Vauxhall Nine Elms Battersea (VNEB) Exhibition - Part 2 of 5 - Lambeth Council

This is Part 2 of a series of posts detailing the photos taken of all display boards at the Vauxhall Nine Elms and Battersea (VNEB) consultation held on 2nd and 3rd October 2010.  This post details the plans displayed by Lambeth Council.  The opportunity area that falls within the geographical region of Lambeth is much smaller than the area that falls within Wandsworth.


You'll see from this map (the purple line indicates the Lambeth/Wandsworth boundary) that all of the developments at Vauxhall fall within Lambeth.  The yellow line indicates the Opportunity Area boundary, so you'll see that the Lambeth VNEB Opportunity area reaches all of the way up to Lambeth Road and includes the entirety of the Albert Embankment.  The Lambeth area also includes the Nine Elms Sainsburys, but does not not include the New Covent Garden flower market:

(Image taken and bodged   from  Streetmap)  

I'm afraid that the following Lambeth Planning images don't include anything that we don't already know about, but they're here for posterity.  I apologise for the slightly odd reflective effect, but somebody from Lambeth is obviously using up the lamination budget:

First up, St George's Tower / Vauxhall Tower.  Vauxhall will be stuck with the ugliest, tallest tower in London at 50 storeys/180 metres (even taller than Strata / The Ladyshave).  Never mind.  As somebody pointed out, the stamp duty paid by residents will fund plenty of Section 106 developments and projects for local people.  The tower represents regeneration, which is generally a good idea in Vauxhall.  Unfortunately, their swimming pool won't be open for public use:

Next up, we have the proposed Vauxhall Island site.  For more on the consultation/plans on that, see over here.  It's 41 storeys/140 metres high, and I can't see these iconic towers being turned down by Lambeth.  I'm not sure when the decision on this is due. The towers have a much more attractive shape than the Vauxhall Tower above and the Vauxhall Island site is just a barren wasteland of advertising hoardings at present.  The exciting thing about the Vauxhall Island site is improvements made to the surrounding area in terms of shops, restaurants and pedestrian access:

Vauxhall Sky Gardens was approved when nobody was looking at the beginning of 2010.  It's only 36 storeys, so I'm sure nobody will notice it:

81 Black Prince Road would fit in quite nicely if it were nearer to the Vauxhall cluster of towers.  It's going to look rather odd rising up to 77 metres (23 storeys) at the end of Black Prince Road, which is mostly low rise housing.  I'm not sure whether I photographed the consultation documents (I've wised up over time), but the view from Kennington Cross is horrific.  I'm not keen on the design at all, but I suppose it's a matter of taste:

Nobody really liked the Bondway Tower, except the Lambeth Council Officers.  Here are some of the reasons why local residents didn't want the Bondway.  Despite the Council's refusal, the developer appealed, and a huge public enquiry was held.  I was going to write a series on the Bondway appeal, but I didn't get any further than a post summarising the opening arguments.  I might continue, if anybody expresses interest, but some of this material is mightily dull to plough through.  We should hear a decision from the Planning Inspectorate by December 2010, or January 2011, and I'm guessing that this one might end up being heard by the Secretary of State:

Here's the one I was missing earlier.   It's 20 Albert Embankment and it already has planning permission. I think it might look rather strange, being so tall, neighbouring the other buildings.   At least part of it will be a hotel.  Another hotel:

I commend the enhanced links between Vauxhall and the river, and improvements to Spring Gardens.  I'm hoping that it will mean the abolition of the gyratory and improved cyclist and pedestrian accessibility.  Here's the overall concept plan:

I am amused that the Development Management Development Plan Document (it can't really be called that!), which will be used to assess planning applications, will emerge in early 2011.  I can't imagine that there will be many planning applications for buildings in the Vauxhall part of VNEB left to submit by that time!  I look forward to the site allocations document that will advise where new schools, mosques and health centres might be placed.  That document will also emerge in early 2011:

Finally, here's a quick overview of the "new heart for Vauxhall" that the Council has planned:

So, what's missing...?  We don't yet know what's planned for the Sainsburys site (you'll have to wait for the disappointing 4th part of the series for that, but there's no significant information in the public domain yet). I'm not sure whether there are towers planned for the Market Gardens residential section (it's technically in Wandsworth), but it looked like it from the 3D model, and those will have some impact on Vauxhall.  I imagine that the Texaco garage plans (38 - 46 Albert Embankment) will rear their head again (more info on the old application here).  We're waiting for revised Fire Station at 8 Albert Embankment to be submitted.  1 - 9 Bondway (the new Travelodge) wasn't on display, but it's either considered too small or too new.  There probably wasn't time to laminate it before the ink had dried!  Also, the "new heart for Vauxhall" board above seems to indicate that development will take place on Vauxhall Walk, and the "South East Regeneration Arc".  I'm not sure we've seen submissions for either of these yet, so I imagine that there must be more developers still to consult in Lambeth.

VNEB exhibition Part 1 of 5 - Ballymore can be found here, if you find planning matters thrilling and exciting :-)

36 storey Vauxhall Sky Gardens - permission granted despite failed consultation

Do you remember hearing about Vauxhall Sky Gardens, the 36 storey tower, planned for the heart of Vauxhall?  You might remember that the developer actually succeeded in gaining planning permission for it, but then went back to the drawing board to amend the design.  Viva Vauxhall blogged about the new plans in January 2010, but since then I've heard nothing further from any source on the matter...  Normally, I'd expect to hear about planning permission applications through a variety of local channels, and often an eagle-eyed person will spot it on the Lambeth Planning Database.  Not this time.

Today I received an email from the Chair of Kennington Association Planning Forum who only learned, by accident, last week, that Lambeth Council  were re-hearing the application last night!  In addition, both the Kennington Association and the Vauxhall Society were listed in the officers' report to councillors as having been formally consulted.   Both organisations claim not to have been formally consulted.  Are the officers lying to the councillors, or have two organisations made administrative errors?

Anyway.  Guess what?  The amended building proposal was approved.

It was approved despite the fact that representations were made at the meeting, as follows:

1.  The density of the development was wholly excessive (three and a half times higher than the Mayor's upper limit for areas of this sort).  [Do the Council have a duty to listen to the Mayor?  Boris... are you watching, or is it ok for them to do as they please because this is South London?]

2.  The Section 106 contribution for public open space, calculated by Lambeth's current formula, geared to historic levels of Lambeth (under) investment in open space and parks, was wholly inadequate to generate the extra 1.6 hectare per 1000 new residents aspired to by the Lambeth Supplementary Planning Document.  [Do the Council have a duty to listen to observe their own guidelines?  Clearly not.]

3. Neither Kennington Association nor Vauxhall Society had been consulted, contrary to what the Councillors were told in the officers' report.

The Chair of KA Planning Forum asked me to write that excellent representations were made against the Vauxhall Sky Gardens by Michael Ball of Waterloo Community Development Group, who focused on density, overall design and the failure of the employment generating floorspace, and Cllr Rob Banks of Oval ward (Lib Dem) who focused on a failure to provide local amenities.

So much for consultation and the democratic process.  I mean, really, why bother?  The Council is not going to listen to local residents views.  Why should they?  The councillors are powerless against their own planning committees.  And it seems the planning committees just do as they please.

Perhaps the Kennington Association Planning Forum and the Vauxhall Society will try to appeal the permission on the grounds that they were not formally consulted.  I don't know whether that's even possible.

Obviously, now that this building has been granted permission, Bondway is more likely to be given permission within the next week, on precedent.

According to Skyscaper News, on Vauxhall Sky Gardens, (hardly an unbiased source),

"One reason the council will have given planning permission to the original design was because it was a good quality building. It seems however that planning law allows the developer to use that permission to set a precedent for height in the area and then propose something else that keeps within the previous building envelope that would perhaps, have never originally been allowed.

This way they have defused the issue of height preventing it from being attacked on those grounds. It should be interesting to see if this approach is successful and, in time, if Lambeth Council approve the new application."

So, it appears that Lambeth Council have approved the new application.  I wonder whether the officers noted that Vauxhall Station is over crowded, and that approval of additional tall buildings in the area is going to place heavy strain on the Underground capacity in the area.  I wonder if anybody noted that there is no funding in place for any Northern line Extension.  Probably not.  Lambeth Council don't care about infrastucture, only housing targets.  And the Mayor doesn't care about finding money for South London transport infrastructure, because it's only South London, afterall.

The developers can do whatever they please in Vauxhall and Nine Elms because the Council will never listen to local residents pleas to be more reasonable.  Most people recognise that there is room in Vauxhall for regeneration and development, of course there is.  But surely local people should have some say about what that development might look like?  Obviously not.

We're screwed. 

And I'm meant to remain politically neutral...