A new theatre on the Greenwich Peninsula has attracted complaints about noise – before its stages and auditoriums have even been built.
Councillors are due to make a decision on whether the Troubadour Greenwich Peninsula can go ahead at a meeting next week. Planning officers have recommended approving the scheme.
Branded “London’s boldest new theatre”, the temporary venue, which will occupy land next to the cable car currently used as a coach park and site offices for the Silvertown Tunnel project, will feature twin 1,500-seat auditoriums and is predicted to generate 65 jobs once open. It is due to occupy the site for ten years.
Troubadour already operates a theatre in the old X Factor TV studio in Wembley, where Starlight Express is playing, and recently opened a venue at Canary Wharf, with a stage version of The Hunger Games.
Greenwich Council has received eight objections to the application for the peninsula, raising worries about noise from the venue and crowds attending shows, as well as lighting.
At least one objection compared the proposed theatre, which would be open until 1am at weekends, with the Ministry of Sound nightclub at the Elephant & Castle, as well as the abandoned MSG Sphere plan for Stratford.
The nearest homes to the proposed theatre are 80 metres away in a riverside tower at Cutter Lane, where flats are on the market for up to £2 million.
Greenwich’s planning officers said that noise assessments found the most affected areas for noise were plots that had not been developed yet. For other areas, they did not breach noise limits and a condition would be put in place to limit noise from the venue, while “pedestrian noise is not considered likely to significantly impact on this area”.
Comparisons with the Ministry of Sound were dismissed by the planners, who said the nightclub had a 5am licence and was just 30 metres from its nearest neighbours; while the MSG Sphere “was proposed to be covered in LED panels and would stand almost 100m high and 120m wide”, while the Troubadour would be just 24.8 metres high and would be designed to keep light pollution down.
“It can be concluded that the planning applications for the Ministry of Sound and the Sphere cannot be reasonably compared to the theatre as proposed,” Greenwich planners said.
The hours of operation would be similar to venues inside the O2, they added.
The site of the theatre is earmarked for redevelopment in the long term by the peninsula’s major landowner, Knight Dragon, but in the meantime, the space is to be given to Troubadour to help turn the area into a “world-class destination for the arts”.
Greenwich councillors are due to make a decision on the theatre next Tuesday. Elsewhere on the peninsula, plans for a 20-story tower opposite Ikea are also due to be decided at the same meeting.
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