there has certainly been plenty of bad developments. So she was correct, at least, in that regard.
Read more: How the council’s planners help developers dodge conditions
Read more: Suspicions over secrecy surrounding Slominski’s return
Read more: Council in cover-up over planning’s husband and wife act
Read more: Council delays and lack of enforcement cause residents misery
Read more: Director of planning’s bogus claim over Institute membership
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