A decision on whether 20 houses and 25 flats should be built on the car park at Blackheath station has been deferred by Lewisham councillors, who said they wanted more information on its impact on the village and its farmers’ market.
A total of 1,202 objections to the development were received by Lewisham Council, while the actors Jude Law and Dominic Cooper – who both attended the nearby John Ball Primary School – were among public figures backing a high-profile campaign against the scheme. There were 30 comments in support.
Acorn Property Group wants to build a row of terraced houses and two blocks of flats, along with space for 40 pitches for Blackheath Farmers’ Market. Eight of the 45 new homes would be for people on Lewisham’s waiting list.
Labour’s candidate to be Lewisham’s elected mayor, Amanda de Ryk, backed the objectors who packed out Lewisham Town Hall on Tuesday evening.
Protesters gathered outside the entrance to the civic suite in Catford to shout “save our village”, holding placards including one saying “no parking = no customers”. Just 17 of the 158 parking spaces would remain if the scheme is built.
Reece Harris of Avison Young, a consultancy representing Acorn, said that the design of the scheme “draws on the prevailing character of the area, while the “new market square and landscaped public realm will replace a car-dominated environment with buildings and spaces that better reflect the vibrancy of Blackheath Village”.
De Ryk, who represents the area as a councillor, said the future of Blackheath Farmers’ Market would be put in jeopardy by the development – a sentiment rejected by Acorn and London Farmers Markets, which operates the market and has welcomed the proposal.
She said that credit card data showed Blackheath Village had struggled to recover after the pandemic compared with other high streets in the borough because of the effects of high rents charged by landlords, while in her 16 years as a councillor more large chains had moved in.
“For smaller businesses, anything that affects your trade is much more likely to push you under,” she said.
“There is a very strong feeling that the market is a key driver for trade in the village, and anything that affects the market is going to imperil trade for all of our businesses. Three thousand people in the village every weekend: it’s a really big economic force and I don’t think any of us that the way the market is laid out in this new site is optimal and will guarantee its future.”
The way stalls would be close to new residents’ front doors “feels like a problem waiting to happen”, De Ryk said. “How long will it be until the complaints start? Three thousand people walking past your front door, the noise, the clearing-up after the market – it feels to me that the market will very quickly be seen as a disturbance by the residents who will buy these houses.”
De Ryk also raised concerns about emergency access: when councillors were later told that up to eight stalls would need to be moved to allow a fire engine to exit the area, there was derision from the public gallery.
But Mark Handley, the director of London Farmers’ Markets, pointed out that residents had objected to the market when it moved to the station car park in the early 2000s.
“Network Rail tried to shut us down and the Olympics forced a move to the heath at short notice, but we survived those challenges,” he said. “Hopefully we do know a few things about how to manage markets.”
The scheme would upgrade power supplies and give the market a water supply for the first time, he said, providing “a much better place and public realm than the current outdated car park. As a company, we couldn’t support the plans if they put the market at risk – why would we?”
Another Blackheath Labour councillor, Luke Warner, said: “A car park is an appropriate place for a development, but not this development. We don’t believe that this is the right scheme.”
Warner added that the village had a “delicate economy” and that 100 businesses had objected. “Everyone is worried that the loss of so many parking spaces in one fell swoop is going to be absolutely devastating,” he said.
“Blackheath has an older population, many of whom need cars to travel around. We’re not Stratford Westfield or Bluewater, we’re a a corner of southeast London whose high street depends on a steady flow of dedicated customers.”
Nick Ellis, of Ellis Butchers, said:”The reality is that the village depends on parking, particularly for weekend trade.” He criticised the lack of a retail study, saying: “We’re telling you there will be a problem but we feel like we’re being completely ignored. Simply being told ‘it’ll be fine’ does not make it true.”
One of the councillors on the committee, Suzannah Clarke, said the lack of a retail survey was “an important point”.
Another committee member, James Rathbone, pointed out that parking survey data had only been carried out during midweek, and asked why a survey had not been carried out at the weekend when the village was at its busiest.
Jack Williams, a consultant to the scheme, said the farmers’ market had permission to operate on Saturdays as well as Sundays, although this had never been used, and the survey “really sought to capture the conditions when the full capacity of the car park is available”.
But Rathbone, who represents Lee Green, said a Saturday survey “would be more likely to capture the leisure needs of the area”.
Critics also raised worries the effect on local views of four- and five-storey blocks. One house on nearby Collins Street would lose much of its daylight and sunlight, councillors heard.
Another speaker compared the campaign against the development to the successful drive to save Lewisham Hospital more than a decade ago, while Adam Oliver of the Blackheath Society said the developer was “essentially on its own” in supporting the scheme.
But one resident did speak up. Freddy Soames, the father of a three-week old baby who said he had spent his adult life “contending with rising rents and insecurity in the housing market”, and that more housing was badly needed.
He said: “When I look at this proposal, I don’t see a technical dispute over building heights or parking ratios, I see the future of the village that my child is going to grow up in. We simply can’t afford to prioritise parking spaces over 45 new homes.
“I know there is strong opposition here tonight, and it is understandable to want to preserve a place as it was when we first found it. But Blackheath Village isn’t, and cannot be a museum. It is a community that must evolve to survive and thrive.”
Transport for London filed an objection because it did not want the car park to remain at all. Neither Greenwich Council nor the three Blackheath Westcombe ward councillors offered an opinion on the scheme, which is about 150 metres from the borough boundary.
Clarke, who represents Grove Park, said she often took her 85-year-old mother to the village by car “because she cannot use public transport”. She pushed for the development to be rejected and the developer asked to look again at the scheme, while Rathbone proposed a deferral.
Sydenham councillor Jack Lavery, the meeting’s chair, said: “We don’t want to end up approving a development that causes significant harm to Blackheath town centre.”
After nearly four hours, including hold-ups to fix sound issues and to seek legal advice, the six councillors on the planning committee said they wanted more data about the development’s impact on local parking and retail, as well as information on how Blackheath Farmers’ Market would operate in future, and deferred a decision to a later date.
A Lewisham Council spokesperson said on Wednesday morning: “The planning committee deferred the Blackheath Station car park application because members were not satisfied they had the information needed to make a fully informed decision. In particular, councillors were clear they needed stronger and more detailed evidence about the potential impact of the proposals on Blackheath’s economy.
“Deferring the application ensures residents’ concerns can be properly considered and any decision is taken with a full understanding of the likely effects on local businesses and the wider area. Our priority is securing the best possible outcome for Blackheath.”
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