ground-breaking Land commission aims to free up space for buiLding in southwark

“Yet again Labour are trying to mark their own homework. For Labour to appoint their own parliamentary candidate to this important position is a direct conflict of interest,” he said.

He added: “Southwark Labour must not be allowed to use public money and platform to raise the profile of a local prospective parliamentarian and gain undue advantage.”

Cllr McAsh said: “Miatta is eminently qualified for the role. She wasn’t appointed on the basis of her political affiliations… in fact I don’t know what most people’s political affiliations are.

“I can imagine if there was an election coming up and if it was a contentious constituency it might be more contentious but Miatta is clearly very qualified.”

Dr Fanhbulleh said: “I have worked on housing and land issues at national and local level for over fifteen years.

I agreed to chair the Southwark Land Commission because I wanted to bring this experience to this important piece of work. And I am determined that as a commission we engage with all parts of the community and work on a crossparty basis.”

There have also been criticisms that environmental groups are underrepresented on the commission’s board, which Extinction Rebellion (XR) Southwark said was a “concern”.

An XR Southwark spokesperson said: “We also noticed with concern that there were no community groups on the land commission from an environment and climate perspective.

“The design of urban spaces is one of the most effective tools we have in both adapting to and mitigating climate change,” they added.

Cllr McAsh said it was “in part a fair criticism” and that the commission was looking at bringing in a board member with more environmental expertise. The commission is the second of its kind in the UK after a similar initiative was launched by Liverpool Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram in 2020.

Southwark Council has appointed planning consultants PRD, We Made That and PMV Planning to help oversee it. The group will have its first meeting later this month to decide the scope of the project. By July, it hopes to make a set of recommendations to Southwark Council.