Stand-off over ‘affordable’ housing halts plans for Woolwich flats

A row over a lack of “affordable” housing has led to Greenwich councillors throwing out plans for 48 all-private flats near Woolwich Dockyard station.

Lakeview Estates hopes to demolish the Albion pub on Woolwich Church Street, a remnant of the Morris Walk Estate, and replace it with a 13-storey block. 

Greenwich planners recommended the plan be rejected, in part, because of the effect the new block would have on the Grade II-listed chimney opposite, which is a surviving feature of Woolwich’s royal dockyard and in a recently-designated conservation area.

But most of the argument at last week’s planning board meeting focused on the lack of any “affordable” homes in the development – leaving open the possibility that including homes targeted at those on the housing waiting list could overcome the heritage concerns. 

Planners had judged that the flats would cause “less than substantial harm” – something that can often be overcome by providing a public benefit such as discounted housing. 

New council homes are already being built on the site behind in blocks of similar heights, replacing the old Morris Walk towers. A 13-storey block with 35 per cent “affordable” housing had previously been approved on the site, although before the conservation area was approved in 2021. 

Lakeview insists that it now cannot afford any “affordable” housing, and offered Greenwich £150,000 towards building housing elsewhere. But the council’s officers rejected this – and David Gardner, one of the planning board members, dismissed it as being worth “half a home”.

“It just seems very token to me,” he said. “I don’t know whether this is typical. I’ve heard of offsetting before, but normally it’s a more substantial figure than that.”

“I think that’s probably about right,” Beth Lancaster, a senior planning officer, replied. 

Mark Smith, the architect, said that the block would help the council meet its housing targets, providing “spacious new homes that are perfect for young professionals and the larger flats work well for families”.

The developer’s consultant, John Muldoon – who is also a Labour councillor in Lewisham – said there were 51 letters of support while Greenwich had 27,000 households on its waiting list. “The common theme is that people want more houses,” he said. 

“You already heard about the numbers of people on your waiting list. It’s possibly trite, but to say the only way to build more homes, is to build more homes. This proposal provides more homes. Also  offers a contribution of £150,000 in order to support affordable homes.”

The developer has also brought a barrister with them to say that the council’s planning staff had agreed that “affordable” housing was not a viable prospect for the site.

But Gary Dillon, the chair of planning, criticised the plans. “I’ve sat on this planning board for six years,” he said. “We’ve seen God knows how many applications come before us.

“I guarantee you, there’ll probably be a developer that can make a viable development on that site because we are seeing similar sites with viable developments, and they’ve got exactly the same build costs. They’ve got exactly the same labour costs. 

“Maybe your application needs revising because we are desperate for affordable homes. If you actually drive around, you’ll see that there’s actually not too much of a shortage [of homes] for market value. Most of those [developers] that have got market-value properties are now looking to rent them out or do deals with the council because there is no end buyer because of the finance situation or the mortgage situation.”

“Zero is a big problem for us,” Dillon said.

David Gardner, a Greenwich Peninsula councillor, referred to the 2017 plan and said: “We didn’t have the conservation area and it was very clear that there the public benefit outweighed the loss in heritage terms. Here the public benefit to me is far less clear.”

Note: We refer to “affordable” housing in inverted commas because the legal definition of this phrase differs from the dictionary definition.