Plans for 1,200 new homes at Springfield Hospital were rejected in a unanimous vote at Wandsworth Town Hall last night.

The planning applications committee voted nine to nil against the development after receiving a record number of objections.

Over 1,000 residents wrote letters slamming the plans, and several thousand signed five petitions.

Thom Reilly, a Tooting resident who led the campaign, said afterwards: “It’s a real vindication of local activism.

“The local community has been very empowered by this. If they don’t listen to us we will do this all over again.”

During the meeting, councillors criticised the scale of the development, the lack of adequate transport measures and the heights of the buildings.

They were also unsatisfied with environmental issues such as tree loss and carbon emissions, and questioned how new commercial blocks would impact on Tooting town centre.

Tony Belton, planning councillor, said: “Quite clearly this has gone too far and quite clearly there is insufficient information in terms of the application.

“I don’t think we can get in the situation where there won’t be a sizable development here, and what we need to do is help the trust to make sure it’s as acceptable as we can make it.”

Kathy Tracey, councillor for Wandsworth Common, said the plans had already cost the NHS over a million pounds and labelled them an “enormous waste of money”.

The developers at South West London and St George’s Mental Health Trust now have the right to appeal, but it is not yet known whether this is their plan.

Speaking after the meeting, Andrew Simpson, director of planning at the trust, said: “Now we will go away and think very hard about what people have said to us. We will listen very hard and decide what our next step is.”

The trust says the development is necessary to finance new mental health facilities, but residents, led by Tooting MP Sadiq Khan and his Conservative opposition Mark Clarke fear it will overcrowd the area.

Mr Khan said: “They need to tear up these plans and throw them in the bin. Sack the architects, bring in a new team. There’s a new chief executive with a new broom, get rid of all the rubbish.”

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