One Nine Elms in Vauxhall by Green Properties: New development of the week

Hello, good morning, and welcome to, yes.... another tower consultation!

Today's new development is brought to you by the owners, Green Property, and imaginatively titled "One Nine Elms" on account of it being placed on the site of the current 22-storey Market Towers at 1, Nine Elms Lane.   The building will be a re-development as it's not currently an empty site, but the leaflet below indicates that the office tower has become "outdated", and I think most would agree that it is a bit dingy:

I cannot mask my excitement about another tower, but sadly, there aren't really any published details on the development as yet.  All they say is that they hope to be a gateway to the new linear park, which is similar, I think to something Vauxhall Square developers claimed, what with their proposed twin towers appearing to form a mouth at the entrance to the linear park.

All we know is that Green Property hope their proposals will create an "urban oasis" which will deliver new homes, jobs and local amenities.  Since 30-60 South Lambeth Road already suggested the swimming pool (in what is already likely to be an interesting battle), and Vauxhall Island site proposing the cinema (although the developers their have suddenly gone quiet), One Nine Elms will have to come up with some even more interesting amenities.  Perhaps a bowling alley!  Ha!  We'll find out soon, since Green Property intend to submit a planning application to Wandsworth "later this year", which doesn't leave a lot of time to consult.

Anyhow, the dates/times as follows:

Thursday 15th September, 4pm - 7pm
Saturday 17th September, 10am - 2pm

Venue will be Ground Floor, Market Towers, 1 Nine Elms Lane, London, SW8 5NQ

Once the consultation has taken place, they'll have a website http://www.onenineelms.co.uk/ which you'll be able to visit in case you can't make it, along with the usual crew, to scrutinise shiny posters and point at miniature plastic models of Vauxhall.

 

 

8 Albert Embankment - planning application resubmitted

(All photographs in this post taken from (C) Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands drawings on Lambeth Planning portal)

Plans for demolishing and replacing the Fire Station at 8 Albert Embankment have been resubmitted and consultations sent out locally.  The original 2010 Fire Station consultation (complete with photos of the display boards) on the 8 Albert Embankment proposal can be found here.  The plans for 8 Albert Embankment will significantly change local landscape on account of the fact the development involves seven new buildings.  If you wish to comment on the new proposals, you can click "Submit Comment" from the 2011 application here, but you must comment by the 16th September 2011.  The proposal has received 84 comments to date.

The 2010 planning process stalled when, amongst other objections, local Princes ward councillors noted that the plans submiteed by developers proposed only 10% affordable housing (Lambeth target is 40-50%).  Lurking about SE11 hosted the original discussion on the proposal and Transport Mark and I had a discussion over whether any additional transport was required for the development.  Also, I seem to recall that some Londoners objected to adding an extra layer on top of the current building on account of architectural aesthetics and the potential view from Westminster.

The original 2010 proposal can be seen at 10/00318/FUL and the current 2011 proposal is 10/04473/FUL.  Let's see if there are any superficial differences.  Initially, we had:

"Demolition of the brigade workshop/office buildings to the rear and construction of 7 new buildings ranging in height from 5 to 16 storeys for mixed use purposes...  To provide a total of 360 residential units, 7,214sqm of commercial floorspace and 181 parking spaces."

Now we have:

"Demolition of the brigade workshop/office buildings to the rear of the fire station. Construction of 7 new buildings ranging in height from 5 to 15 storeys for mixed use purposes... The development would provide a total of 276 residential units, a 2,721 sqm fire station, 8,554 sqm of commercial floorspace (use Class B1), 696 sqm of retail/A Class floorspace and 161 car parking spaces."

It appears that they've lopped off a storey, so the building has been reduced from 16 storeys to 15 storeys.   84 residential units and associated parking spaces have been lost.  It seems that they're making up for a loss of residential housing with 1340sqm of commercial floor space.

Indeed, the fine print confirms as much, since the associated Addendum notes:

"In broad terms, the revisions include a significant increase in commercial use and a reduction in residential use from the scheme submitted in December 2010.  These revisions are as a result of discussion with the Council with regard to the appropriate balance of uses across the site."

Also, following discussion with English Heritage, the width of the roof on building A (the fire station on Albert Embankment) will be decreased.  The section in the orange boxes on the photo below will be removed:

The additional storey was removed from building D, which will sit behind the Fire Station (building A) and poke over the top when viewed from the north.  Removing a storey will improve this slightly).  Floors one and two in the orange box below will be residential, instead of commercial as in the original plan.  There are more diagrams in the Addendum showing how the commercial space has been replaced and added on a different building.  Here's how Building D will now appear next to the beautiful Royal Doulton Building.

Any throughts from readers here?

Sainsbury's Towers Consultation

I popped along to the Waterloo Community Development Group meeting about the proposed Sainsbury's Towers this evening.  I'm not sure I learned very much other than what was already made public at the previous exhibition last November.

My only new piece of information is that unfortunately, the main bit of green space in the development will not be public, and will only be accessible to residents.  So, we're looking at more concrete, and space for a market.  It probably needs more thought in light of the Bondway decision, but this is just a quick post to alert you to the next consultation to be held on the 4th and 5th of March.  I don't have time or place yet, but will update when I do.

Nine Elms Sainsbury's Towers Exhibition Debrief - photos, diagrams and comments

Righty ho.  Here's what you've all been waiting for...  The Sainsbury's Towers exhibition was held quite prominently in the car park, and I've had a look at their plans, and am quite keen on the proposals (except for  the probably inevitable high rise towers).

The plan is to demolish the current (rather ugly) Sainsburys, so that instead of floating in the middle of nowhere, it will front on to the Wandsworth Road.  The new building will be glass fronted and the size of the floor plan will be increased so that it will be the largest Sainsbury's in London, at 80,000 square feet (from its current 45,000 square feet).  The store will presumably become an uber-large Sainsbury's Extra Extra and will thus be able to stock a wider range of goods.

This is part of a project that would see the creation of 800 new flats that would be developed on top of the new Sainsbury's building and across the entire site, with three tall towers (18 metres, 25 metres and 35 metres) on the triangular corners of the edges.

In the meantime, whilst the demolition is undertaken, a temporary store will be erected upon the site of the petrol station.  Oval News have quoted this as being 15,000 square feet, but I was told that the temporary store would be 20,000 feet.  Whilst it won't be tiny, it's only going to be about a third of the size of the existing store.  If you don't do your shopping online, now is the time to start!  (Unless, of course, you wish to subject yourself to the dire Kennington Tesco.)  It's alleged to have been improved, but, well, never mind.  I'm getting off topic.

The petrol station will no longer be on site, but Sainsbury's are hoping to house it in the now disused Esso station at 54 Wandsworth Road.

At present, there is a 300 space car park on site, but the new Sainsburys should have approx. 400 spaces (all subject to agreement with Lambeth etc.) because of the increased capacity of the store.  The car park will go underground (a great idea, since it's a waste of land), and there will be some bike parking too (numbers of bike stands unknown).  At least, that's what I was told.  The Sainsbury's website states that there are currently 450 car parking spaces on site and since the chaps definitely hoped to increase the size of the car park, I can only think a mistake has been made somewhere!

Sainsbury's hope to submit their planning application to Lambeth in March 2011, with the completed store (if application is accepted) to be opened by 2014.  The residential property (all to be built on top of the new store) will follow on in the five years after 2014.  The Sainsbury's redevelopment is /not/ dependent on the new Nine Elms tube eg. there's thought to still be capacity at Vauxhall, despite the size of this development.

The exhibition comprised the following 7 boards:

The "out of town" style Nine Elms Sainsbury's will be modified and other shops and businesses will share the site:

Additional retail space will create 150 new jobs.  On the top left of this board, you can see the proposed Nine Elms tube station.  Also, this site will open up Wandsworth Road as far back as the railway arch, and make it easier for pedestrians to access the river.  This would be a considerable improvement, since currently, the Sainsbury's just appears to float in the middle of a piece of wasteland.  It seems likely that the footpaths will be improved to access New Covent Garden market, although the boards don't quite go that far.

The proposal for an "explore learning" centre for the use of children, over and above school education, is imaginative, although I did hear one older person complaining that nothing is put in place for older people in the borough.

Sainsbury's say that they are "open" to having the "Nine Elms" tube station placed on their land (ambitious, considering the £280 million funding shortfall for the Northern line extension), but will only allow this if their redevelopment plans are approved by Lambeth.  Considering the redevelopment to take place in the rest of the area, I can't quite see why this aggressive stance needs to be taken.  The Sainsbury's plans would actually help link retail, small businesses and residential land, whilst considerably opening up the area for pedestrians:

This board might be a subtle way of hinting  that, despite the creation of a new public square, the new flats will not have any green space except for huge roof gardens above the store (about 6 storeys up).  I wondered whether these would be suitable for children, but I was told that the edges would be protected.  I'm not too sure what the large purple blobs on the upper right diagram here represent, so would be delighted to hear from anybody that asked:

The new Sainsbury's store itself will mostly be on the first floor, so that the ground floor is opened for new businesses.  There will also be a mezzanine level which will contain a cafe and non-food items.  I actually think that the proposed mockup of the store here is inoffensive, but rather bland and non-descript.  I'm told that these are the initial drawings, and that further detail will be available at the time of a second consultation in February 2011 (or thereabouts).  I hope that the next drawings might be a little more imaginative than to depict a large glass front with giant grey boxes on the top!  Still, nearly anything would be an improvement on the current design!:

750 - 800 new flats will be constructed, ranging from 1 bedroom to 3 bedroom properties.  The amount of affordable housing has still to be negotiated with Lambeth Council who will set targets.  I asked whether that info. would be available by the second consultation, but apparently, that bit comes much later.  The number of affordable flats are only specified once the Council have analysed the plans and calculated the square footage/value of the properties.  Once that has happened, a formula is followed which tells the developers the targets they have to meet and once the targets have been given, the negotiation takes place:  

On this diagram, I've zoomed in to one of the boards and drawn on the heights of the proposed buildings (which are still, in the eloquent words of the PR company, "up for grabs") and also shown Vauxhall Sky Gardens in the bottom right corner:

I like this board.  I think it might be my favourite planning board of all time.  Here we see that Sainsbury's really don't want to build very high, but are merely following the will of Lambeth council and the GLA, who have requested "intensification".  Lambeth, we're told, simply wouldn't support the development if Sainsbury's didn't propose building really really high!  Ha!  Consequently, the tallest Sainsbury's tower comes in at only 35 floors, whereas Vauxhall Sky Gardens (permission already granted by Lambeth) is a whopping one floor higher (36 floors).  I'm not sure that suggesting it will be shorter than Vauxhall Sky Gardens is any great boast!  By comparison, Strata (Elephant and Castle) is 43 storeys:

This board is a summary of the above:

You can submit your comments by email to sainsburysnineelms@fourcommunications.com or telephone 0870 066 8734 or just visit their website and submit the form on this page.  The Sainsbury's Nine Elms website is now live and displays some of the diagrams from the boards above.

Other than the 35 storey tower, which I'm not impressed by (you all know that I dislike tall buildings), I think the Sainsbury's plan is exciting.  I like the idea of developing the site so that there's space for additional retail units.  It would be great if these could be low-rent and accessible to small independent businesses, but that may be too much to hope for. Also, I favour using the site to open up the railway arches from Wandsworth Road to the river.  I'm hoping that the Sainsbury's might offer a gateway through to the New Covent Garden market as well.

Kylun Vauxhall Island Site - Planning Application Submitted

I received the letter below from Kylun Ltd, advising that planning permission has been sought for the Vauxhall Island site from Lambeth Council.  The development, if approved, would comprise two buildings, one of 31 storeys and one of 41 storeys.  If you're interested in my much lengthier comments, see the post I wrote back in May .  There's also a Property Week article (which may or may not be firewalled for you) available here.

According to Kylun's stats, 65% of local residents who attended the consultation (we don't know the number, since they don't say what number filled in feedback forms) broadly approved of the development.  If we assume that 100 people filled in feedback forms (since we know that over 150 people attended), there are only about 65 local residents in favour, with a significant proportion against.  However, residents cannot say they've not been consulted on the matter, so the decision now lies with the Council.  The reference number for the development is 10/02060/FUL, try clicking here, as it proved very tricky to find (thanks, anonymous).  The plot is described as bounded by Parry Street and Bondway and falls into Oval Ward.  Residents have until 5/8/2010 to comment on the application, and should you wish to do so, use the link above and click the "submit comments" button.
As far as I can see, there's still no committment from the letter re. figures provided on affordable housing, but I'll take a look at the detailed application later and report back.  I'd have thought that this is something our local councillors would be interested in too.

On a more positive note, I welcome the emphasis on the streetscape (which can hardly be made worse), improvement to the underground station entrance, new pedestrian and cycle crossings, new shops and restaurants and a cinema (which one reader fears won't be commercially viable, so we'll have to see).  I imagine monetary contributions to both Vauxhall Park and Vauxhall Spring Gardens would be very welcome and I'd really like a little more information about the proposed improvements of the railway arches.

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...

216 Kennington Road and 38-46 Albert Embankment planning

I've edited the post below slightly in light of Cllr Mark Harrison's comment that the council haven't granted planning permission re. 216. Instead, their officers have indicated that they are in favour of approval. It remains to be seen whether approval is granted.

You might recall from this post back in May that planning permission had been sought for 216 Kennington Road. I was against the request since I was hoping the site might be put to use for some kind of community facility.

It seems that the council have granted permission the council officers have recommended that permission will be granted to allow a retail unit to be put in place (the rumour is Tesco, but nobody knows for sure). The new shop will presumably service everybody who has purchased a flat in the oddly named Kennington Park Square (it's not very near the park!) just behind the site and those in 216 Kennington Road itself (a large residential development) and a number of residents on Kennington Park Road. Even I have to concede that it's better to have something in there than for it to remain empty.

Also, if you read the post I wrote back in June when I was trying to keep up with the number of nasty high rises on our horizon, it is worth noting that we've had an appeal (against the refusal of planning permission) withdrawn on item number 3 (38-46 Albert Embankment) which is on the site of the Texaco garage. That leaves one less ball in the air in terms of pending sites.

In addition, I nearly forgot... I raised the matter some time ago that TFL (despite local objections) had applied for planning permission for one of its excellent cycle scheme pods in Windmill Row (a very bad location due to overcrowding of pedestrians and traffic). The council sensibly overturned the request so that's good news.

I'm sorry it has all gone so quiet... It's silly season in Kennington and what with swine flu and holidays etc. there's not so much to report.

69 - 71 Bondway SW8 - Planning Permission sought

Planning permission is currently being sought for: Bondway Commercial Centre, 69 - 71 Bondway, London SW8 1SQ. Application number is 09/01520/FUL and comments can be made by clicking the link. Vauxhall Bondway Ltd are proposing to develop a 42 storey building on the site. I think that would be of equivalent height to the Strata Building in Elephant and Castle. Most peoples' question is "Where's Bondway?". It's here:



I'm not sure how this one slipped under the radar (you have until 24/6/2009 to comment), so I am going to refer you to the Viva Vauxhall blog (which represents the roads around Bonnington Square) where they have an excellent post which lists their reservations about the development and might give you some basis with which to support or oppose the planning permission request.

The building is technically not in SE11. It's some way over the border in SW8. However, when proposed buildings are so tall, they impact on everybody that lives locally. I imagine the building will overshadow Fentiman Road, Bonnington Square and Vauxhall Grove. The question is... exactly which part of Vauxhall is it considered acceptable to place tall buildings? It was clarified at the Kennington Oval and Vauxhall AGM last night that it was considered appropriate in the draft Vauxhall Supplementary Planning document to raise tall buildings around Vauxhall station. The concept of what counts as Vauxhall station is somewhat hazy. I've read the draft Vauxhall Supplementary Planning document, but haven't given it the amount of analysis that I gave to the draft core plan for the Local Development Framework. It looks like it's time to go back to the Vauxhall Supplementary Planning document and provide a summary. When I've done that, I'll post it here to be of assistance for those commenting on local planning proposals.

It's worth mentioning at this point that the Vauxhall Supplementary Planning document will remain in "draft" stage until one of the wider documents related to the London Plan is released for consultation (in order to check that the two line up and Lambeth aren't heading in a different direction from the rest of London). That document won't be consulted until September 2009 so the draft Vauxhall SPD will remain in draft format for some time.

Edit (11/6/2009): Tradescant Road blog has also commented and posted a helpful picture of various elevations of the proposed development.