Hello All

The Putney Society is the latest association to join the almost unanimous opposition to the One Battersea Bridge proposal by multi-billion dollar investment giant Cerberus.

The Society's planning expert highlights a catalogue of flaws in the design and the multiple negative outcomes on this part of London should it be granted planning permission. Above all, he outlines how the entire project flies in the face of Wandsworth Council's Local Plan, something that was only published (at considerable expense) last year.

According to the Putney Society, this planning application should have been dismissed at birth. Yet it wasn't. This damning closing sentence speaks volumes: 

'Failing to refuse this scheme will prove, as many fear, that the Local Plan is fiction and that the interests of local residents are for sale.'

Please find time to read this document, so you can understand the contradictions and serious issues at the heart of this scheme.

RM

Planning Applications

The Town Hall
London SW18 2PU 

For and on behalf of the Putney Society.

F.A.O: Shanali Counsell 

Copied to: Cllrs Belton, Cooper, Fraser, Govindia, Hogg, Locker, Tiller

Dear Shanali 

Planning Application 2024/1322 Glassmill, Battersea Bridge 

10 June 2024 

It takes something The Putney Society doesn’t normally comment on applications in Battersea. But this scheme for a 34 storey tower demands our attention because not only does it blatantly ignore the provisions for tall buildings in the Local Plan, but we were shocked to read in the supporting documents of several rounds of pre-application consultations when the Council should have stood by its own policies but clearly didn’t. Local Plan Policy LP4 C. says ‘The Council will seek to restrict proposals for tall buildings outside the identified tall building zones’.

This site is already almost wholly filled with a relatively modern 7 storey concrete framed building. The lower floor loadings for residential versus offices mean that this structure can almost certainly carry the extra one or two floors which might be all this location justifies, whether by reference to planning policies, or simply the impact on neighbours.

National and Local policy says demolition should not be allowed without full and proper justification for the loss of a huge amount of embodied carbon. Local Plan Policies LP10 A 1 & 5 require this. Yet none is given. Recent decisions about M&S on Oxford Street show the way whilst retrofit of the similar D H Evans nearby steams ahead.

Even a cursory look at the Local Plan shows these policies, and more, blatantly ignored:
LP1 A 1 requires ‘A high level of physical integration with surroundings’ – which does not mean mimicking and thus devaluing the adjacent listed bridge.
LP1 A 2 requires ‘scale and massing that relates positively to the prevailing local character’. Which is 6 storeys max. The existing building is already as high as should be allowed.
LP2 B 1 impacts on daylight and sunlight for neighbours. Ignored on the shadow plans.
LP2 B 2 development that is not visually intrusive or overbearing. Overbearing to the Helen Hamlyn Centre and Thameswalk Apartments across a narrow roadway. Intrusive, as the applicants own diagram shows, to large areas of historic Chelsea as well as Battersea.
LP4 C is clearly against tall buildings outside identified zones. Whilst the historic assets whose settings this will damage are mostly in ‘another borough’ (Chelsea), this still matters. LP4, Tall Buildings clauses B1, 2, 6, 7, 9, 15, & 17, all apply. The existing building is already one storey more than Appendix 2 allows and the tallest neighbour. Surely this is the perfect case for recladding. LP4 B.11 suggests enhancement to the Thames Path. What is offered is token repaving. What is needed here is a segregated crossing below Battersea Bridge Road.

It’s not just design (predictable) and egregious scale that fail to meet the Local Plan:
LP10, Sustainable Construction requires developments to 1. Incorporate the London Plan’s circular economy principles and 5. Retain existing buildings and their embodied carbon in renewal and regeneration projects. Few sites are more obviously suited for this than here where the existing concrete frame already fills the realistic development volume.
LP50, Transport and Development confirms that this location, a long way from any station, cannot take the extra traffic. There may be a bus stop outside raising the PTAL from 2 locally to 3 here, but Battersea Bridge is already at near permanent standstill, and policy LP50 A.1. requires a PTAL of 4 or better to justify extra density.

Don’t be seduced by promises of ‘affordable’ homes. The developers are clearly expecting flats here to sell for many millions. Even discounted, these would be in no way affordable to low to medium income families as required by clause 7.12.

Wandsworth is rightly proud of the positive impact of having drawn the Royal College of Art to relocate to Battersea directly to the south and east of Glassmill. The Council should be reserving this site for the RCA’s next expansion. Instead Wandsworth Council is selling its soul for 30 pieces of silver in the guise of ‘affordable’ flats. Shame on you.

Local Plan Policy LP4 C. says ‘The Council will seek to restrict proposals for tall buildings outside the identified tall building zones’. Failing to refuse this scheme will prove, as many fear, that the Local Plan is fiction and that the interests of local residents are for sale.

Yours Sincerely

Buildings Panel Convenor
For and on behalf of the Putney Society.