Plans for up to 500 homes next to the Thames Barrier have been approved by Greenwich councillors – but they raised worries about noise and pollution before doing so.
The blocks on Herringham Road would be in between the flood barrier operations centre and an asphalt plant operated by Tarmac, which is protected by laws to safeguard industrial wharves.
Five blocks are proposed of between seven and ten storeys at Flint Glass Wharf, currently home to a go-kart track, laser-tag centre, waste facility and two churches. The site was previously the Johnsen & Jorgensen glassworks, which closed in 1981.
Work on two blocks, with 142 flats, could start next year, according to Greenwich Council planning documents. Outline approval was given for the other three blocks, and the developer, Komoto, will have to return to the council to get detailed approval for these at a later date.
The approval will be a boost for the troubled Charlton Riverside regeneration programme. Both the council and City Hall want to see 8,000 homes in the area in the coming years, but just a small number have been built so far, with a lack of infrastructure and the lack of a single large landowner holding up progress.
Earlier this month, it emerged that the Faraday Works project for 359 flats on the Woolwich side of the barrier had been shelved.
Komoto will also have to pay towards two new through roads for buses and local traffic that would run through the riverside area, and towards new bus services.
Some 16.2 per cent of homes in the first two blocks would be for people on the council’s waiting list, with a further 10.6 per cent for shared ownership. There would be a greater proportion of private homes in the other three blocks, with exact numbers to be decided, but councillors imposed a condition that instead of shared ownership homes, the developer should have homes for discounted rent.
The plans were first submitted to Greenwich Council seven years ago and have been revised three times since then. In the meantime, Hyde housing association has won permission for 1,200 homes, including a block on the other side of the Tarmac plant from Komoto’s scheme – despite objections from Tarmac. However, little progress has been made there.
Greenwich Peninsula councillor David Gardner said there were “significant problems” in his ward at homes that had been built next to an industrial site at Angerstein Wharf, but Jonathan Hartnett, a council planning officer, said that while the Environment Agency, Port of London Authority and Tarmac had raised objections, these had now mostly been resolved and the objections had been withdrawn.
Some residents’ groups in Charlton had objected, but none attended the meeting and there were no representations from the public.
Speaking for Komoto, Tom Lawson, of the planning consultancy Rolfe Judd, said that the scheme was similar to one it had worked on at Goodluck Hope, a development on the opposite side of the Thames to the O2, which used a “hard barrier” – with some windows sealed – to shield residents from industrial land.
“They get no complaints and we have followed a similar principle to that,” he said. While some flats would have mechanical ventilation, all would have at least one window that could open, he added.
When planning chair Gary Dillon said he could hear the Tarmac wharf from his home “halfway up Charlton Lane”, Lawson said the noise actually came from Angerstein Wharf.
“We are very confident that we have robustly interrogated all noise sources here,” he said. “The level of monitoring that’s been done on site has been substantial over almost ten years, and I think that shows through lack of objection from some of these key stakeholders.”
Both Dillon and Lawson suggested that issues with a flue at the Tarmac site was holding up the Hyde development, but Lawson insisted there were detailed conditions in the application to ensure that air quality would not be an issue for Flint Glass Wharf residents.
Lawson told the councillors that two major developers were interested in acquiring the site and that Komoto had “no interest in landbanking”.
The development was unanimously approved by the planning board. Gardner said he was “not entirely satisfied” with the answers given for the developer, but added: “I am minded that we do this – it’s making a start, it’s putting a stake in the ground in terms of Charlton Riverside.
“I think it could be a catalyst for further the development that we want to see hopefully with more affordable housing and more family housing, as well as hopefully some houses as well as flats.”
The developer will to pay £1.4 million towards a bus service and £1.5 million towards new roads. These sums were set in 2020 and are index-linked, so the totals will be higher when the money is handed over.
A reduced contribution of £414,000 for local NHS services was agreed by Greenwich Council officers in “consideration of scheme viability and affordable housing delivery” – the going rate would normally have been £906,000. The council’s Greenwich Local Labour and Business agency will collect £517,000, while £445,000 will go towards carbon offsetting.
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