Plans for a development with a 30-storey tower block at Deptford Bridge have been thrown out by Lewisham councillors because of worries about the effect on nearby houseboats.
Planning officers had already recommended that the scheme, on the old Lewisham College site, be rejected because of the effects on heritage views, its design and the lack of a legal agreement with the council.
But Green councillors inserted a fourth objection after hearing passionate testimony from a resident of one of the houseboats that are moored in Deptford Creek, behind the planned scheme.
The developer could now appeal, or City Hall could step in to decide the scheme itself.
Meanwhile in Greenwich, councillors deferred a decision while the chair of planning said he believed the scheme could not go ahead because of issues with an access road.
What is planned?
The developer RER London wants to build 802 homes on the old college site, which is on both sides of Deptford Creek – the boundary between the two boroughs. Only 3 per cent of the homes would be legally defined as “affordable”.
A series of blocks would be built in the Deptford Reach scheme, with the tallest in Lewisham at 30 storeys and in Greenwich at 19 storeys. The ground floors would be given over to educational, retail and leisure uses. The scheme originally contained 900 homes with 11 per cent “affordable” housing, but was revised to reduce the bulk of the buildings.
Lewisham believes the 30-storey block will interrupt heritage views, while an 11-storey block would be over-dominant on Deptford Church Street. Other blocks would merge into one in the view from The Point at Blackheath, its officers, with the bulky mass spoiling views of London landmarks.
Greenwich defers the scheme…
Each council’s main planning committee met to discuss their borough’s portion of the scheme on Thursday evening. While Lewisham planning officers had recommended rejection, Greenwich’s said they thought it should be approved.
The meeting at Woolwich Town Hall began first, with a handful of residents and a team from the developer watching. But Greenwich councillors deferred the item after Jeremy Fraser, the chair of planning, said he wanted to see what happened in the neighbouring borough.
“Given the position that Lewisham are in and deciding tonight, I would like to have an overall picture of this application and where it lands,” the Eltham Park & Progress councillor said, adding that councillors may need to reconvene quickly to make a decision.
“I’m unhappy hearing this application, which literally cannot go ahead because of the access road and so forth, until we understand the position of Lewisham.”
Fraser did not elaborate on the issue with the access road, which enters the site from Deptford Church Street, on the Lewisham side of the boundary. It was not mentioned when Lewisham councillors came to discuss the issue just over an hour later, with about 30 residents watching.
…but Lewisham rejects it
Hugh Sowerby, of RER’s planning consultants DP9, said the application was for “a unique and remarkable site, but it’s not one which contributes to the borough in the way that it should”.
“It’s inaccessible, it’s fenced off, and it turns its back on the local community,” he said. “It does, however, present an incredible opportunity. For the first time in over 100 years, there is the potential to provide public access to the creek, allowing locals, new residents, and visitors to enjoy it.”
Sowerby told councillors that Lewisham was only delivering 65 per cent of its housing targets and said that if the value of the site increased, more “affordable” homes could be delivered. While council officers had identified “low to moderate” harms, he said, the public benefits of new housing and access to the creek outweighed this, he said.
But Kelvin Shewry, the chief executive of the Creekside Educational Trust, said the waterway had been ignored or “treated as a constraint to be managed” . He called for “biodiversity enhancement, habitat creation and river restoration, not simply the mitigation of harm”.
And Matthew Kennedy, a resident of one of the houseboats moored in the creek, said many of the homes would be “plunged into darkness for much of the year” – a factor that had been made worse when the project was redesigned. He called on councillors to add this as a fourth reason for rejection.
Kennedy said the Theatre Arm, the mooring spot behind the Bird’s Nest pub, said 27 people lived there, and nine children had been brought up there in 40 years, but complained that documents had described the community as transient.
“This has been a residential mooring since 1987, and we hold a licence from the Port of London Authority to the year 2124,” he said. “I’ve lived here for 15 years. I’m a Londoner. My partner grew up in New Cross. We’re about as permanent as anything can get in London.”
David Robinson, Lewisham’s acting head of development management, warned councillors that the loss of daylight to the houseboats may not carry much weight if the applicant appealed to a planning inspector, because Lewisham was not meeting its housing targets.
“We’ve seen appeals allowed with similar degrees of loss of light to neighbouring properties, and considered acceptable as well by the GLA,” he said.
Claire Willis, a Green councillor for Rushey Green, proposed rejecting the scheme and adding a fourth objection on the lack of daylight to the houseboats, as well as the three other reasons.
“Hearing from the residents and with my knowledge of canal boats as well, the roof is often used for light,” she said. “So there might be solar panels or things might be grown on the roof of the boat, for example. And because canal boats are small, you actually use the roof more than you would use outside space in other residences.”
Willis, the vice-chair Daniel Jenkins (Deptford), and fellow Green councillors Tracey Martin (Blackheath) and Annabelle Roberts (Forest Hill) supported rejecting the scheme on the four grounds; Labour councillors Pauline Dall (Blackheath) and Peter Bernards (Forest Hill) abstained.
What happens next?
In Lewisham, City Hall and the secretary of state for local government will now assess the refusal and decide whether to call it in themselves. The developers could also appeal straight to a planning inspector.
In Greenwich, the developer could also appeal because the council has failed to make a decision. Councillors could meet soon to either make that decision – which would then go to City Hall and the government – or, if the developer appeals, to say whether or not they would have rejected the scheme.
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