Councillors voted against a ban on high rise buildings in Harrow’s suburbs, despite claims the borough is at risk of being “carpet bombed by ugly tower blocks”.

Harrow Council rejected a motion proposed by the borough’s Conservative Group at a full council meeting yesterday (Thursday, February 25), which sought to limit buildings in suburban areas to six storeys.

The motion, proposed by Harrow Conservatives’ planning spokesman Cllr Marilyn Ashton (Con, Stanmore Park), called for the introduction of a supplementary planning document (SPD) that would give the council “some clout” to refuse such applications.

“We are ruining our borough brick by brick and we need to do something quickly and efficiently,” she said.

“We’ve been given a chance to draw a line in the sand – for sites that are coming up for development, we can legitimately say no and win an appeal. This is critical.

“It is completely unacceptable to leave ourselves at the mercy of developers, thereby risking destroying the character of Harrow which, if left unchecked, will be ruined by inappropriate developments.”

She was supported by Cllr Stephen Greek (Con, Harrow Weald), who suggested massive buildings are at risk of irreparably “blighting Harrow’s landscape”.

“If we don’t do something about this, we will reach a tipping point where large parts of our borough could be carpet bombed by unwanted and ugly tower blocks against the wishes or needs of our local residents,” he said.

“[This motion] allows us to take control and responsibility back into the council’s hands – where it should be – on behalf of the residents we serve, where we can protect the character and quality of life of our borough whilst giving certainty to developers.”

However, Labour members of the council described the proposed motion as “flawed” and said a different approach was required to address the subject of tall buildings.

Cllr Sachin Shah (Lab, Queensbury) argued this was “the wrong time” to discuss how to manage such developments and urged the council to wait.

He said: “There is absolutely a debate that needs to be had about where tall buildings are and how tall they are.

“The problem with the motion is that it puts this in the wrong place – the debate about where tall buildings go and how we meet our housing targets should be in a local plan review, which we are due very soon.”

The motion was ultimately defeated, with the Conservative Group, which was unanimously in favour, outvoted by the Labour majority, which was against, though Cllr James Lee (Lab, Edgware) chose to abstain.