Dear Supporters,

Jeremy Corbyn was not the only one struggling to answer some basic questions last night. I'm sorry to tell you that Lambeth Council’s Planning Application Committee voted narrowly to grant planning permission to the Beast of Bemore – by 3 votes to 2.

Three labour councillors voted in favour of the development Councillor Joanne Simpson, Councillor Timothy Windle and Councillor Clair Wilcox. Councillor Ben Kind (Labour) and Councillor Nicole Griffiths (Green Party) voted against.

Read on to find out what more we discovered during the meeting, why councillors voted how they did (although this remains somewhat difficult to explain for those who supported the application) and what will happen next. This is quite a long update, but it’s worth persevering to understand more detail about the flawed reasoning that has led to this decision.

What’s clear is that we want to continue gathering signatures for what’s to come, so carry on sharing this petition with neighbours and friends!

This chapter has certainly finished, but it’s been said before that this is only the end of the beginning!

How the meeting happened

For those of you, like us, who have never been to a PAC, there were 5 local Councillors present, including the chair (insert names and wards), 9 planning officers (who are the equivalent of civil servants in local government) and three representatives from the developer and three representatives of people who have raised objections, these were myself and Stuart, representation the Crimsworth and Thorparch Association and Jimmy Dodd representing the Patmore Estate. Councillor Mohamed Jaser (Stockwell Ward) was also present to lend us his support. The meeting was well attended with the significant number of public seats almost full.

At the start of the meeting each of the three representatives for and against the development got to speak for 2min each, followed by Councillor Jaser. Frustratingly, we were not allowed to speak or ask or answer any questions beyond this point, not even to correct contradictory information that was being provided or mis-leading arguments that were being made.

There then followed a long section of questions from the councillors to the officers. Occasionally these were referred on to the developers.

Our objections focussed on the poor consultation process and low quality of the planning officers’ report, which includes several contradictions, inaccuracies, disingenuous interpretations and is, at its core, based on unsupported subjective value judgements. Jimmy Dodd focussed on the poor consultation and that site traffic down Belmore Street will create huge disruption to the local community and may simply not be workable at all. More generally there was limited reference to the impact on Patmore Estate throughout proceedings.

The Councillors were also shown a model of the proposed development by one of officers where very conveniently the tall buildings (for which planning is only “in outline”) were shown in frosted plastic, which significantly downplayed their impact on the neighbourhood.

After extensive questions each councillor then gave their opinion, what concerns they had had coming into the meeting, what merits they saw and how they intended to vote. There were one or two last questions to officers aimed to trying to persuade a wavering councillor to support the proposal and then a vote was taken.

What we discovered

The questioning uncovered several important aspects that were unclear or not mentioned in the planning officers’ report, as well as going over what was already there in more detail, including:

Height and use of the Beast of Belmore Tower (Tower C):

• The crux of whether Tower C (the Beast!) should be allowed hinges on paragraph Q26 in the Lambeth Local Plan (see p139 here). Interestingly, this was not clear to all Councillors, which is surprising given the sit on the Planning Committee. Crucially, one criterium for tall buildings being acceptable is that “there is no adverse impact on the significance of strategic or local views or heritage assets including their settings”. Ultimately, the presenting planning officer agreed that this was a subjective judgement – we let you make up your own minds based on the attached pictures from the developers own report whether there is no adverse impact on local views
• The student accommodation for which Tower C is being built is not for students attending the college next door but will be used for students of all kinds from across London South Bank University’s vast campus portfolio. It is not clear how this has been incorporated into the traffic and access plans
• The planning officer, when asked the fundamental question: “Why is it necessary to build such a high tower as part of this development” was literally stumped and wanted to defer to the developer who also didn’t answer
• When questioned the planners explained that they had assessed the development as “not inappropriate” but when asked if it was “sensitive” in terms of location, they admitted that they hadn’t considered this
• When looking at the photos of views that will be impacted by the Tower the officer admitted that one photo showed the street view but that much more of the Beast would be visible above the building line on the street. However, he explained that cameras don’t look up
• When asked, by the chair why they had settled at 70m height, no one was able to provide a clear response
• Although the planning officer, in presenting various views of the development, repeatedly emphasised that the 20 storey Tower C is acceptable, because it is close to other tall buildings (such as the 6 and 10 storey buildings above Tesco’s), when asked point blank by Councillor Griffiths if this would be the thin edge of the wedge (i.e. whether the presence of a first tall building will make it easier for more tall buildings to be built in future) he replied that “that is not how planning policy works”. The irony didn’t seem to register with anyone beyond the audience

Traffic management during construction and beyond:

• The traffic management has not been thought through and the officer responsible could not answer fundamental questions (like whether lorries would have enough space to turn on Belmore Street).
• They could not display any consideration of how the increasing number of individual Amazon and home delivery movements would be handled in the traffic management plan.
• They had not talked to traffic engineers about how the intersection of Belmore and Wandsworth roads would be managed in future.

Construction and public realm improvements

• The optimistic assumption for how long building works will take is 5 years – that’s if funding can be found for blocks B, C and D. It was noted that there is no limit to how long the building activity can take now that permission has been granted
• It’s unclear when the public realm improvements (that means the improved pavements, cut-through the development, i.e., the pictures you see in the reports) will be available and what happens to them is funding for future blocks is not found. We did note that issues relating to access were contradictory in three different parts of the report

Impact on quality of life and wellbeing:

• The light effects, which were presented in detail, are as bad as the report suggests and no further evidence mitigating the effect was presented. One living room in Cornell Square was singled because 60% of its surface will lose direct light and will be, in the words the responsible officer, “gloomy”. Like all the other harm that this development creates though, this was deemed “acceptable” and we moved on
• It was also noted that during mid-summer when the sun had a higher trajectory there would be no impact on sunlight. We raised the issue of winter impact but this was not raised as a consideration by the Councillors
• A question was asked about other considerations and the planning officer referred to impact on quality of life which appears to not include a decrease in levels of light.
• There are unresolved issues around the tall tower creating and channelling wind, which will make surrounding areas uncomfortable

More generally, the Planning Officers were highly prepared when it came to detail and arguments supporting the development but finding the relevant information that was unsupportive was remarkably difficult. It took easily 5min to find pictures of views that are damaged by the development and even then, they could only be shown from within a technical software package – no one had thought to include them in the PowerPoint presentation

Who voted how and why

• Councillor Joanne Simpson (Labour, Prince’s Ward) said her main concerns coming into the meeting were the height of the Tower C and especially how attractive it would be (given costs may need to be saved in future) and the issues relating to local wind it would cause. She now felt “comforted” that both were not an issue. She voted to grant permission.
• Councillor Timothy Windle (Labour, Larkhall Ward) had been concerned about the height of Tower C and the loss of light suffered by neighbours to the development. He felt that there was no adverse impact on local views and so was comfortable with the proposal. He voted to grant permission.
• Councillor Clair Wilcox (Labour, Streatham South) voted to grant permission without providing any justification. It didn’t feel like her vote was ever in question.
• Councillor Ben Kind (Labour, Tulse Hill Ward) was concerned about the height of Tower C about which he was partially persuaded but voted against granting permission because the traffic management for constructing the towers will not be acceptable and has not been thought through
• Councillor Nicola Griffiths (Green Party, St Leonard’s Ward) took an unequivocal stand that Tower C is not acceptable and voted against granting permission.

The officers offered, to persuade the councillors, to add several conditions to future considerations. For example, that the traffic management will be looked at in more detail, that the public realm work be completed prior to the construction of buildings B, C and D;  or that the issues of wind that Tower C will create can be mitigated. This seemed to swing especially Councillor Simpson’s opinion. However, as we know when, in future, it comes to making hard decisions about cost of building versus public interest the latter rarely wins and the language being used was very much about “aspiring” and “targeting”, i.e., no clear commitments or conditions.

What happens next

The next avenue to pursue is that the Mayor of London can over-rule this decision and we will be making sure he knows that we need him to do this. First of all we need to persuade him and his team to call this case in for review and we will come back to you and how you can all help us make sure this happens.

In the meantime, don’t stop getting your friends and neighbours to sign this petition. Now, more than ever, we need strength in numbers!

Ultimately, the Beast of Belmore tower bock would not only blight our skyline but will seriously weaken the fabric of our community in ways that won’t be easily recoverable and we need to make sure this doesn’t happen.

Yours,

Tom