‘Alien’ nine-storey block by Oxleas Wood rejected by planning inspector

A Greenwich Council spin-off company has lost its appeal against councillors’ refusal to allow a nine-storey block of flats next to Oxleas Wood – with a planning inspector branding it an “alien, urban feature” that would spoil local views.

The borough’s planning board rejected the plans for 70 flats at Shepherds Leas, opposite Falconwood station, in June last year, despite an appeal from council leader Anthony Okereke for them to back the plans. An all-Labour panel threw the scheme out by five votes to two.

Rents would have been set at about 65 per cent of market value and the 70 flats would have been available to people on the council’s 28,000-strong housing waiting list. Residents would have to have lived in Greenwich borough for five years.

The plans were put before the planning board despite the council’s own tall buildings assessment suggesting that seven storeys would be an appropriate height for the site, an opinion the inspector said he agreed with. 

Revised plans for a seven-storey block were submitted earlier this year and the inspector’s comments will give both Meridian and the council leadership hope that they will be approved.

Meridian was set up by the council and while it was spun out of the town hall several years ago, its developments are still part of the council’s housing plans. Greenwich gave Meridian £8.1 million from right-to-buy receipts to get the Shepherds Leas project built.

Hundreds of residents objected or signed petitions against the Shepherds Lea scheme, complaining that the tower would be visible above trees from Oxleas Wood, a protected view out towards Kent.

Neighbouring Bexley Council also objected, as did Louie French, the Conservative MP for Old Bexley & Sidcup.

Kevin Savage, the planning inspector, agreed with the councillors’ criticisms about the height of the scheme after taking in views from Falconwood Field and Eltham Cemetery as well as Oxleas Wood. He said the proposed building “would contrast starkly with the surrounding character of the area”.

“The building, though well considered in its individual design, would be of a scale and massing that would bear little relation to its surroundings, being more suited in my view to a more intensively developed area,” he said.

After visiting the café at Oxleas Meadow, he concluded: “The wood serves to effectively screen the urban landscape beyond and create a high quality, natural pocket within this part of south-east London. This is enhanced by the absence of tall buildings surrounding the wood. The visibility of the proposed building above the treeline would introduce an alien, urban feature that would undermine the natural character of this view.”

But the inspector did not find that the development would cause parking issues – Bexley’s main complaint – or that neighbours would lose daylight or privacy. He also did not agree that wildlife would be harmed.

He added: “I find that the assessment of seven storeys being a maximum height for the site appropriately reflects the modest scale and function of the Falconwood area. 

“The proposed nine storeys would not be significantly different to seven, but for the reasons set out it would render the building more prominent in a number of views where its overall height and scale would fail to reflect the prevailing low level, suburban context.”

The decision to reject the scheme, which is on the borough border with Bexley, divided councillors in Greenwich’s ruling Labour group. Many believe that a development opposite a railway station would be an ideal opportunity to make a small dent in the borough’s housing waiting list.

But the cherished woodlands – which would have been obliterated by road building plans in the 1970s and 1980s – have always been a sensitive area for development.

The Shepherds Leas site, between the A2 and Rochester Way, is currently occupied by 17 homes originally owned by the Crown Estates, but which were later sold to Greenwich Council. Property guardians are currently living in the homes.

Meridian Home Start has been contacted for comment.

The full ruling can be found on the Planning Inspectorate website.