While it is accepted that the Springfield Hospital site is in need of improvements to enable the trust to provide better mental health facilities the application has flaws. The proposed development was unanimously rejected by Wandsworth Council's Planning Applications Committee, due to the scale of the plans, the loss of Metropolitan Open Land and the impact on already congested local transport networks.

This was the second application to develop the site, both rejected by Wandsworth Council. Sadly, rather than listen to local residents’ concerns and come up with a scheme which we could all support, Springfield Hospital appealed Wandsworth’s decision to an independent planning inspector who held a series of public meetings in Autumn 2011 prior to making her decision, to hear oral evidence before considering the written evidence and planning laws.

"I would like to thank everyone who put in an objection, who attended the public meetings and who helped us fight the appeal. We could not have done more to press our case. Thanks to the continued efforts of so many local people, your local councillors and others, we have reduced the scale of the proposal by 30%, compared to the first planning application." commented Richard Tracey. "The planning inspector’s decision now means we must work again to try and mitigate some of the impacts of the development".