We, the undersigned residents, community members, and supporters of sustainable planning, are writing to raise urgent concerns about the proposed 205-home development by Sigma Strategic Land on the STC Sports Club grounds in Eltham (SE9), a site designated as Metropolitan Open Land (MOL) and part of the South East London Green Chain.
This proposal is emblematic of a growing and deeply troubling trend: the erosion of London’s protected green spaces under the guise of addressing the housing crisis — a crisis that should not be solved at the expense of our long-term environmental health and community wellbeing.
The STC grounds are not surplus land. They are actively used for grassroots sports, youth development, women's football, and serve as a vital green buffer for local residents. MOL status, akin to Green Belt protection under the London Plan, was designed precisely to safeguard such spaces. Allowing this development would undermine the very policies intended to preserve London's diminishing natural environment.
Yet developers are now attempting to argue that this land "no longer qualifies" as MOL, despite no formal reclassification — a dangerous precedent for other green sites across the capital.
We are not opposing housing. We are opposing poorly located, poorly justified development that will:
Permanently destroy green space and biodiversity
Increase traffic congestion and strain on local services
Remove a hub for community sports and social activity
Cause years of disruption with noise, dust, and heavy machinery
Deliver minimal benefits to the local area, with only £205,000 in direct investment proposed for SE9
Moreover, the consultation process has been promotional, not participatory. The so-called community engagement is limited and lacks transparency, with feedback designed to highlight "benefits" rather than meaningfully listen to local voices. This is not how democratic planning should operate.
Building on Green Belt or MOL land is not a solution to the housing crisis — it is a distraction. Numerous studies, including those by the CPRE (Campaign to Protect Rural England) and the London Assembly, have shown that there is sufficient brownfield land in Greater London to accommodate hundreds of thousands of homes. Releasing protected land not only fails to target genuine need — such as affordable and social housing — it also encourages unsustainable sprawl, car dependence, and environmental degradation.
Furthermore, housing built on protected green land often commands premium prices, far out of reach for those most in need. The result? High-end development, marketed as a fix to the housing crisis, that does little to address its root causes while permanently eroding public green assets.