Lambeth Council axes Vauxhall Nine Elms community forums in favour of expos costing £7500

If you want to know more about the VNEB and the intensive development to take place in the area over the next 20 years, I recommend you take a look at the gigantic Mayor's Vauxhall Nine Elms Battersea Opportunity Area Planning Framework.

Back in May, I wrote a post about why the Kennington Association Planning Forum think the VNEB proposals are fatally flawed.  Essentially, they think they've identified a £588 million funding blackhole in the infrastructure. £200 million of that is the value of land that the developers might have to purchase to ensure the area is brought up to Lambeth's minimum green space standard.  We've yet to hear how the issue of green space might be addressed...

In the meantime, a community forum for consulting the local community about the whole VNEB area was launched by Lambeth's Nine Elms Vauxhall Strategy Board.  An initial wide-area-community forum meeting was held in Jan 2011.  It was discussed briefly at the Kennington Oval Vauxhall (KOV) meeting in April, where Maureen Johnston noted that she'd been involved in discussions on behalf of KOV about the possible shape of the forum.  Later, a second community meeting took place in May 2011, (announced by Princes Ward Labour councillers) here.  I didn't make it to that, but the minutes indicate that much of the meeting was taken up with strongly worded requests by residents to remove the Vauxhall gyratory (more on that in the next post) and residents' opposition to the Northern Line Extension.  The Friends of Vauxhall Park also wanted to engage with working groups on the matter of the linear park. 

In the meantime, PAPER NO. SB 11 - 35 from the VNEB Strategy Board meeting in June allows:

"The previous approach for community engagement presented by Lambeth to the Strategy Board on 26th January 2011, involved setting up an area-wide community forum that would meet a number of times of year."

Sounds good.  Sounds sensible.  Area-wide meetings ensure that lots of stakeholders meet together to ensure that no area is getting a better deal than another.  And even better, as was agreed by the earlier forums...

"The proposals also suggested establishing themed community working groups alongside the strategy board’s working groups, that would then have representatives from the community sitting on them."

Perfect.  It would be possible just to go to meetings about areas of the strategy that you felt affected you eg. transport or school or health.  The experts in the community in each area would be able to attend specific themed working groups.  But, that is no longer to be because...

"There would... be an onus on community representatives to attend numerous working groups covering technical matters that may not deal with key policy issues and concerns they are most interested in."

Umm, no.  That was the whole point of the themed groups.  The report does note, correctly, that community groups don't work according to strict borough boundaries (thank goodness). It also cites resource issues, but aren't we all trying to learn to do things co-operatively and on a shoe-string?  The new idea doesn't look cheap.  Consequently...

"It was agreed that establishing a formal Community Engagement Group with community representatives and others partners should not be progressed."

Oh dear.  What might the real reason be?

"The likelihood is that such a Group would involve a small number of the more active community groups." and "it would risk excluding hard- to-reach groups."

Well, yes.  That's democracy.  That's co-operation.  If you're active and engaged, and attend meetings, and track what the council is doing, and submit feedback on planning matters, and attend library seminars etc. etc. etc. then, yes, a group is likely to contain engaged citizens who have something to contribute to their local community.  How dangerous!  How radical!  I acknowledge that the Council needs to work hard to contact and dialogue with hard to reach groups, but that shouldn't be at the expense of those who conscientously show up to meetings and participate...  So, what's the new plan?

"Therefore, an alternative approach is recommended where the Working Groups would present to the community at a variety of ‘events’ in or close to the Opportunity Area."

A long-term die-hard community activist friend of mine said to me, "oh yes, councils love Expos, where everybody turns up at different times and note inconsequential views on little post-it notes that people stick up on a board. These are often off-topic and later ignored.  It allows the Councils to say that they've consulted, but not have to sustain any deep level of engagement, participation or criticism with community groups".  Does that sound about right?

"The events would tend to be more informal than a conference or committee meeting with presentations but more like a ‘symposium’ with the aim of collecting the views on a key topic from a wide range of people..."

We can now look forward to two tiers of events.  Cross-borough VNEB expos and community style events costing £5000-£7500 a time (tier one).  Tier two (at least at the Lambeth end) seems at first to be slightly more acceptable, with a localised "Lambeth Community Forum" which will be shaped by existing forum leaders (probably Kennington Oval Vauxhall forum) until you find out that attendees are a rather select band of people... "by invitation to existing forum leaders and leaders of recognised community groups."  Great.

The Lurker isn't impressed.  Anybody know what's going on?  Well word on the ground is that it was due to Cllr Sally Prentice's move from Regeneration and Planning to Employment and Enterprise.  The new Regeneration and Planning Committee member is Cllr Nigel Haselden, so perhaps he's the one to ask.

Can anybody offer a defence?  The expo idea appears to me to weaken community group input and atomise attendee participation.  It will be difficult to establish consensus or disagreement, as people will just turn up and leave again without having to listen to one anothers' views.  Difficult questions and hedging answers won't be heard by an entire room of people, and it's not exactly possible to minute conversations at the Expos.  Very convenient.

New Covent Garden Market exhibition on The Garden (3rd March - 5th March)

(Sketch taken from New Covent Garden website)

Covent Garden Market Authority (CGMA) has announced the dates for the third public exhibition of their plans for "The Garden" (the UK's largest fresh produce market) at New Covent Garden Market in Vauxhall / Nine Elms as 3rd March - 5th March (see below).

There have been two previous exhibitions on New Covent Garden Market (one in 2009 and the other in February 2010).  For some reason, I don't seem to have a record of these, but it's only recently I've begun to track the buildings so closely.  However, the redevelopment section on the New Covent Garden website is truly comprehensive, so I suggest you begin there if you're interested in the progress of their ideas.   Also, there are some sketches available from one of the previous exhibitions which give the general idea of New Covent Garden's aim, even if these will be amended at the next exhibition.

Anyhow, most local people I've spoken to have been generally supportive of plans to sensitively redevelop the market (currently it's a bit of a concrete wilderness, and is not accessible to the public except on Sundays when it hosts a giant boot fair). So, now New Covent Garden Market claim to have incorporated comments received a wide range of stakeholders and tenants on the Market.  The third (and final) exhibition will display new information and images about all the elements of the site prior to the application submission to Wandsworth Borough Council.

The exhibition will be based in the Yvonne Carr Community Centre on Thessaly Road (in Battersea) so it's a bit of a trek for Vauxhall residents although the site plans will affect people in SW8 and SE11 just as much as in Battersea.
Thursday 3 March (4.00pm – 8.00pm)
Friday 4 March (4.00pm – 8.00pm)
Saturday 5 March (10.00am – 5.00pm)

Please note that this falls on the same weekend as the next Nine Elms Sainsbury's consultation.

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.

Northern Line extension vs. Affordable Housing for Nine Elms - £58 million funding gap

Last summer, a Development Infrastructure Funding Study (DIFS) was conducted concerning the new Vauxhall, Nine Elms and Battersea regeneration area.   It contains information about a vasty array of transport, health, education etc. requirements for the set up of the new "Nine Elms" town.  As soon as I can, I will disseminate the contents of that document, but in the meantime, chapter 12 (the section about 106 agreements) has been published by the Mayor of London and is now being consulted upon.  Although this chapter is rather dull and concerns Section 106 monies etc. the comments on it are likely to be very important to groups that are concerned with social housing and how the demographic of the new VNEB is to be constituted.

The matter of affordable housing considerably affects the levels of funding available for infrastructure.  It's recognised by the Funding Study that asking developers to provide a high percentage of affordable housing will affect the levels of contributions they can make towards the Northern Line Extension.  The government has not announced whether or how much they will make available in grants for the implementation of affordable housing, which adds confusion to the proceedings.  Chapter 12 of the Development Infrastucture Study makes it clear that Infrastucture is to be given the priority over affordable housing.  Whilst Lambeth Council would normally seek 40% or 50% affordable housing, in this instance, the study makes clear that 15% is more likely to be an adequate target:

"the 15% affordable housing option is considered the most appropriate for the majority of the opportunity area. However, the affordable housing level required by Lambeth will normally be 40%, although for sites within close proximity to the proposed station at Nine Elms and those which may not be suitable for family housing, the affordable housing level will normally be 15%."

It seems to me that this places the community in a double bind.  If anything greater than 15% affordable housing is requested, the developers may turn around and say that they cannot provide enough funding for the Northern Line Extension.  Since the Northern Line Extension is required for the whole project to go ahead (particularly the Battersea part), there appears to be no grounds for argument.  What do readers think?  Your views on the document should be sent to: mayor@london.gov.uk with the email subject heading, "VNEB S106" no later than March 21st.

Despite contributions to be made by the developers to the intrastructure, there is still a funding gap of £58 million (assuming economic recovery), and consequently it's recognised that some infrastructure projects will have to be prioritised over others.  The document notes:

It is not yet possible to determine which projects will be prioritised. However whilst it is recognised that Northern Line Extension is vital to the success of the Opportunity Area, a number of other transport and non-transport infrastructure projects are also required to make the development successful.

This raises questions in my mind about the level of commitment to the Northern Line Extension.  What will happen if the £58 million hole cannot be plugged?

Developments within the VNEB have been excluded from having to make contributions to the Crossrail project on account of needing to contribute to other infrastructure eg. the Northern Line Extension.  Indeed, many of the developers at Elephant are objecting that they're so far away from Crossrail, they shouldn't be forced to make payments, so it seems sensible to ensure that the VNEB funding goes to the Northern Line Extension.  Developments that lie on the river itself in what is being called "Zone A" (orange area on the above diagram) will be obliged to make larger contributions than developments in "Zone B" (purple area on the above diagram.  It looks as though most of the Vauxhall developments lie in Zone B.  A contribution tariff is displayed in the full version of the Section 106/CIL study. 

Bondway Tower in Vauxhall refused by Secretary of State - inadequate provision of open space

In March last year, Lambeth Council refused to grant planning permission for a proposed 42-storey tower in Vauxhall, known as Bondway.  The Bondway's developers (London and Regional) appealed to the Planning Inspectorate, and a public enquiry was held in July/August last year.  On account of a conflict over the size of the proposal (over 150 units) which fits with government plans to create more housing and the perceived risk to a World Heritage site, the appeal was passed to the Secretary of State (Eric Pickles) for a decision to be made.  The Planning Inspector recommended that London and Regional's appeal be dismissed and the Secretary of State agreed.  Consequently, the ruling is that the Bondway Tower should not be built.

The Secretary of State considered that the proposed Bondway's greatest shortcoming was the relationship of the building to its surroundings.  Whilst the building was considered sustainable and with certain design merits, it lacked "well planned public open spaces" and the proposals apparently also failed to provide adequate pedestrian links to the wider public realm.  In addition, the "visual mass" of the building was felt to be "overbearing in relation to its surroundings".  Also, the Secretary of State agreed with the Planning Inspector that the lack of amenity space (particularly children's play area) could not be solved by the developer acquiring more land.

Such a conclusion should alarm developers who are based anywhere within the Vauxhall Nine Elms Opportunity Area, since much of the open space available to the surrounding buildings is likely to be provided (or so we've been told) in the form of a linear park.  If Vauxhall Park (and surrounds) are judged not to be enough public open space for the Bondway, then it may well be that additional public space will have to be found (which means "given up" by developers) in order to progress any of the new developments within Vauxhall/Nine Elms, where the amount of open space is said to be very low.  Of course, it also means that the Vauxhall Square developers (CLS) have been quite clever with their proposals, which include the incorporation of a large public square...

Concerning the Westminster World Heritage site, the Inspector felt that whilst no assets would be directly affected, the proposals might affect the settings of certain (but not all) listed buildings, conservation areas, registered parks and Westminster itself.  (That turn of phrase seems very unclear to me, especially when the former government controversially allowed the construction of the Vauxhall Tower by St George.  However, I think it does appear to represent a change in government policy which all developers will have to consider).

One point of concern for many local people has been the issue of overshadowing by tall towers.  Neither the Secretary of State nor the Planning Inspector concede ground on this point.  On the contrary, they argue that "Vauxhall Park... would not be significantly harmed by overshadowing" and that "privacy cannot be expected in a public park".  The point that is accepted is one of over-use.  The sheer number of people that would end up using Vauxhall Park would "erode its recreational function and the character of its open spaces".  It looks as though the argument against the Bondway was won almost entirely on arguments about open space.

There were some positives.  20% of housing supply as affordable was praised, as was the likely increase in employment numbers and indeed the "design of the tower".  Note that the site is still considered an "appropriate location" for tall buildings, so don't expect the end of this matter.  I imagine Residential Land will simply have to overhaul their plans to better provide for improved open space and pedestrian access.  However, it was felt by the Secretary of State (despite the good design) that the tower would be "overbearing" in relation to local surroundings.  The benefits are not said to outweigh the conflict with Lambeth's development plan, so this tower will not be going ahead in proposed form.  (Of course, there's room to appeal again through the High Court, but I imagine it would likely be cheaper just to re-work the plans).

The matter of transport is more interesting, and whilst the Inspector and the Secretary of State seem to think that the development promotes a reduction in the need to travel and use of sustainable transport choices, neither of them enter into discussion about transport capacity, which is a point continually raised by users of Vauxhall tube station....  One of my Twitter followers posted this scene at Vauxhall tube the other day with the caption "Vauxhall station this morning. Not an unusual occurrence":

I'd argue that this decision represents a significant victory for the local people who intervened and made representations against the building at the enquiry during the summer. Yes, most residents (myself included) support sensible redevelopment and regeneration in the heart of Vauxhall. There's room for improvement. However, such improvement should not be undertaken at the cost of current residents or in a manner that seeks to exploit public amenities. I'm delighted that the Secretary of State has dismissed the appeal.

Thanks to Tradescant blog, the full report of the Bondway appeal can be found here.

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.

Consultation re. Nine Elms Parkside (Royal Mail Sorting Office)

I didn't actually go to the Nine Elms Parkside (Royal Mail sorting office) consultation as I opted to have non-planning fun at the weekend.  I have, however, emailed the chaps who were running the exhibition to check whether they displayed any additional material than what is already available on the Nine Elms Parkside website.  Other than a 3D model, which could be viewed at the event, all of the other material is available online.  My main complaint is that the website eg. interesting map detail is just too small to view properly (however, some of it is probably available in public documents and viewable elsewhere) and the website is simply not particularly informative (and is full of general VNEB and "other landowner" info. that is already in the public domain).
I wrote a previous post with some background on the unhappy Royal Mail workers and their potential job losses, as I want this blog to form a kind of history for the area, so feel free to read that.  Additionally, we now know...

The Nine Elms Parkside development will be located at the centre of the new development, split either side of the linear park, with a landscaped public square, "Tideway Green" at the centre of both the Parkside development and the linear park itself.  Tideway Green will be linked to Nine Elms Square (another public square) on Nine Elms Lane.  The Nine Elms Parkside buildings will range in height from 7 to 13 storeys (it sounds more pleasant than some of what Vauxhall might end up with) and car parking and cycle parking will likely be located underground underneath the park/green land.  The masterplan shows that the east of the development appears to link up with the new US embassy and Ballymore land. 

As you'll know, I'm always a huge fan of pictures of faceless people that don't really tell us anything useful eg. how much of the development will be affordable or given over to local housing associations?  Will there be playgrounds for children built anywhere?  Will the housing be for families or "young professionals" eg. is it studios or 3 bedroom flats?  What are the transport options if the Northern line tube extension isn't put in?  How will Royal Mail use the site for its "retained" operations in a way that allows for quiet living for the eventual residents?  What will Section 106 money be spent on?  All we have are a few key facts... 2000 units, 600 parking spaces, 2000 bike parking spaces (that sounds positive), over 2.5ha of public space and the fact that it will be sustainable. 

I'm a bit disappointed by the lack of architectural information available compared with the excellent detail provided by Kylun's Vauxhall Island Site PR team where it's clear from the plan exactly how the buildings will be laid out.  To be fair, I didn't go to the consultation, so feel free to leave comments if you did attend and have more information about what size the flats are likely to be, how they'll be laid out, how Royal Mail operations with co-exist on the site, and how much affordable housing will be provided.

Wandsworth Council and transport / town centre - Part 5 of 5 from Vauxhall Nine Elms Battersea Exhibition VNEB

Finally, just for the record, I wanted to add the final in the series of VNEB exhibition boards. There is so much going on locally that it's difficult to keep up! These boards mostly show Wandsworth Council's outlines on the VNEB, which is importance since the majority of the VNEB falls on their patch.  In my view, the boards aren't quite as useful as the ones that Lambeth Council supplied on account of the fact that they don't summarise all of the buildings that have been granted planning permission to date.  Maybe there are too many to list (or they've not yet been declared), but without an idea of that, it's difficult to imagine the volume of housing and commercial space that will hit the area:

This board clearly outlines the scale of the development.  16,000 new homes means the arrival of a vast number of new residents.  I fail to see how 20,000 - 25,000 new jobs will be created when industrial space is being reduced, but perhaps we'll all be surprised:

Note the mention of the "linear park", linking Vauxhall to Battersea.  This will not provide adequate green space given the likely population density, even once the parks at Spring Gardens and Vauxhall have been taking into account:

The additional 800 primary school aged children will be catered for by /one/ primary school.  Goodness knows whether the other primary schools in the locality can be expanded to meet demand.  The 600 secondary school aged pupils will presumably have to be placed in existing schools.  I'm not sure whether a school feasibility study has been completed, but this /sounds/ a tad unrealistic even to my unknowledgable ears.  Battersea gets a library.  Vauxhall probably won't (but then, libraries aren't really in vogue at the moment, are they?):

Transport.   One of my favourite topics!  This poster indicates improved bus services, new bus routes and increased bus frequency.  It also shows enhanced railway stations (but doesn't mention enhanced services) so this probably just means the stations will get a make over (see here for Vauxhall rail station refurbishment).  Cyclists are mentioned here in terms of "better provision", but it doesn't clearly outline cycle lanes or segregated cycle paths on roads or anything like that.  There's mention of the proposed Northern line tube to Battersea, with an added station at Nine Elms (my favourite option, but it probably wouldn't do much to relieve congestion Kennington tube station).  However, I think the huge cost of this project will eventually mean that the area will get a tram (which is one of the proposed options in the giant VNEB consultation document).  I suppose another option might be to add a new National Rail station between Queenstown and Vauxhall, but looking at the map, this would probably be too far from the power station to meet the new residents' needs:

Here's a model, which I think illustrates how nasty and oversized the new St George tower will look. The architecture is not even particularly imaginative, just a round tall tower.  This model is not illustrative of all of the buildings planned for Vauxhall.  For some reason, some of these have been missed off.  The orange line on the plan is the new proposed tube route:

Just for the record, here are the last few signs up at the exhibition, and completes this rather long and tedious set of plans and photos in the VNEB series.

Part 1 (Ballymore section) of VNEB exhibition is here.
Part 2 (Lambeth Council section) of VNEB exhibition is here.
Part 3 (Tideway Wharf section) of VNEB exhibition is here.
Part 4 (Sainsbury's Towers section) of VNEB exhibition is here.

Nine Elms Parkside - new development planned for site of Royal Mail Sorting Office

As you'll know, I've still got one more post to make containing displays from the last VNEB exhibition.  The ink has barely dried, but I've received notice of yet another Nine Elms planning consultation, this time for a development named Nine Elms Parkside. Once again, it's over the border in SW8, but I've not seen anybody systematically collecting details for these different Nine Elms proposals so just consider us to be temporarily Lurking around the borders of SE11 too.

This exhbition ought to prove contentious.  About a month ago, I received an email from RCDT/LMHS, suggesting that Royal Mail might sell their Nine Elms sorting office site.  This particular site is home to 1150 workers.  Londonist also noted that an East London sorting station is under threat too.  Greg Charles, the Branch Secretary for the London South West Postal Branch of the Communication Workers Union commented;

"Closing Mail Centres in London will lead to a poorer service and will hit Business and homes alike at a time when it can ill afford it. We will fight these ridiculous plans of closure to ensure not only jobs are protected for our members but business & people across London are protected with essential services they require."

The Wandsworth Guardian quote Mr Charles accusing Royal Mail of attempting to make "a fast buck" through selling the site.  Obviously, a sale would make sound commercial sense, but Mr Charles is concerned that service and jobs will be affected by the closure and relocation of the sorting office.  Before everybody jumps in with the likely comments that the internet has resulted in a decline of post etc and that sorting office closures are inevitable, do read the complaints of SE1 residents, who are served by alternative sorting stations.  (Comments are here, here and here).  Also, remember that the VNEB opportunity area will contain the same number of residents as Welwyn Garden City, and imagine how this would stretch the Royal Mail capabilities in the local area.

If the Royal Mail sorting office will be sold as a result of the Nine Elms area being a new Opportunity Zone, one is obligated to keep asking "for whom is this an opportunity?".  I do not deny that the area requires regeneration (indeed, I favour a sensible re-development of VNEB), or that Royal Mail might need to make job cuts in the current climate, but talks between Royal Mail and the Unions are still ongoing.  Consequently, it seems rather churlish to consult over a new development on the Sorting Office site prior to the end of those talks...

Nonetheless, news of a consultation re. Nine Elms Parkside appeared in my inbox yesterday and they have a lovely shiny new Nine Elms Parkside website, proudly sporting the Royal Mail logo.  Without needing to look too carefully, you'll see that the development area shown on the photo in the literature below /is/ the Sorting Office (look at all of the red Royal Mail vehicles at the top left of the photo).  Of course, the unions may be prematurely concerned.  Perhaps the site will be redeveloped to allow for a Royal Mail facility on the land, alongside new residential property.  Who knows?

Consultation will take place on Thursday 11th November 13:00 - 20:00, Friday 12th November 13:00 - 18:00 and Saturday 13th November 13:00 - 18:00 at Batterssea Studios, 80 Silverthorne Road, SW8 3HE.

Sainsburys Nine Elms - Part 4 of 5 from Vauxhall Nine Elms Battersea Exhibition VNEB

I'm sorry that this has been delayed, but it took quite a while to upload all of the photos from the VNEB exhibition at the beginning of October.  Click on the following to see the other posts on the VNEB exhibition, Part 1 (Ballymore sections, around the new US embassy), Part 2 (Lambeth Council segment) and Part 3 (Tideway Wharf).

(Oh, and do feel free to browse the exhibition photos below, but I written a fuller and more recent debrief, after the Nine Elms Sainsbury's Tower plans were shown at an exhibition in November 2010.).

Tradescant Road blog has already mentioned the Nine Elms Sainsbury's plans shown below, but I wanted to add them for posterity.

This board gives no information about the size or scale of the development, only shows the site of building, which, predictably, is the site upon which Sainsbury's currently resides:

This board informs us that the entire site will be made more friendly for pedestrians and cyclists, potentially opening up other parts of the Opportunity Area.  It will be interesting to see how (and if) they'll connect Wandsworth Road and Nine Elms Road.  Notice that they suggest that the whole area might be improved by "a new landmark building"!  (I'm quite in favour of improving this site, but I just find it amusing that they think a new building would improve the area when it's clearly their intention to build whether it would or not!!)  See the bottom of this article for some early thoughts about the proposal.  There's a hint that a new park, open or green space might be put in place, with access to the public:  

The following two boards give no more information about what is proposed.  Quite disappointing, considering the information provided by the other developers:

Anyhow, you might be intrigued to know that our local Councillors have been given early access to the Sainsburys plans.  Consequently, we know from Cllr Mark Harrison's hints on Twitter that the proposal is likely to include three towers.  The tallest tower will come in at around 35 storeys, and Sainsbury's will be exhibiting outside their store some time soon.  Evidence here:

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 :-)

Vauxhall Nine Elms Battersea (VNEB) Exhibition - Part 1 of 5 - Ballymore

This is Part 1 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 on display by Ballymore.  (Yes, this is well outside SE11 territory, but as far as I know, there's nobody else blogging about this part of the world).

Ballymore appear to be developing approx. 15 acres around Ponton Road. The road lies in the heart of the proposed VNEB area.  It falls under the remit of Wandsworth Council, so we've not mentioned it before, but whatever is done with this land is likely to be viewable from parts of Lambeth.  I believe Ponton Road is going to be moved (just shifted along slightly) when the new US Embassy is built:

This plan shows (see the red dotted line) the size of the huge area owned by Ballymore, even once the Embassy Quarter (now sold to the US government) is taken into account.  Note that Ballymore also own Kirtling Street (further down Nine Elms Lane):

I shall reiterate (as I'm tired of doing) that whilst Vauxhall is a fine transport interchange, the tube station is at capacity during peak times.  Note that the Ballymore plans do not mention the proposed new Northern Line underground station:

I commend the idea of improving the railway viaducts and wouldn't contradict the notion that Nine Elms suffers from being "placeless", on account of its industrial use.  I've certainly never met anybody that claims to live in Nine Elms!  I would query where the current industry on this (and the surrounding sites) will move to, since the industrial capacity of the entire new VNEB site will be significantly reduced, despite significant demand for light industrial land:

This double spread plan illustrates part of the difficulty I had in considering the site as a whole.  The area is so large (and there are so many different developers) that it's very difficult to imagine how it will look on one plan.  Without more labels, one has to guess at what the buildings are.  The 3D models (which were present on the day), are more useful for imagining how the eventual new town will look:

I've not commented much on the new US embassy, but I think it's interesting that the embassy is being used as a catalyst for the revival of Nine Elms.  In Mayfair, the US Embassy is hated by the neighbours and is known for being particularly inhospitable (guns pointed through car windows and giant ugly tank traps all over the place), but the new location is being used to transform the way the US government build embassies, which shows some promise.

You can see that item "2" on this plan (you'll have to zoom in) is already ear marked for a supermarket.  I expect now to hear cries of "is is going to be a Waitrose?"!  More exciting is number "8", the proposed new pedestrian bridge over to Pimlico.  Not sure anybody has spoken about funding yet though! I'm intrigued about "17" and how Nine Elms Lane might be a tamed cycling route.  It would be very useful to see a proper cycle plan developed for the entire area.  

I never managed to wade through the last VNEB document (it was about 200 pages long), but I remember that one of the criticisms made at the time was a lack of green space.  I'm not sure that's yet been addressed, but I like the idea of a green park in front of the embassy (the green banks are the well hidden and environmentally friendly tank traps).  When I spoke to the US representative at the Vauxhall Civic Society AGM 2010, he seemed to think that the park would be open to the public.  Some kind of provision has been made for organised sports (see the next board).  I have visions of the moat being used as a boating lake, but I suspect that's going one step too far:

I like the look of this.  My favourite part of the US Embassy discussion (which took place at the Vauxhall Society AGM) is when somebody asked where the protests would take place.  The US embassy had thought about this carefully and pointed out that whilst it would be up to the police, there was plenty of room for protests on the new plaza:

It was difficult to photograph this 3D model, in which somebody must have had to lovingly and laboriously place drawing pins, but I wanted to show absolutely everything present at the exhibition, so here it is:  

This one's even more exciting.  I believe the embassy is due to be about 10 floors high, with one basement level, (that they're admitting to).  If this model is accurate, it looks as though the rest of the development, with the exception of one or two towers will be medium and high rise, but I didn't see any mention of heights on the preceding boards:

VNEB Exhibition - Part 2 of 5 - Lambeth Council
VNEB Exhibition - Part 3 of 5 - Tideway Wharf
VNEB Exhibition - Part 4 of 5 - Sainsbury's Towers