Residents in Woolwich’s Royal Arsenal are officially discouraged from objecting to planning applications put forward by Berkeley Homes that could affect their homes, the developer has admitted at a council planning meeting.
The revelation came as the final details of the last stage of the Arsenal development – on the site of the temporary Maribor Park – was approved by Greenwich councillors.
Outline plans for the new blocks at the Ropeyard – including the loss of the park – were approved more than a decade ago.
A new linear park running through to the Thames would be created along with seven blocks of up to 18 storeys, containing 663 homes along with retail outlets and offices. A temporary car park and the current Berkeley site office on Beresford Street would be removed to make way for the new park.
Some 90 homes would be available for people on the council’s waiting list, with an additional 25 at Berkeley’s Kidbrooke Village development. There would be 101 homes for shared ownership and 90 sold at a discount.
Tuesday night’s meeting was to confirm the design and some alterations to the original plans, including making the blocks slightly taller so changes could be made to fit new fire regulations. There were 110 objections with three submissions in favour.
Michael Doe, the secretary of the 519-member Royal Arsenal residents’ association, objected to the plans, saying Berkeley “already exercises far too much unaccountable power over the Royal Arsenal”.
“This is a private company which ignores existing residents and delivers services and utilities in ways which deliberately prevents residents having any say,” he said.
Doe said there had been a lack of community consultation on the scheme and objected to the loss of the old Maribor Park after another green space, by the Thames, had previously been built on. “This narrow strip of land, at some point in the future, is a pitiful compensation for what we have lost,” he said.
Paul Prichard, Berkeley’s development director, denied that Doe been ignored and insisted his group had been listened to in the consultation, adding that the company was keen to work with residents.
But one of the councillors on the planning board, Labour’s David Gardner, stuck with the theme, contrasting the situation with the Millennium Village in his Greenwich Peninsula ward, which has a resident-run management company.
Prichard said he “didn’t mean to be dismissive” of Doe’s concerns, but Gary Dillon, the planning board chair, added what he called a “cheeky question” after, saying the issue had been raised at previous meetings.
“Is there a gagging order within your occupancy agreements that prohibits residents from commenting or objecting to applications?,” he said.
“Residents’ voices can be heard and made at consultation,” Prichard said. “There are controls within their residential leases that do ask that residents don’t make formal objections to our planning applications.”
“I’ve never heard of that before – that’s remarkable,” Gardner said. “That that actually is an attack on democracy. Would you consider not putting that stipulation into any future leases in this new application? It’s an attack on free speech, which is a basic human right, surely?”
“We don’t ever enforce that,” Prichard replied. “It has been in our leases for a number of years, but we would never enforce that and we believe in the right to free speech.”
Dillion resumed the questioning: “As Councillor Gardner said, is that something that could possibly be removed from future leases?”
“I’d have to take that to Berkeley Group legal,” Prichard said. “But potentially.”
The scheme would be the last part of the project to transform the former munitions factory into housing, with the development extending from the site of the former Woolwich power station across to the edge of Thamesmead and including the Elizabeth Line station at its centre. Berkeley has been involved in the project since 2000, six years after the last parts of the Royal Arsenal finally closed.
Other major schemes are in the pipeline for the area around Beresford Street, including a plan to turn the old Riverside House council offices into student housing and a hotel, and more student-housing along with co-living units at Macbean Street.
Work is also under way on a 14-storey student block at the old Woolwich Catholic Club site, at the edge of the Arsenal, with 298 rooms, with plans submitted two months ago to add another 120 rooms in a 12-storey extension.
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