FURIOUS residents are demanding that the head of Ealing Council resign after the Mayor's decision last week.

Protest group Save Our Southall has sent an open letter to council leader Jason Stacey, accusing him of letting down local people.

In the letter, SOS secretary Taranjit Chana said: "Southall will face a disastrous development and the developers will probably make tens or millions of pound in profits at the expense of the community. By allowing this to take place you and your administration have openly destroyed the local democratic process, allowed a private company to do what it wants with our town and betrayed our community."

"There can be no excuse for this breach of local democracy. Since your administration has blatantly ignored the democratic process that you are charged with upholding, you and your administration should resign.

"The health and welfare of local people will now suffer as a consequence of this cheating of the community."

In a statement Mr Stacey said: "The Mayor has effectively overridden the concerns of Ealing and Hillingdon councils and the views of many within Southall. This is not local democracy and we are considering what options are now open to us. Ealing Council’s Planning Committee turned down the application primarily on transport grounds.

"It is difficult to see how these concerns have been mitigated by simply reducing the number of homes being built by 1,000 until the bridge on South Road is widened. Why is it that the traffic from 2,500 homes is acceptable as opposed to 3,500?"