Transcript

Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the strategic committee meeting. My name is Councillor Ayman Rahman and I will be chairing this meeting. This meeting is being held in person. Committee members and key participants are present in this meeting room only. Only the committee members present in this meeting room will be able to vote. Other persons may also attend remotely, committee members and others who have chosen to attend remotely have been advised by the committee officers that should technical difficulty prevent the full participation in this meeting, it may proceed in their absence if I feel it is necessary. I will ask everyone to introduce themselves shortly, but before I do this, I would like to briefly confirm the protocol for addressing the meeting, including virtual proceeding meeting procedures. Participants must address the meeting through myself as a chair. If you have - if you are participating online and experience any technical difficulties, you must contact the democratic service as soon as possible, however, officers may not be able to respond to your request as soon as - request straight away. You should keep your microphones and cameras switched off at all times. Please do not use the meeting chat facility. Any information added to the chat facility will be disregarded. If you experience technical difficulties, you must contact either myself or democratic service officers as soon as possible. I would like to remind all members and other participants that this meeting is taking place within the formal pre-election or prior period leading up to the - leading up to the by-election taking place on 12 September. You are therefore reminded to - reminded that discussion must not involve any election issues or parties' politics content and must stick closely to the matters set out for decision. I would like to inform members that due to an administrative error, the agenda for tonight's meeting incorrectly listed nine members of the committee. Since the councillor decision on 17 July, there are only eight members of the committee. Councillor James King was removed from the committee and there is one vacant position pending a nomination for that for an ungrouped member. A supplementary agenda has been published reflecting the updated membership but this has no impact on tonight's business. I would like to ask committee members present to introduce themselves. Please can you also state any declaration of interest that you may have in the agenda items and the nature of interest. I have nothing to declare apart from I have been contacted about a few of today's agendas, just emails and phone calls, but I have not been responding to anything. Thank you. Good evening, all. Councillor Gulab Kibriya Choudry, Councillor for Popular World. Nothing to declare, just I received some email. Thank you, chair, Councillor Syed Ahmed. I don't have anything to declare as such but just the fact that one of the items on the paper is in my ward and I have been sort of contacted by several activists, residents, and so I think I would like to sit out on those papers and I sort of nominate Councillor Sulek to deputise on my behalf. Thank you. My name is Amodar Khan and I'm Councillor for Blackwell TV. Nothing to declare but as I want to have committee to know that I live in surrounding one of the items. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. My name is Councillor Sulek Ahmed and I'm deputising for Blackwell TV. I'm deputising for Councillor Syed. After the first item, I believe it will be gone and I'll be deputising on behalf of Councillor Syed. I've got nothing to declare. Councillor Campbell-Hussain, Whitechapel Ward, nothing to declare but as chair said, I received some emails in some of the agenda items and also for the transparency, I will only sit here for agenda item 4.1 due to personal reason I have to leave after this agenda item and Councillor Ahmed-Urquhann kindly accepted to substitute for me. Thank you. Thank you. I'm Mathilda Bustin, Councillor for Island Gardens Ward. I have a couple of declarations, so item 4.1, I wasn't here for the substantial debate so I won't be voting on that. Item 5.1, I've been involved in the history of the development and the application, so the 2018 scheme that came to committee, I did campaign against that scheme. I also spoke in objection to the appeal schemes, both of the appeal schemes, to the planning inspector as well. However, I also attended the council facilitated community engagement events for this scheme. However, I have kept an open mind, I'm not predetermined and I'm looking forward to the debate. This is Councillor Iqbal Hussain, from the south, nothing to declare. Good evening, chair, colleagues, everyone in this chamber. Now to apologies, Justine, have we received any apologies or absence? Thank you, chair. Yes, I received an apology from Councillor Asma Begum and Councillor Mathilda Bustin is substituting. Obviously, you've mentioned previously about Councillor James King and both Councillor Sayed Ahmed and Councillor Kamal Hussain have mentioned the substitutions, so that's all I have, sir. Okay. Thank you. Agenda Item 2 is minutes from previous meeting. Can we approve the minutes from 16th July, 2024 meeting? Yes, thank you. Agenda Item 3 are the recommendation and procedure for hearing objection and meeting guidance. I will now ask Paul Beckenham, head of development management planning and building control to present the guidance. Thank you very much, chair. Good evening. Good evening, committee members, members of the public and those who are joining us both in the chamber and online this evening. So as the chair said, this item sets out the standing advice for determining planning applications, including the legal advice that decisions must be made in accordance with the relevant development plan policies and material considerations. When we come to the items of the decision, the running order will go as follows. So I'll introduce the application with a brief description and summary of the recommendation to the committee. Officers will then present the report. Those who have registered to speak in objection can address the committee for up to three minutes each and then those who have registered to speak in support, including the applicants, can also address the committee for up to three minutes each. Any councillors who have registered can also address the committee as part of the public speaking. And the committee may ask points of clarification of the speakers. The committee will then consider the recommendation, including any further questions, debate and further advice from officers, and the committee will reach a decision that's based on a majority vote, and I'll confirm that back to the chamber. If the committee proposed changes to certain aspects of the officer recommendation, for example, to add or delete or amend planning conditions, obligations, or indeed reasons for refusal, then the task of formalising those changes is delegated to the corporate director of housing and regeneration, and in the event that the committee did not accept the officer recommendation, they must give their planning reasons and propose and agree an alternative course of action. The committee may be adjourned briefly for further planning and legal advice, and the task of formalising the committee's alternative decision is delegated to the corporate director of housing and regeneration. If the committee proposed to make a decision that would seem to go against the provisions of the development plan or could have legal implications, then the item may be deferred for a further report from officers dealing with the committee's proposed course of action. There is an update report that's been published today. Just for clarification, on the website, I think it's possible to see two update reports, one from yesterday which was incomplete, but one from today which has the remaining items in it, and that's been circulated to members as well. I'll deal with those when I come to the individual items. Thank you very much, Chair. Members online, I just wanted to ask, is there any councillors online? Yes, I am online, it's Councillor Sabina Khan. Anything to declare? No, nothing to declare. Apart from, I was in the meeting when you discussed 4.1, substantive item, and 5.1, I live in Canary Wharf, and I've also attended the consultation meeting, and I've also been approached by Andrew Wood over the emails. Thank you, Councillor. Just to confirm, you can participate in the meeting, but you are not going to be able to vote. Understood. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, moving on to agenda item, for deferred item application, PA/22/00731 and 4 and 5, Harper Exchange Square, London, E14/9, TQ8EW was deferred for site visit, which took place on 22nd August, 2024. Paul Burke will introduce the application for consideration, and Jane Jin, planning team leader, will summarise. Thank you very much, Chair. Chair Chen, you've introduced the item very well for me, so thank you very much. So the application was for demolition of the existing building and erection of a mixed use residential building containing 450 residential units, new podium level to accommodate flexible retail, community, creative and amenity uses, as well as basement level, blue badge parking, new public realm, landscaping and all associated works. This application was considered at the previous strategic planning committee meeting. The recommendation to the committee was to grant planning permission subject to conditions and obligations. The application was deferred for site visit, which took place on 22nd August, and I think four committee members were able to attend. The recommendation itself remains unchanged, and obviously those members who were at site visit may wish to feed back their observations to the committee. Chair, there is just a very, very brief overview, reminder presentation that my colleague Jane Jin has for you, and then it's over to yourself and the committee to ask any further questions and determine the application. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. As Mr Buckner explained, this is a deferred item from July SDC, a proposal for a mixed use residential-led redevelopment of 4 and 5 Harbour Exchange. Just as a background, as Mr Buckner touched upon, application was presented on 16th July 2024. Members voted to defer the item for a site visit to understand the construction activity in the area and the potential impacts. On 22nd August, the site visit was undertaken. Just a recap of the proposal. This is the site location, off Marsh Wall and access of Lime Harbour, and it is in the Blackwall and Cubbertown Ward. Member site visit was undertaken on the 22nd to understand the construction activity in the area and any construction impact from the site. Construction vehicle route and logistics and construction activity were discussed on site. The images on the slide just briefly provide further clarification in terms of construction vehicle access routes, predominantly using the main routes, and also the picture on the right-hand side provides a construction compound site well contained within the estate itself. Just a brief recap of the proposal. This is a verified view of the proposed scheme, and it is viewed from the south dock. The proposal is for 450 residential units with commercial uses on the ground and first floor, and the scheme includes 120 affordable housing units. Another verified view of the western elevation of the proposed tower, Mill Harbour inner dock, and the proposed architectural treatment. The proposed scheme has been designed with clear podium level and is focused on delivering active frontages along dockside and interaction with South Quay DLR. As you'll recall, the facade will predominantly be metal framing inspired by the industrial heritage, and the framing helps to break up the vertical emphasis. Just another view of the lower level, how people will actually experience the building. The design was focused around with active frontages along the pedestrian walkway, which the building interface, which is not present at the moment. This slide just provides a quick recap of what the building contains. The proposal will provide 35% affordable housing, 120 affordable units, with the delivery of 44% affordable family-sized homes. The proposal will provide a high quality residential accommodation across all tenures, including meeting the minimum dwelling sizes, and 96% of the units will provide dual aspect with some with triple aspect. Just the housing dwelling mix table, this proposal meets the policy targets of affordable rent intermediate tenures, however the market housing is slightly skewed towards one and two bed flats. This is acceptable, as there is a degree of flexibility in the market sector, given the proposal meets all the dwelling mix targets within the affordable, this is considered acceptable. Proposal will provide a mixture of indoor/outdoor play spaces throughout the series of different provisions to meet the different age groups. The additional supplemental play area underneath the DLR also provides more flexibility in play space provision. The propose includes dedicated play space on the second floor of the building through an interactive playroom, which leads up to the terraced decked areas for outdoor play. However the proposal also provides, as explained, external play areas on the ground floor. Suitable levels of community meet space have also been provided throughout the building with internal/external provisions. The proposal provides more than the required quantum, and therefore is considered acceptable. Just finally on the last couple of slides, the slide outlines the planning obligations that will be secured through this development, and the slide provides the financial contributions that will be sought. This slide lists non-financial obligations which will be delivered through proposed development, and they mostly relate to affordable housing, employment, play space and transport. To conclude, officer's recommendation remains as to grant planning permission subject to any direction by the Mayor of London, Section 106 agreement, including the mentioned planning obligations as well as conditions and informative that were set out in the main report. That is the end of my presentation. Thank you. Thank you, Jane. The Council's construction does not allow public speaking for deferred application. I will now move on to members' questions. Do members have any further questions for officers? Councillor. Thank you, Chair. I believe we have been on a site visit, which is of Chair and other members of the committee. We experienced the disruption in Marsh Hall, which was the main reason why we wanted to sort of defer this and understand the level of traffic flowing through that area because obviously this development will create an ongoing disruption in the area as well. And yet we were there for a while when we saw how the traffic has been managed in Marsh Hall, and it's actually very, very difficult. It's pretty much gridlock most of the time. And given the fact that this is another five-year development, Marsh Hall again will experience that level of traffic going forward. And then once we got into the site and looked at the development site itself from the back end, the scale of it is pretty large. It's a very big area. And we had a discussion then and sort of I'm proposing that we look at this one more time with another scope, with a different lens, with the fact that the disruption will be faced by the residents mainly, and in return having family-sized homes is quite minimal here. Looking at in total 51 and 53 and four beds, that is significantly low in terms of the disruption that they're going to face over the five years during the construction. So I'm proposing that we look at this one more time. We defer this to understand the basis of additional three to four bedrooms within this development proposal. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Councillor. So are you deferring the item to say we want larger homes and less one and two bedrooms? That's right, Chair. So I think one and two bedrooms for the residents on the basis that for the residents who would experience the disruption over five years, in return getting two and one bedrooms doesn't solve the problem of the Council's overcrowding issue that we're facing overall. So in benefit of the residents that if they experience this disruption, at least it will help with the additional three and four bedrooms as a mitigation and speaking on the residents' behalf. I think that's the way to look at it. Anyone ask a question? It's not really a question, but can I ask for the presentation to be on some of the other, like, closer screens, because >> Chair, can I just come in about the construction impact? I think what I didn't do in my presentation is possibly explain to you in terms of the assessment that's been carried out with the assessment with the proposal, sorry. It was submitted with an environmental statement which concluded there will be negligible impact in terms of construction traffic and the impact, such as air quality, will be also negligible together with any dust emitted from the construction activity on site that could be easily just managed through a standardized wording of a planning condition that can be secured through the Planning Commission, but also construction logistics plan will also be secured through a planning condition to manage the construction traffic that will be generated as a result of this development, which is quite standard form of how the borough manages all the construction traffic, and also there is a development coordination planning obligation which will coordinate the development within the area to ensure the impact is minimized. Thank you. So I want to echo what Councillor Said just said. So we're not refusing straightaway the amount of disruption the peoples of this area is going to suffer. To justify this, it's not solving any problem. We are facing, like, 25,000 people on the waiting list, and mostly the people are waiting for a larger home. So we are looking to find an avenue again to see if we can mitigate this circumstance. I think it's a good thing Councillor Said has proposed, and I want to formally second the proposal and look at this avenue again to find a mitigating objective to help this of Cowling. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor. Is there any more questions on this agenda? Yes. I have one. Okay. Yes, Councillor. Can I speak? Okay. So I've got the same concern as Councillor Said. I mean, the only reason I would like to approve this is because we need more housing, and the distraction in terms of five years traffic, pollution and air pollution, I think if we can get more three bedroom affordable housing, you know, that would make it worthwhile to have you know, to reconsider again. I think we should postpone it and reconsider it again. Thank you. Mr Jerry Vills? Thank you, Chair. I've been close to this scheme and obviously I went out of sight with members to consider the proposals, and appreciate the concern that members have with the number of family size units. When you renegotiate an application for and you change the unit mix, it then has further implications on the scheme. So you have to look at the place based provisions and you have to look at how the scheme is designed beyond just changing the unit numbers or family size units. So I think we've talked to the developers. Can I maybe suggest rather than defer it that you delegate to officers to try and maximize the family size unit so that we can deal with it directly with the applicant, so that we can make the changes to the scheme. And if it's not possible for us to increase the family size units, then we can bring it back to you. It is a good idea, but are you trying to say we grant the application and then you go back with the applicant and decide, is that what you're trying to say? I don't know if that's possible. I'll seek some legal advice on that. I think it's possible to have resolution so that you're minded to grant the application subject to further family size units. If the committee decides not to grant the application and to be deferred as how Councillor Said has recommended and Councillor Kamboo-Hussain has seconded, is that possible as well? I'm just looking at the wording of the constitution, it says where it is necessary to defer the determination of an application. I would just query the necessity, because the problem is it's an entire redesign of the application, which I think is Jerry's point. So I think my view is, and I think you probably saw me straight away just going to the constitution, my view is that it is tricky to argue for a deferral on this point. Okay. Councillor Hossain? You know, obviously if we're going to have a discussion on this, I think instead of deferring it and going forward, we should make a decision, it is 120 affordable homes and if our office residents need. Thank you. It is something up to the committee, obviously, if the committee is willing to go with what the officers are saying or to go with what Councillor Said is saying, I'm guessing. So I will ask the legal to assist again. If we decide to go with the defer, to defer it, is it still possible to do it? I think ultimately it is a matter for members, if they want to defer, as I say, I would query it on the basis of the wording of the constitution. But I think ultimately it is for members to feel that they are acting in accordance with this. As I say, I can read out the wording, if that helps, of the constitution. So it is where it is necessary to defer the determination of an application, the matter will be placed on the list of deferred adjourned outstanding items to enable further consideration as soon as possible. Where the reason for deferral does not involve a substantive new information, the committee will be updated on the next occasion. Where deferral is for a more substantive reason, such as renegotiating part of the proposal, then it would generally be appropriate for a fresh report to be presented to the committee and the decision part of the agenda. Paul, would you like to comment? Yeah, I think, yeah, it is interesting. So starting point, you have the officer recommendation of the scheme compliance of the development plan, and although members have a concern about the amount of family housing, it is policy compliant in that respect. So that is the starting point. I think just -- I think there is broadly two options. So there is the option that Mr Bell has suggested, which you delegate to officers to see if it is possible to improve that. We don't know if it is, because we don't know what the applicant's response to that will be, and there may be all sorts of constraints that prevent them from doing it within the physicalities of the application. But if that was the case, then you would be delegating it to officers to do that on your behalf. We would only bring it back to committee for you to decide what to do if it wasn't possible. So if it wasn't possible to achieve what you have asked for, then it would have to come back to committee and you would have to determine the application. So it might be helpful, I guess, from the applicant who will be watching this, to indicate what members think the scenario would be if it wasn't possible to renegotiate. So you might want to sort of indicate that without sort of predetermining the outcome. But the alternative is to do sort of what my colleague Astrid has just described, which is more of a deferral process where we would still do the same thing, but it would be brought back for your determination. The latter point, I think, might be more pertinent in the event that the application requires more significant alterations. For example, we might take a view that it needs to have further public consultation. The problem is we don't know, because we don't know what the solution actually is until we've had those conversations with the applicant. So there's broadly two options, I hope that makes sense. So one, it would only come back if what you've asked for can't be achieved. The other is a more standard deferral that would come back in its revised form -- sorry, if a revised form can be achieved. So is it -- so if it was to be deferred, can it be deferred as saying, can you relook at the application for larger size? As a committee, you'd have to be very clear so the applicant knows what it is that they're being asked to do, because they've applied on the basis of what they believe is policy compliant. So they've done that following the development plan, they've put their application together, they've applied based on what they believe the policies require them to do. If you feel there are planning reasons for them to look again at the application, I think it's just important to give a very good steer on what that should be. Because at the moment, obviously as we sit here now, we can't guarantee that could be achieved until the applicant has had the chance to go away and consider that. So Councillor, you have raised regarding -- do you want to come back in here? Sorry, Chair. Just one other point as well. Just to note that obviously any decision made by this planning committee, the development plan, unless material considerations apply, so that would also have to be explained because as my colleague notes, it has been -- it is in accordance with the policy within the development plan at the moment. So Councillor, obviously after hearing back from the officer on the legal, do you want to elaborate exactly what you are deferring regarding? Thank you, Chair. So, I mean, following the site visit, this -- we know exactly what the application is and how it's come through and what the affordable housing element is within the actual application. Following the site visit and seeing the sheer scale of it, that's when you sort of could take in what the disruption is going to be, number 1, for the residents of the local area. And that part of Tower Hamlets is very much used because one of the main supermarkets of Tower Hamlets is based there, ASDA, and everybody uses that. It's not just used by the people of the island. It's used by pretty much all of Tower Hamlets. So the disruption in that area is significant at this current moment because of just two ongoing development there with temporary traffic lights going on and it's like that pretty much throughout the whole year. This would mean that this is another additional long-term disruption in place. Now to mitigate that, what would benefit the visitors of the local area is to say that there would be family size homes, which is the ultimate issue in every household, most house on the Tower Hamlets. Within every estate and every building there's a significant number of people living in an overcrowded situation, which is the biggest problem for us as a council. Our TA costs are over the roof and the list goes on. It's all to do with housing. So to mitigate all of that and the disruption of the residents facing for the next five years, at least we could say that in return there was 3 to 4 bedroom family size homes. On that basis I'm not saying we reject this. It's a good development, it's a good site, but the only issue is that it's not going to be benefiting the people of that local area who will go through all the issues, not just local area, everyone around Tower Hamlets when they go to visit that side of DE Borough. Thank you, Councillor Loughton. My only other observation is, and thank you, Councillor, for the clarification, I suppose if I've understood correctly, so the provision of more affordable housing won't in itself mitigate the construction impacts. There will still be construction impacts from a large building like this, but I think what you're expressing is that the public benefits of the scheme of which the provision of affordable family housing is arguably one of those benefits is, in your opinion, not sufficient to outweigh the level of disruption, noise, disturbance over a prolonged period of time that would affect the wider public. So you're weighing up public harm and public benefits, but in the acknowledgment that there would still be that harm wouldn't be mitigated, obviously, by provision of more housing. There's other ways that you mitigate construction impacts, but that's, if I understood correctly, I think, Chair, that's what your colleague was explaining. I think just to round up, I think, sorry, we've debated two possible ways of dealing with this. I think it would be probably more straightforward to defer the application. So can I see everyone who is in favour to defer the application regarding what Councillor Said Ahmad has requested? I think it should be deferred as well. Any abstentions? Oh, you're not voting, okay. Paul, would you address the outcome of this application? Thank you, Chair. In accordance with those who are able to vote on this application, we have, if I've counted correctly, five in favour of deferral and one vote against deferring it. So the application will now stand deferred pending further negotiations on the provision of affordable family housing. I can't promise at this stage exactly when that will come back to the committee, but we'll obviously bring that back as soon as it's expedient to do so. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much, Paul. Just to confirm, Councillor Sabina, would you like to come into the meeting? Can you please raise your hands rather than just calling out? Thank you. Sorry, could you explain that again, please? I haven't understood it. Do you want me to do it? Rather than just calling out online, can you raise your hands? We could see you when you raise your hands and we'll call you in. Okay. We'll do that. Thank you. All right. Moving on. Agenda Item 5 are the planning application for decision. We have two applications to consider this evening. Agenda Item 5.1 is PA/23/02375, the former West Ferry Printwork, 235 West Ferry Road, London, pages 115 to 366. I will now invite Paul Beckenham to introduce the application. Thank you, Paul. Thank you very much, Chair. So as the Chair says, the planning application affecting the former West Ferry Printwork site at 235 West Ferry Road and the application proposes the comprehensive and phased mixed use redevelopment to provide 1,358 new residential homes, a secondary school, commercial business and service uses, community uses, a police base, car and cycle, basement parking, associated landscaping, new public realm and all of the necessary enabling works. The application is supported by an environmental statement and the recommendation to the committee this evening is to grant planning conditions subject to planning obligations and planning conditions subject to the Stage 2 referral process to the Mayor of London. Chair, if I may, just there is an update report that I referred to earlier, so I'll just briefly summarise the update report just clarifies that the delivery of the secondary school is one of the public benefits attributed to the scheme, so we've listed those in full within the update report. The update report also deals with comment received around the delivery of the school and clarifies the role outside of the planning process with regard to the lease arrangements with the Department for Education. The update report also clarifies the financial contributions that the scheme is required to make and that one of those is towards the cycle hire docking stations and that wasn't mentioned in the original report. And finally, we've just reviewed some of the planning conditions that are recommended in the planning commission is granted and some of those have been amalgamated so that just to prevent duplication and make the conditions easier to deal with. So what I would recommend, Chair, that if any members do wish to refer to the planning obligations and conditions, it might be better to look at the ones that are listed in the update report because they are the complete list there. There are also registered public speakers on this application as well, Chair. Thank you. Thank you, Paul Beckenham. I will now invite Nelupa Malik, Planning Case Officer, to present this application. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Paul. Thank you, Chair. Good evening to members of the committee, members of the public and those viewing from home. I anticipate my presentation to last approximately 30 minutes. This is the application site. It's a site location plan. The site is currently vacant with the former print works building demolished. The site is bounded by Millwall outer and inner dock to the south and to the east. Access to the site is via West Ferry Road to the west and Mill Harbour to the northeast. To the southeast and adjoining the site is the Greenwich View Place Business Park. The north of the site is bounded by residential properties along Clare Place and Starboard Way. The Tilles Leisure Centre is also located to the north. Joining the southwestern corner of the site is the Docklands Sailing and Watersports Centre. This image shows an aerial view of the site which shows that the site is largely cleared with the exception of some site offices and a substation along the eastern boundary. The residential developments to the north and the Greenwich View Place Business Park to the southeast and the Sailing Centre can be seen in the image. Just to give members some background information, the site has planning permission which was granted consent in 2016 by the Mayor of London for the redevelopment of the site to provide 722 residential dwellings and commercial uses including retail, restaurants, cafes. The extant scheme also included a secondary score, 20% affordable housing which equates to 140 units and 210 family units across all 10 years. The maximum height of the scheme was consented at 30 storeys, this is a building T4 and 110 metres in height. This consent has been implemented. This slide shows the consented master plan. The secondary score can be seen on the northwestern part of the site here and the associated school blocks, sorry the sports block, Mugers and the sports pitch can be seen to the east of the school buildings. Along the dockside are the waterfront towers T1 to T4 which are the tallest buildings within the consented master plan. The buildings decrease in height towards the north of the site as it moves away from the dockside. Key areas of public open space and public realm include West Plaza here, Boulevard Green and East Park and Pocket Park. In 2018 an application was submitted to redevelop the site to provide 1,524 residential units. The master plan principles of the consented scheme was adopted. Heights were proposed to be increased across the master plan with the tallest building increasing to 44 storeys, that's T4 and a fifth tower being introduced called T5. An appeal against the non-determination was submitted in March 2019. The appeal was allowed following public inquiry by the Secretary of State contrary to the inspector's recommendation to dismiss the appeal. So the appeal scheme was challenged by the council via judicial review and the planning permission was quashed and a public inquiry reopened in May 2021. The appeal was dismissed on the 18th of November 2021. So this slide just summarises the grounds for dismissal which relate to townscape impacts, heritage impacts, the inadequate provision and the failure to maximise family housing and the inadequate provision of viability reviews to maximise affordable housing. This slide just mutilates some of the headlines for the current proposal turning to this scheme. So it's a redevelopment of the site to provide 1,358 residential units, a 1,200 capacity secondary school, commercial business and services, classy uses, a community use, a police base, car and cycle basement parking, associated landscaping and public realm. So this slide shows the proposed master plan which adopts the key layout principles established under the extant planning permission. As per the consent scheme, an east-west route identified as the boulevard runs through the site and the gateway buildings which are these two at the end, the courtyard buildings which are the middle set here and the waterfront towers are located south of the boulevard. With the northern buildings, this building here, this one and this one, to the north of the boulevard, key areas of public open space include Park East, Dockside Gardens and Boulevard Green. The towpath along the dock edge is included within the master plan and will deliver a new dockside promenade. The secondary school, sports blocks and multi-use games areas and sports pitch can be seen to the north and northwest part of the site here. There are 13 building plots across the master plan including the school. The location of the buildings and the distribution of height and stories is indicated on this slide. The tallest building in the master plan will be T4 which reaches 110 metres AOD and 31 stories. This height maintains the maximum height consented under the extant planning permission. The waterfront towers, which are the T buildings, decrease in height from east to west. The courtyard buildings also decrease in height from east to west and have a maximum height of 11 stories. The northern buildings range between 4 to 10 stories in height. This is CGI of the scheme when viewed from the south which shows how the building plots relate to one another. The scheme will deliver 35% affordable housing which equates to 379 residential units. The scheme will also deliver 230 family sized units across all 10 years. This slide shows the location of the other non-residential uses across the master plan. A approximately 200 square metre community centre is proposed in building W1 here. A crash is proposed in building N3 and a police base is proposed in building C3. And all other commercial uses are spread across the master plan. This slide sets out the comparison to the extant scheme. Here we can see that the scheme includes an increase in 636 additional new homes, an increase in 239 affordable units which equates to an increase of 15% in affordable housing within the development in the site. There are reductions in family housing in the market tenure compared to the extant permission. However, there would be an increase of 85 family sized units in the affordable rent tenure, of which there would also be an increase in 35 times four bed units in this tenure. I'll just let members just have a look at this slide. Turning to the assessment of the application, following submission of the planning application, nearly 7,000 neighbouring properties were notified during the public consultation period. As a result of the public consultation exercise, 968 representations in support have been received. The slide summarises some of the key themes that were received in support of the proposals, which include support for the redevelopment of the site, support for new housing and affordable housing, and the provision of new educational and sports facilities. The full list of reasons for support are detailed in the committee report. There have been 51 objections received. This slide summarises some of the key themes of the objections to which include overdevelopment, excessive height, townscape impacts, heritage impacts, daylight sunlight impacts, and transport and environmental related impacts. Four details of the objections are detailed in the committee report. In land use terms, the site falls within a site allocation whereby housing and employment are identified as appropriate land uses. Infrastructure requirements also include the provision of a minimum of one hectare of strategic open space and a secondary school. No employment uses are proposed for this site. However, the residential-led mixed use redevelopment of the site has essentially been established under the extant planning permission. The scheme will also deliver the infrastructure requirements with land safeguarded for the delivery of the secondary school and 1.65 hectares of public open space. This excludes any areas of children's play. The site also lies within the Isle of Dogs and South Poplar opportunity area whereby growth is expected to be accelerated. This slide shows the CGI of the school. Officers would be seeking to secure that the school land is safeguarded and transferred by the developer to the relevant school operator for the delivery of the secondary school. Officers would seek to secure an obligation within the section 106 requiring the applicant to enter into a lease with the relevant school operator prior to the granting of planning permission. In terms of housing mix, the scheme broadly delivers policy-compliant levels of three and four-bed units in the affordable rent tenure, and the overall family provision in this tenure equates to 46.3%, which exceeds the policy target of 45%. The scheme also only marginally underprovides family housing in the intermediate tenure. There is a shortfall in family housing in the market tenure and an overprovision of studios and one-beds. However, officers recognize that the scheme seeks to proportion the housing mix where there is a recognized need without compromising the submitted affordable housing offer. Again, this slide just confirms that the scheme will provide 35% affordable housing based on habitable rooms. The tenure split would be 70/30 in favor of affordable rent to intermediate. The scheme will also be eligible for the fast-track route. The scheme has been able to deliver the proposed level of affordable housing through optimizing the site capacity through a design-led approach in accordance with the London Plan. The design-led approach requires the consideration of design options to determine the most appropriate form of development that responds to a site's context and the capacity for growth, and existing and planned supporting infrastructure capacity. Policy D.DH 6, part 2 of the local plan directs tour building developments towards tour building zones. The site falls within the mill or inner dock tour building zone whereby building height should significantly step down from the Canary Wharf cluster to support its central emphasis and be subservient. Building height should also step down from Marsh Hall. The concept of stepping down was considered in detail by the inspector in the appeals scheme whereby he identified a number of viewpoints that he considered that the scheme would be seen as a significant southward extension to the Canary Wharf cluster of buildings and whereby the towers would feature prominently in the skyline. To demonstrate how the scheme has been able to optimize site capacity, the applicant has submitted information in their townscape assessment which shows how the scheme has adapted since the appeal. This is an example of a view considered by the inspector which shows the cumulative view of the proposed scheme with the appeal scheme in the red wire line. The reduction in height of towers T3 to T5 compared to the appeal scheme can be seen. T4 was proposed to be 44 storeys under the appeal scheme and now maintains the consented height under this proposal. Thus that's a reduction of 13 storeys compared to the appeal scheme. T5 was proposed at 31 storeys at appeal and has been reduced by some 55 metres at 16 storeys to now become E1. You can just see it here. As detailed earlier, the maximum height of the consented scheme across the master plan is retained. This is a view from Millwall Park, another view whereby the inspector considered that the appeal scheme would appear as a significant southward extension to the Canary Wharf cluster of buildings. The proposed scheme is shown in the blue wire line with the wire line for the appeal scheme shown in red. In this view, the significant reduction in heights of the towers T3 to T5 compared to the appeal scheme can be seen. The notable drop in height of T5 particularly ensures that the proposed development no longer appears as an extension to the Canary Wharf cluster of buildings. These are some additional views whereby the proposed scheme can be seen against the wire line of the appeal scheme. The investment of views and townscape impact of the scheme has been fully detailed in the committee report. The scheme is considered to broadly comply with policy D.DH6 and as per the extent planning permission, maintains the maximum height of the tallest building across the master plan and is considered to step down from Canary Wharf cluster of buildings and Marsh Wharf. The scheme as per the extent planning permission transitions down in height from east to west. Overall, officers consider that the height scale and massing of the development to be acceptable and in accordance with the development plan. In terms of heritage impacts, the site contains no listed buildings and does not fall within a conservation area. Officers have reviewed the submitted built heritage townscape visual impact assessment and consider that the development will however result in less than substantial harm to these heritage assets. The harm will range from very low, low and middle of the spectrum. Focusing particularly on the Royal Naval College, this slide shows the view of the Grade 1 listed Royal Naval College from Greenwich Park. The proposal would be visible above and within the sky space of the Royal Naval College and its impact would be greater than the consented scheme. However, an improvement from the appeal scheme which is indicated in the red wireline. The harm to the Royal Naval College would by association also result in harm to the maritime Greenwich World Heritage site. This is another view from Greenwich Park showing the proposed scheme against the appeal scheme wireline. Paragraph 208 of the NPPS states that where a development proposal will lead to less than substantial harm to the significance of a designated heritage asset, this harm should be weighed against the public benefits of the proposal. Officers consider that the harm identified to heritage assets are outweighed by the public benefits of the proposal which include the regeneration and redevelopment of an underutilised site, the provision of 1358 new homes, the provision of 379 affordable new homes, the provision of a new 1200 capacity secondary school, the provision of new employment opportunities, community benefits including the community centre in Creche, the provision of new public open space and high quality public realm and landscaping, the improved pedestrian access and connectivity to the wider locality and the provision of a new dockside promenade. Officers therefore conclude that the impact on heritage assets to be acceptable and the scheme is in accordance with the development plan as a whole. In terms of design and appearance, this slide indicates the appearance of the four building types within the master plan. The gateway buildings will comprise brickwork and are intended to reference historic warehouse buildings. The courtyard and northern buildings will similarly adopt brick facades with warm earthy or light grey and beige toned brickwork. The waterfront towers will be notably distinctive from the other buildings with the architectural language taking inspiration from art deco and contemporary references. So the waterfront towers will use light grey CRG clad in. Towers T1 to T3 include dark grey metal accents to the balconies, balustrades and windows whereas towers T4 as the tallest and landmark tower will incorporate the use of brushed bronze metal balconies, balustrades and windows to differentiate it from the other towers. This is just a CGI of the waterfront towers and the courtyard blocks. The school building will utilise a palette of materials that deploys greys and blues to complement the architectural style and form of the buildings, also ensuring that materials are hard wearing and low maintenance. In terms of housing standards, all the dwellings will meet London Plan's relevant housing standards including internal floor space and private meeting space. Policy compliant levels of communal meeting space will be provided across the scheme. At least 10% wheelchair user dwellings will be provided and all affordable wheelchair user dwellings will be constructed to be fully accessible. Good levels of internal daylight and sunlight will also be achieved within the development. In terms of children's play space, the scheme is required to provide approximately five and a half thousand of children's play space based on the Tower Hamlets play space calculator. The scheme proposes nearly 6,800, however just under 200, so 2,000 of this provision comprises the mugus and sports pitch within the school grounds. Officers do not consider that these areas can be counted as play space and as such discounting these areas means that the scheme falls short by the required provision by 779 square metres. However, whilst the scheme falls short, officers consider that generally the scheme provides a considered approach to the play strategy across the master plan providing different areas to meet different needs and the quality of play promotes opportunities for socialising and playing and on balance this is considered to be acceptable. The assessment of the planning application has revealed major adverse daylight impacts on properties 1 to 20 Starboard Way and 16 Omega Close which is the end terrace property here. All other receptors assessed for daylight impacts range between negligible minor adverse and moderate adverse. There will also be major adverse sunlight effects to the amenity areas of 1 to 10 Starboard Way and 7 to 14 Omega Close. There are no major adverse sunlight effects to neighbouring properties with impacts ranging from negligible minor adverse and moderate adverse. The scheme will also maintain adequate separation distances from the closest neighbouring buildings with separation distances ranging between approximately 20 metres to 43 metres. Sufficient separation distances are also maintained within the development. In terms of transport matters, the scheme will provide policy compliant levels of cycle parking. The development will essentially be car free with a maximum of 146 blue badge spaces. The outline servicing, delivery and waste management plans are all considered to be acceptable. Vehicle access to the site will be from West Ferry Road and Mill Harbour. To prioritise pedestrian and cyclists, the site access would operate an automatic number plate recognition system which would provide access to authorised vehicles only. All cars associated with the residential or commercial uses accessing the site would be required to enter and exit via West Ferry Road only. A turning head would also be provided at the site access from West Ferry Road to enable vehicles not permitted access to safely leave the site. Traffic calming measures along the boulevard would act to reduce vehicle speed. Always servicing would take place within the site and not from the public highway. Servicing from the school would take place from Millwall Dock Road. There would also be some minor road realignment and provision of a new crossing on West Ferry Road. The environmental impacts of the proposed development including air quality, energy and sustainability, biodiversity and pedestrian microclimate have been considered and subject to appropriate mitigation measures are considered acceptable. The scheme will result in impact on sailing conditions. The assessment in the environmental statement shows that in the baseline scenario for an average of 32% of the time which equates to 9.6 days per month there is good sailing quality across the entire dock. As a result of the proposed scheme the average reduces to 22.4%, that's 6.7 days per month. This is a reduction of 9.6% or 2.9 days per month. Just to say also, whilst there are impacts on sailing conditions the inspector in the appeals scheme considered that obligations relating to mitigating impacts would not meet legal tests, namely that the obligation should be necessary to make the development acceptable in planning terms, be directly related to the development and fairly and reasonably related in scale and kind to the development. These are the financial obligations that would be secured in the Section 106 legal agreement. These are the non-financial obligations that would be secured in the Section 106 legal agreement which include the affordable housing, car free development, the delivery of the school, community centre, CRASH. Section 36 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 requires planning applications to be determined in accordance with the development plan unless material considerations indicate otherwise. The application has been assessed against the development plan and the national planning policy framework and other relevant material considerations. The planning balance has been set out in the committee report and in summary the scheme delivers a comprehensive master plan approach to regeneration in an opportunity area. The scheme will provide new homes including affordable homes, contributing to the borough's housing supply. The scheme will deliver 35% affordable housing which includes 46.3% of affordable rented family housing. The scheme will deliver an uplift of 239 affordable units on the site compared to the extant scheme. The scheme will deliver new areas of public open space and wider regeneration and placemaking benefits. So in conclusion overall the scheme is considered to accord with the development plan as a whole and officers are therefore recommending this application for approval subject to any direction by the Mayor of London, the section 106 agreement to secure the financial and non-financial obligations and the conditions and the informatives set out in the committee report. Thank you. I would like to invite Andrew Wood to address the committee in objection to the application. You have three minutes. I think Andrew Wood is online. Correct. Yep. Thank you, Andrew. Good evening, councillors. The application requests planning permission for a new secondary school and sports facility, both of which we really need locally. But as you just saw in the presentation, permission for that school was already granted eight years ago in 2016 and in August of 2016 this council, the Mayor of London and developer, signed a section 106 legal agreement that said the new school should be complete by September 2022, two years ago. The developer then demolished the site and built the basement as you saw from the pictures. But eight years later there is still no school. But there are around 450 local pupils in the converted office building which the government bought for £30 million nearby in Cross Harbour as a temporary school building while they waited for this site. But that office space was never designed as a school and it may shortly lose some of its internal space and all of its outdoor sports space to another development likely to come to this committee in the next few months. So what happened to the new school? Why did the lease not get signed by the developer to allow construction to start as promised in the section 106 legal agreement? The developer this year told parents that they won't sign the lease now unless you grant planning permission tonight. So a commitment they made in 2016 to a new school by 2022, they're now saying they won't deliver unless you give planning permission for their third application. There was very little information in the original planning report about this issue and the update report does contain some new information but it's still really unclear on the key question and it seems to be repeating the same mistakes made in 2016. If you grant planning permission tonight, how do you know that the developer will sign the lease? Where is your guarantee that they will sign the lease? I've heard the developer say different things about this over the last 10 years. They may say something later tonight about being ready to sign it but when will they sign it? This year or three years from now? What happens if like in 2016 they just don't sign it hoping the school will close? Officers tonight said that the new section 106 legal agreement would ensure that the school is delivered but that didn't happen in 2016. The 2016 section 106 legal agreement said the same thing. It said the new school will be finished by 2022 but eight years later work hasn't even started yet. So tonight you can do several things. You can apply some pressure on the developer. If they want to play hardball over the lease, so can you. For example, you could add a planning condition tonight that says further work by the planning team on this application is conditional on the lease being signed first. They don't get the planning permit nor the new section 106 agreement. Or you could defer a decision until October and ask officers to consult lawyers about how to make sure this is guaranteed that they will sign the lease. Because there is a real risk that the temporary school building in Cross Harbour will get partially demolished, that the school will have to operate right next to a major construction site for four years and the school closes because it is not financially sustainable to run this small secondary school anymore. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I now invite Ruth Burberry to address the committee in objection to the application. You have three minutes. Hello, can you hear me? I'm Ruth, I'm a local resident. Shall I start? I'm going to cover just two of my objections and explain why officers have been presented, I presented you with only half of the report you need to make a decision that's compliant with statutory planning policy. I suggest you defer making a decision and ask officers to provide you with the missing half of the report. The first point, density and massing. The new proposal is only 166 units less than the refused scheme, just 10% smaller. But it's 636 units more than the consented scheme, 88% bigger, nearly twice as big. It's very close to the numbers of the refused scheme but bears no resemblance to the consented scheme. The planning inspector and secretary of state rejected the previous scheme because excessive scale, massing and height would be harmful to the neighbouring area. They concluded the scale of harm was so great even the proposed infrastructure such as the school did not outweigh the harm. The height issues may have been addressed to a degree but the scale and massing have not. Why would committee seek to make a different conclusion from the inspector and the secretary of state just because the top has been knocked off a few of the towers? Officers do not explain or justify the massing or density or use the previous decisions as a guide. Nearby Muirfield Crescent was also recently rejected by the inspector due to massing. Please defer the decision and ask the officers to assess the density and massing using these decisions as a guide so that you can make a decision in line with the planning inspectors. Insufficient infrastructure. Residential units recently finished under construction and proposed for just the north-west quarter of the island comes to over 8,000 homes. By comparison, Lewisham Council implemented a serious infrastructure master plan for Canada Water for only 3,000 homes. We developed the Islay Dog Neighbourhood Plan to stop development outstripping infrastructure. Statutory planning policy, it says, large proposed residential developments are only to be permitted after all the infrastructure needed to support them and all the other developments nearby have been fully considered and allowed for. If the infrastructure is not there, the proposal should be phased for when the infrastructure can be delivered or the scheme rejected. Officers have only assessed infrastructure for the site's own needs and not assessed the cumulative impact of all the development on the wider area. They have not given you a report which enables you to make an infrastructure assessment to meet the legal obligations in the neighbourhood plan. I suggest you defer. There's a 2018 infrastructure study for the Islay Dogs that said we need $1.8 billion spent. None of it has. We need a new water main. Thames Water says the site can't be occupied because there's no water. Electricity has got to be brought from under the Thames to a new substation. We're actually West Free Road is P tell 2, very poor because of buses being cut. No park, no police station, no idea store, no swimming pool, no dock bridges, no river crossing. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. I now invite Annie, Annie Clements to address the committee in objection to the application. You have three minutes. Thank you, Chair, for the opportunity to represent our client, the owner of Greenwich View Place, which sits to the south east, immediate east of the application site. It's a commercial business park and it comprises the eastern boundary of the application site. Our client objects to the proposals for West Ferry Printworks on two principal bases. The first is the negative transport impacts on Mill Harbour and by extension, Marsh Wall, and that will be created during construction and operation. And the second is the proposed siting of the substation. With regards to the substation, Greenwich View Place forms the majority of site allocation 4.7, Mill Harbour South, in the adopted local plan. One of the design aspirations is to provide a legible, permeable and well-defined movement network, expanding the permitted open space at West Ferry Printworks. Unfortunately, this will not be possible, as the substation for West Ferry Printworks sits at the heart of this conjoined open space. Officers have explained that the provision of open space and play space is below policy, and therefore we would urge you to ask officers to work with the developer to re-site the substation. It is a significant building. Separately, our client objects to the use of Mill Harbour for construction access and operational servicing. The road is narrow and suffers daily from uncontrolled parking, including on double yellow lines. Enforcement, at the very least, needs to be improved. Our objection is supported by both TfL and the Council's transport officers. Any permission granted this evening must condition access via West Ferry Road and not Mill Harbour. With regard to the school, a topic of note this evening, it seems that the routing via Mill Harbour is necessitated by the early delivery of the school. Andrew Wood has already pointed out that whilst a commitment was secured in 2016, the school has not been delivered. It is our experience that whilst you can pass land to the Department for Education, it doesn't guarantee delivery of the school. If the school is not to be delivered, then the phasing of the development can be from east to west and serviced entirely from West Ferry Road. Further, construction vehicles and servicing vehicles must be held within the site, and we suggest that the extensive basement is used in this regard. Stopping vehicles on the highway is not acceptable. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. I now invite applicant Jonathan Margeson of DP9 to address the committee in support of the application. You have nine minutes. Hi, thank you very much. I'm Richard Martin, director of West Ferry Development. Can I spend three minutes and Jonathan spend six? Excellent. Thank you very much. Good evening, members, and thank you to your officers for a very thorough presentation. My name is Richard Martin. I'm a director of West Ferry Development. I'm here tonight with my fellow director, Rob Sanderson, together with our team of advisors, including Jonathan. It's no secret that since the 2016 scheme was implemented, revised proposals have been heard before the planning inspector on two separate occasions. On both those occasions, the inspector found against those schemes. However, the benefit of two inspectors' reports has enabled us to analyse the criticisms and correct them, as well as enabling us to take soundings from the wider community. The scheme before you tonight has been subject to substantial consultation in terms of pre-apps with your officers and yourselves, quality review panels, design workshops, discussions with your community development panel, presentation at two neighbourhood forums, three-day public consultation, as well as engagement with numerous other stakeholders, including the Health and Safety Executive, the London Fire Brigade, the Docklands Sailing Centre, the Department for Education, and the Canal and River Trust. It's my firm belief that the scheme before you tonight is a significant improvement on the previous schemes and truly optimises the site's potential, as is required by the London Plan. We are looking to deliver 1,358 much-needed, high-quality homes. 379 of these homes will be affordable homes, which equates to 35 per cent by habitable room. 46 per cent of the affordable homes will be three- and four-bedroom units, helping to address the need for affordable family homes in the borough. The scheme will be a phased development and will deliver affordable housing from phase one onwards. The scheme will also be delivering a 1,200-place secondary school, a community centre, a police hub, a creche, ground floor retail and amenity offerings, together with over two hectares of public open space in which we will be planting over 450 new trees. We will also be ensuring the use of the school's sports facilities for the wider community outside of school hours. The scheme will create thousands of jobs during construction phase and thereafter, and we will work with your employment officers to help ensure that local residents have access to these jobs, as well as 135 local apprenticeships. As part of our section 106 commitments, we will be contributing towards improvements to cross-harbour DLR, improved bus services, as well as cycle hire provision to help improve connectivity. 278 works will also address issues on West Ferry Road. Phase one of the scheme will deliver much-needed improvements to the Dockside footpath. We are also working with your officers to deliver meanwhile use to the scheme from phase one, ensuring that local residents will start to see benefits from the scheme early on in development, not just at the end. So, in short, from working with your officers and other stakeholders, we believe that the scheme before you tonight is something that we, your officers, yourselves, and in fact that entire borough can and should be proud of, and it should serve the community of Tower Hamlets for generations to come. I now hand you over to Jonathan. Good evening. Thank you members for the opportunity to speak tonight on behalf of the applicant. West Ferry Printworks is a large site of 6.15 hectares that is strategically important to the borough and London's housing delivery. This is exactly the type of site that planning policies at every level support. It is a requirement of the London plan that such sites are optimised to deliver housing. The site is an important regeneration opportunity in the borough. The scheme before you tonight is truly transformational and will have substantial regeneration benefits for the Isle of Dogs and Tower Hamlets. The 2016 planning permission has been implemented and the basement was excavated in 2018. The applicant has been mindful of the issues raised under the two previous appeals in preparing the current application before members. The applicant has worked closely and productively with your officers and carried out extensive public consultation in order to address the matters raised at the previous appeals and to ensure that the current application is addressing the local area's needs. The applicants want to deliver this scheme which optimises the site's potential for housing. The applicant is well resourced and should you be managed to grant planning permission tonight is able to begin construction. The application before you builds on many of the positive elements of the implemented planning permission. The master plan's key principles in terms of layout of the site, distribution of height and massing all follow those established by the consented development. However, the applicant considers the quality of the architecture and the public spaces is far higher than that previously consented. In short, it is a better scheme with more benefits. A key change to the proposal from the consented scheme is the amount of affordable housing that the current application delivers which has increased from 20% to 35% by habitable room. Which in affordable housing unit numbers means an increase from 140 to 379 units. As Richard mentioned, 45% of the affordable units will be three and four bedroom units directly meeting the council's pressing social family housing needs. The affordable housing units have been distributed across the site to provide a genuine mixed tenure development. In addition to affordable housing, the proposal will deliver a secondary school for 1200 places including associated playing fields which will also be available out of school hours for public use. The applicant has worked closely with the DFE on the design and delivery of the school and agreement for lease with the DFE is in an agreed form. In addition to affordable housing in the secondary school, further substantial public benefits will be delivered. They include a mix of high quality housing 1358 units. Delivery of much needed public open space on the Isle of Dogs totalling over two hectares, a third of the site. Buildings of high architectural quality which will have a positive impact on the character and appearance of the local area, a community centre and police base. Ground floor active frontages and commercial floor space providing local facilities and employment opportunities. Considerable enhancements to biodiversity through the introduction of 450 new trees, a sustainable development that utilises many green energy initiatives. The applicant also takes its responsibility in relation to fire safety very seriously. The applicant has engaged with HSE through the Gateway 1 process and engaged with the London Fire Brigade. All buildings benefit from two cores, are fitted with sprinkler systems and all facades are made of non-combustible materials. The package of public benefits associated with the application is substantial and wide ranging. The applicant is keen to begin works on the site to deliver these benefits for the borough and respectfully request that the members follow officer recommendation and approve the application. Thank you. Thank you. You still have two minutes left. Do members have any questions for officers or objectors or the applicants? Councillor Hussain. Thank you, Chair. My first question to the applicant is the hard, strong concern expressed by the objectors of the schools. By when your commitment for delivering the secondary school and the site will be completed or fulfilled? Can you confirm if the permission granted, by when do you think you will be able to deliver this commitment? Thank you. Well, yes, we've been working with the Department for Education for throughout this application actually. We've been partnering with them in terms of the design of the school. They've inputted into the design of the school. We've got an agreement for lease that is in agreed form. It was my ambition to have this signed before we became to the SDC. There's been a general election, change of government. So within the civil service there have been delays to that. But I think your officers have seen a letter from the DfE confirming that the agreement for lease is in agreed form. I see no reason why if you choose to grant permission tonight, we would look to sign that agreement for lease with the Department for Education as soon as possible. Ideally before the section 106 agreement is signed so that the section 106 agreement will be able to refer to the agreement for lease. Any indication of timeline? Well the agreement for lease is in agreed form. It's up to the Department for Education. I can't dictate when the Department for Education will sign that agreement for lease but it is in an agreed form. So it can be signed in short order. I see definitely the agreement for lease can be signed by the end of the year for sure. I'd like it to be signed sooner. But I think if you do grant approval this evening I think that will give the Department for Education comfort that the school will be delivered from a planning commission point of view. And I can't commit to what they will do but I will be keen to sign that lease as soon as possible. Can I comment to that question as well regarding the school? You know when you were granted planning in 2016, was that with the school as well? It included requirements concerning the school, yes. So did you have the lease signed then? No. There's quite a lot of nuances to that. So the section 106 agreement for 2016 consent has provisions relating for the signing of the school lease. Part of that required a school operator to be identified, funding to be shown that the school could be delivered and required that there was evidence that the school could be delivered by a particular date. None of those matters were satisfied at the time. So under the 2016 section 106 agreement we're no longer required to sign the lease. Those conditions weren't met, we're no longer required to sign the lease under the 2016 section 106. However, we've never disputed that the site should provide a school and we've worked with the DFE in relation to the provision of that school. And under this consent, that's precisely why the school is included in this consent, so it's part of this planning application and a school provider has been identified. The DFE have confirmed that they have funding and they have confirmed that they're ready to go with the school. So the obstacles that were in the way before, as far as we are concerned, have been removed and like I say, we have got an agreement for lease that is ready to sign. And we're happy to do that should planning permission be granted. Thank you, Councillor McPhee to your question. Thank you, Chair. Chair, I've got several questions. Well, as we're talking about the school, I'll stick to school if that's okay. So, officers, sorry, Nalupa, first of all, thank you for your report. It was really detailed and quite lengthy, but I thought it was a really good report and thank you for your presentation as well. So just in terms of the school, what can we do to make sure that the school does get delivered? Is there anything that we can do in terms of conditions that we can implement in order to make sure that this lease gets signed and then the DFE can take that over? Yeah, so we would be looking to secure that the agreement for lease is signed before planning permission is granted, which is different from what was secured underneath the 2016 consent. And that lease, a redacted version of that lease, we'd be looking to ensure that that's actually appended into the section 106 agreement and then the lease would be triggered once the developer gets planning permission and remediates the site. And we'd also put a restriction on to say that the developer can't commence their development until the site has been remediated and then hand it over to the DFE. Okay, so that would be done through the S106 agreement following permission being granted. Okay, so then that would be the lease signed over to the DFE. The DFE would have responsibility for building the school. Is there anything, this may not be a question for you, this may be a question for Richard. Is there anything in the lease that will require the DFE to build the school because you could sign the lease, hand it over to the DFE and the DFE could sit on it for seven, eight years if they wanted to. What's in the lease to force them to build the school? There are, off the top of my head I can't think of the exact provisions, but there are timeframes in which the DFE have to commence the school. So they are required to do that. Do you know the timeframe? I'm looking across at the lawyers, we can come back to you on that. And if they don't build the school, what will happen to that land or that lease? The lease would refer back, the land would refer back to us. But I should say there is a pressing need for the school. I don't think there is any doubt at all that this school is going to be delivered. Funding has been secured by the DFE. The only thing that is holding, frankly the only thing that is holding up the delivery of the school is the granting of planning permission. I mean there is a pressing need for this school and I think in all reasonable respects it is beyond doubt that they are going to want to build that school. I mean with all due respect the motion has been granted for this school already. We've been back and forth on that I think as a community. Could I also ask about the sports grounds in the school? So you said in your presentation that you were working to ensure that the school sports facilities will be available outside of school hours. How are you able to ensure that? Well this is another area that has taken time to negotiate with the Department for Education because that is part of the lease. There is also a draft planning condition I believe looking at your officers. There is a section 106 commitment. We would secure in the section 106 that a community's strategy for the use of the sports hall and the MUGAs outside of school hours. So that would be secured. I wanted to ask about the applicant regarding consultations. I wanted to ask about how representatives are the public consultation responses and were there any significant process? I think the concerns raised are pretty accurately reflected in Nilipa's report. There is a general category of issues which Nilipa has reflected in her report and the support raised is pretty accurately reflected in Nilipa's report as well. Do the officers want to come in? Are you trying to say how many consultations went out for? No, the question was quite clear and I think the applicant understood it. So how representative are the public consultation responses and concerns raised that have not been addressed in the planning process? I think all the objections, the material planning objections have been addressed in the report in some form or another. For example the assessment of overdevelopment and height that has been covered in the design section of the report. So the objections have been addressed. Would this development affect it or would it not affect it? So on schemes like this Thames Water tend to request a condition requiring that only a certain amount of units, usually something like 99 units can be built out until an infrastructure plan has been submitted that has been approved by Thames Water. So the process will be managed. We also have a development and integration team that will look at the infrastructure impacts across the Isle of Dogs. So the construction and the infrastructure impacts will be managed. Did the applicant want to say something? Yes, I do want to address the water pressure issue. It's something we've heard quite regularly as well. Thames Water have a statutory requirement to deliver one bar of pressure at street level. We've tested it on our site and we significantly exceed that. Obviously we can't talk for what everyone else's water pressure issues are but certainly on our site the pressure at our site exceeds the statutory requirement. Anecdotally what we think a lot of the issues are that people talk about is if you're in a high rise building, if you held a hose pipe up the water only goes to a certain height. It has to be pumped up to the higher buildings and it's fairly often building related issues in relation to the pumping of their buildings. Our buildings will obviously be new and we'll have new pumps and that will be dealt with so we're not envisaging any water pressure issues on our pumps. As Neilipa says there is a condition that Thames Water have requested that their infrastructure is upgraded in line with how we bring development on phase anyway. So I really don't see this as our development. I do not see our development having any impact on this. So as we're talking about consultation I wanted to pick up something in the report regarding the, so one of the objections that's stated in the report is about an independent consultant being used to obtain support. Because I was quite surprised that there were 968 letters of support for this application. So could you shed any light on what that related to please? So a lot of the support that we received it seemed like they were generated by a particular company. They all seem to have an email in common. So I think it's a company called Your Shout. There was a common theme across the support that was received. So Richard is it fair to say that you've hired a consultant to go around and garner support for this scheme? I wouldn't say we hired a consultant to go around and garner support. We hired a consultant to bring the scheme to the attention of people and to ask whether they wanted to support the scheme or not. We'd see that as giving a voice to people that maybe ordinarily wouldn't have a voice. Nobody was pressured into providing any support at all. All of the supports were individuals. I think they're all very happy to provide their names, addresses, photographs to show that they're unique users. So yes, we did engage an outfit to help us do that but I wouldn't say garnering support is the right term. Thank you, Chair. My concern about if the permission, planning permission granted to the applicant, my concern is probably the officer or applicant can answer me these questions. Because the main delivery will be for the construction, delivery and pick up will be through Westfield Road and opposite, right opposite the Westfield printers there is a primary school called Annamu Primary School. And that will be, it is chaos when the people come to drop their children to the school, also on the pick up, it's always the chaos on that area, on that time, school time. So if the planning permission is given tonight or accepted, make sure that the school time should be avoided for the delivery vehicles or pick up vehicles. Because I know this Westfield Road will be the main delivery and pick up vehicles will use the Westfield Road, that area. This is my concern, who's going to answer this one, please? Thank you. So how long, yeah, of course, yeah. Firstly we totally understand that and we can assure you that it will be addressed. As part of the demolition and the excavation of the basement we obviously had heavy construction traffic at that time. We didn't have a single incident, we actually worked with the school, we actually provided health and safety classes for the kids, they did posters and stuff like that that we put up. We let the school know when activities would be happening, they briefed their parents on it and we also make sure that there's no heavy traffic in and out of the site around school pick up and drop off times. And that will be secured as part of the construction management plan anyway. We totally understand that and that will definitely be taken care of. Can I just jump in as well, Chair? So the applicant would be required to comply with the council's code of construction practice and that means where there's a development within the vicinity of the school that construction vehicles are limited to 9.30 to 3pm. So there's, I think it's Arnhem Wharf Primary School opposite, so they can only use West Ferry Road between 9.30 and 3pm. Then after 3pm they'll be using Mill Harbour until 4.30. But during holidays they'll be able to use West Ferry Road. My question is to the applicant. In terms of, I can't see actually what I was looking for, in terms of the social housing and the market value renting division, is there any segregation of use of that particular site such as any parks or any facilities that will be separated from, yes, between two groups? I can come in on that one. So in terms of, are we talking about community facilities or just the actual separation of? Okay, so the affordable housing units will be in separate blocks, they're the northern buildings. In terms of like communal facilities, there are some facilities that are located towards the market units, things like a gym possibly or there's like a central hub I think in the scheme. But through the section 106 we are looking to secure an immediate strategy, which means that if there's any kind of occupiers within the affordable housing blocks that want to use those facilities, that they will be able to use it on like a pay to use basis. My other question is, it's no doubt, it's a beautiful project and it's bringing up the area, you know, because I did witness like many years before the state of the document, especially the site. But I'm just looking at the development close to the, what do you call it, the dock there itself. So there's a beautiful walkway on the plant. Is that something for the use of the residents of this within the estate or something for the public they can enjoy as well? No, so all those kind of public areas will be kept public so they don't necessarily have to live in that development site to access it, so it will be for everybody. Sorry, it will be for everyone? Yeah, it will be public, public access. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. My question to the applicant, the planning application includes a community centre, which is nice. What is coming to operation? Is it going to be a business model or is it going to be a community centre that benefits the local residents? Under the section 106 agreement that is going to be provided rent free to an operator. The community centre is going to be provided rent free to an operator, we won't be operating the community centre, but it will be provided rent free to a community service operator. Will be provided rent free to a operator. How long would the development take? It's six to eight years. Is it full phase or is that included in everything, the school, the full phase, yeah? Looking to start straight away, is it? As soon as we can. Councillor Kebreha. Thank you, Mr. Chair. My question to our officers. In regards to the BRE guidelines, does this development comply with BRE guidelines? Because residents, just a lot of objection in regards to daylight and sunlight, especially in a clear place, just adjoining the property and they will be negatively impacted. How do you clarify this? There will be daylight sunlight impacts, particularly on properties in Starboard Way, 1 to 20 Starboard Way. They are major adverse, however, we are balancing those impacts against the kind of wider regeneration benefits of the proposal. The scheme is also a less dense scheme than the appeal scheme. And the appeal scheme actually, daylight sunlight impacts wasn't a reason for refusal or it wasn't an issue. It wasn't something that was kind of considered by the inspector as being an issue. But there are daylight sunlight impacts, it is a dense scheme and schemes like this always do result in daylight sunlight impacts. But it's just balancing those impacts against the wider placemaking and regeneration benefits of the proposal which includes 35% affordable housing, family housing, public open space, children's play space. So those impacts are balanced against those. Application, can I quickly ask, you've got 10% for disabled, did you say? Yes. Is that going to be provided with parking? Yes, so there will be, all of the parking on the site is wheelchair accessible parking, all of that is within the basement. The London plan requires 3% from the offset, 3% of the total number of units. But all those parking spaces will be wheelchair accessible. So going back to daylight sunlight, so one of the things I was thinking about, so this is another question for the applicant, I will ask other people questions, I promise. Given that the site has been vacant for some time, are there any right to light considerations that need to be made in relation to neighbouring properties? Right to light isn't a matter, it's not a planning matter for consideration as part of this planning application, that's a separate legal matter. From a planning point of view, officers have assessed the scheme in accordance with current policy in the BRE guidelines. My question to the planning team is, I'm sure the planning has gone through the pre-application process, and I can see on the south elevations, like the buildings are stepping up, is there a particular reason that you agreed on stepping up, is it something to keep the view of the other buildings? And my second question would be, if the planning is granted, is there any other future applications, any option that might impact this particular elevation, how it looks? In terms of the stepping up, I guess, that was really established underneath the extent permission, the 2016, at that time the site wasn't in a tall building zone, I think if you had, there was a kind of logic to kind of stepping up the height of the buildings and having that taller building at the edge of the dock and terminating at the dock. In terms of whether, sorry, did you say, are there any other possible alternatives? No, I think, are you talking about the southern elevation? Well the only, I mean it's such a large site, it's quite removed from most of the other sites apart from the site directly adjacent next door, but I don't, I mean without understanding what could come forward on another site, it's difficult to kind of make an assessment whether something could impact on this site, or that kind of treatment of having those towers increasing in height, I think it's a difficult question to answer. Thank you chair, so can we go to some of the objectives please, so Annie, so thank you for your presentation, I thought the points that were in the report that your client made, or you made on your client's behalf, were really interesting and there was a few that wanted to pick up, particularly the one, so it's the second bullet point in the report, so this is on page 139, and it says the applicant has stated the proposed development does not supersede any existing consents, but the application materials explain that the delivery of the basement pursuant to permission has commenced. I was a bit confused as to what the point was there that was being made, or the point that was being objected to, was it related to the substation or is that something completely different? It's a deeply ingrained planning issue, if you've got an extant consent, and you grant permission for a new permission, you have to, under previous court decisions, be able to implement both, or not at all. The hillside judgement, so that was the point there, that point and lots of the points that I raised in the first letter of objection were responded to by DP9, and our client considered that they'd been appropriately addressed, it is for you as a counsel to decide whether or not it's an issue. Okay, thank you, so then going to the point you made in your presentation about the substation, so is that on your client's land as currently presented? Absolutely not, it's very much within, we did have some issues around the red line in the first set of objections, but they were addressed. The substation very definitely sits within the applicant's control, however it absolutely abuts the boundary with our client's land. Currently our client's land is a business park, and the impact is not necessarily significant for a business park, but large substations from my personal experience require significant cooling in order that they can operate successfully in a mixed use development area. And if you are, if Greenwich View Place comes forward as a mixed use scheme in the future, which is what your site allocation anticipates, that substation could have an impact on the surrounding residential development that would come forward. More specifically, your adopted local plan anticipates that the green space, East Park, will be extended into Greenwich View Place. Unfortunately, there will be a substation at the middle of it. Thank you, sorry, Nilapur, could I ask you to just sort of verify that then please, or give officers comments on that? Yeah, I mean, the substation is probably the smallest building in the master plan. It is along the eastern boundary, just trying to bring up a plan just to give you the actual dimension. But it's difficult to kind of make a judgement that it's going to preclude the next door site's development because it's quite speculative, that objection. There's no scheme before us next door, there's no permission next door, so it's, I think it's very difficult to say that a substation which is probably about four and a half metres maximum is going to impact on next doors. Thank you. So can I go to Ruth's objections and her points that she made? So I think in your report you've highlighted the points that the inspector made and why he agreed with the council's decision to refuse the appeals scheme. So some of those points have been addressed in the report, so the issue around affordable housing, you've also talked about the heritage and the views. In terms of the massing, what are officers, what are your recommendations and thoughts around the massing? I think the kind of reduction in height ties into the reduction in massing because it's not really just lopping off the top, they are quite significant reductions in height. And that then subsequently results in a reduction in scale and massing. So that does form part of the assessment. But is there a consistency point here? So say if a decision has been made on a previous scheme to refuse it based on massing and a similar scheme, because Ruth's point was that the number of units and the density and massing hasn't necessarily been reduced. So the height of some of the towers has, but some of the towers have also, the height's actually increased as well. Yeah, I mean, overall we do think that the scale and massing is acceptable. I think if you are, it does sound a little bit that I'm going back to the heights, but I think that does determine how the massing has reduced. Yes, there has also been increasing heights of other buildings, but not to the extent that it will create significant massing across the master plan. The bits within the parts of the master plan that I consider that the inspector was largely focused on was the towers. And it's those towers that have been significantly reduced, particularly T3 to T5. So if you, just to add to that, I think it might be helpful to go back to the presentation and look at some of the Y-line diagrams, which show you the difference in the relationship between the appeal scheme and the current scheme. And you can see that T5, which was a tower, which is quite a tall tower, is no longer there. So the coalescence between the current, between the application site and the Canary Wharf, the towers around Canary Wharf disappeared because that tower is no longer there in the middle. So you don't get the coalescence between the two clusters. I think it might be easier to explain everything about the images that show it on the screen. So they've managed to, obviously, you can see the exigency here. So in the appeal scheme you can see that the T3, T4 and T5, as you can see, in the middle of that diagram would have been significantly, created significantly more bulk and scale, but it's no longer there. It's actually reduced to a much smaller building. And T4 is reduced in height from 44 storeys. And T3 is reduced in height from 32 storeys. And I think there's also another image which shows it across the Clearing Wharf. I'm sure that was in the presentation as well. So you can see where. So the, which one was it? If it's got the wrong three artists. Yeah, you can see that one here. So you can see Canary Wharf on the right hand side. You can see the application site here on the left hand side. You can see Tower T5 which starts to create a coalescence and the joining of the two clusters. That's going to go away with the reduction in height of T5. So that's the. So yeah, there has been a redistribution in height and that's how they've optimised the site to deliver the number of units which is close to the appeal scheme. But by redistributing the heights in the right places, the scale and the bulk and the height and the massing of the scheme is now more acceptable to offer. Councillor Khan. Thank you, Chair. My question to the applicant. If that planning granted. This is a huge project. So how you think in delivering the project in a stage by stage or just in one go you can open everything like. As a Councillor we do residents come to us and 90% of the member inquiry we do, our colleagues do is about the social housing which is desperately needed for the Tower Hamlets. So what is your timeline to deliver this social housing? Because your timeline is between six to eight years. How are we going to deliver this social home and what will be the timeline for this social home delivery please? Yes, it is a big project. It's a phased project. And as I sort of said in my little opening presentation, we're looking to deliver social housing in each phase. The first phase will deliver 100 units. There's 379 units as a whole. The first phase will deliver 100 units of total housing. And if you just bear with me, I've got the figures here. 96 units for the second phase, 128 units for the third phase. Yes, so phase one is 100 units. Phase two, this is just the affordable units. So phase one is 100 units. Phase two, 96 units. Phase three, 128 units. And phase four, 55 units. So it's phase throughout, they're delivered in each phase basically. So it's not that you have to wait until the end. We deliberately tried to make sure that the community benefits as each phase goes along. Just to add to that, as part of the 106 agreement, we have clauses in the legal agreement that require them to deliver the affordable housing before they occupy a certain percentage of the private. So they can't occupy all of the private housing without delivering the affordable housing as well. So whilst they say they're going to deliver in phases, in the legal agreement we make sure that happens through various different clauses to secure the affordable housing in each phase. Thank you. I think you had a question to answer regarding feedback from the lawyer. Yes. So the long stop date isn't when they start the works, it's when they finish the works. So the long stop date, because really that's the key date that we're interested in. So under the agreement for lease, the target long stop date is 1 September 27 to deliver the school by. To deliver the school by 1 September 2027 is the long stop date. Obviously they will deliver it as soon as they can, but that's the long stop date. So the kind of the lever here is for them to deliver the school as possible. Because otherwise they could start the works and then just not finish them. So it makes sense to put the lever for when they deliver the school. Thank you. Anyone else got a question? One more. I've got three more questions. Go for it. Thank you. They're related to noise and vibration, wind and silt. So taking those in turn, there's a comment in the report. So this is for officers. There's a comment in the report from your colleagues in one of the teams regarding noise and vibration. I'm just looking for it at the moment, but it's in the consultation section. 5.131, LBTH noise and vibration. So this is on page 154. Under clause 5.133, it says LBTH local plan requires 10 decibels below background as design criterion for fixed plants. Please explain why five above prevailing background is acceptable and any noise impact to future receptors. Has that been addressed? It has, yes. So they have responded to the noise officer's comments and he has confirmed that he's satisfied. Brilliant, thank you. My question to wind is related to the Docklands Sailing Centre. So there's a couple of points about it in the report and it's unclear whether an agreement has been reached between them and the applicant. Has an agreement been reached or not? I believe there has been an agreement reached between the applicant and the Sailing Centre but it doesn't really form part of the planning assessment. It's a private agreement between themselves. Yes, it has. Thank you. And then final question to do with sill. So it says in here that sill is 35 million pounds, is that correct? Although there is a comment there about some discussions around that. Could you just elaborate on what those are please? So it is estimated that there is a 35 million pound sill resulting from this development. But the applicant is seeking a sill in kind for the public open space which equates to about 18 million. So there could be a reduction of 18 million from the sill. There's also the community centre, so there are discussions ongoing whether the community centre could also form part of the sill in kind. That value is about 1 to 1.5 million. Can I respond back on that because that's quite significant, 18 million pounds or 20 million pound reduction in sill. So what's the mechanism for that to be discussed and agreed? And if it is reduced by that much, is there the opportunity then for that to come back to committee? Just to be clear, it started 20 million pound reduction in the sill, so 20 million pound reduction in the sill as a financial payment. So if we were to agree through the negotiations that were currently undertaken that the sill in kind payments amounts to 20 million pounds. And that portion of the sill is just directed towards the council paying for the maintenance of the park and for the community centre and things like that. So that's what we're negotiating at the moment. So this actual sill sum overall would be the same, it's just that how it's apportioned and how it's defined would be different. So the mechanism, and that's something which we're still discussing with the applicants at the moment. It's been led by our colleagues in the sill, not by myself, I'm no expert on sill. But it's been led by my colleagues in the sill team. If you feel that's an issue for you, then I think it needs to be discussed and decided whether or not you want us to bring it back to committee once we've made a decision. Or maybe we can get some legal advice from Astrid as to how that should be addressed. I think it would be helpful to get some advice on that because it's quite a large financial consideration. Yes, so I think as long as members are happy for this to be negotiated by officers under the delegated powers, then the amount of the sill, I believe, if I'm correct, has been fixed. But it's just how it will be apportioned with the sill in kind. Sorry, I was researching the point about the school. Thank you, Astrid. So as a consideration, so as us as a committee, we need to take into account lots of different things, including financial contribution to, yeah, sill financial contribution. If that is going to be reduced significantly, if that's going to be halved, is there then the mechanism for that to come back to committee at some point? I'm not sure off the top of my head, so I'd have to double check that. Can I just be clear that the sill figure is not going to change how that money is apportioned, whether it's a sill in kind. That's what I understood. I think clearly we're still talking about that. The sill is a sill. Yeah, absolutely. I've made that point. So I think how that sill then works out in terms of sill in kind payments towards maintenance of the park and the community centre. Or whether or not we feel that that's something that developers should take on and that's still being negotiated with our colleagues in the sill team. Apologies, I probably didn't explain it very well, but that was basically what I was saying, that as I understand it, because we did discuss this beforehand, because obviously we knew this would be something that members would be concerned about. But the amount of the sill would not change, it's just how it would be, how it would come forward, whether that's in terms of cash or delivered by works in lieu of the cash and how that would be apportioned. That's still being negotiated and it would be appropriate for members to allow that to be continued to be negotiated under delegated powers following the grant if members were minded to grant. Okay. Everyone alright with questions here? Okay, cool. Would members like to share their thoughts and debate their application? Yeah, I can't say I've reached a decision to be honest with you. So I'd be keen to hear other members' views on the committee. I think the point that was made in the presentation about the impact on heritage sites being less than substantial and how we need to make sure that there is, whether the public benefit outweighs the harm to that. I'm not sure whether the public benefit does outweigh the harm. And the reasons for that is that we have the permitted scheme already. And a lot of the public benefits that are coming through in this scheme are being represented in this scheme have already been secured in the original consented scheme. So that's kind of where I am as well. I'm also, I think the issue with this school and the lease, I think that's been clarified and that kind of has been secured as well. The other thing I'm a bit concerned about is it is a big scheme, it's, you know, it is huge. What would happen if the developers start building a scheme, a lot of the residential properties are built, but then the other community benefits like the dockside, like the park, like the community centre, if they're not delivered. Is there, you know, say developer runs out of money or, you know, the construction costs increase or something, we're left with a residential scheme without the public benefit. Would it be helpful if I address that point? Thank you, Mr Chair. I think it's a decent development, bringing a lot of benefit, financial and non-financial benefit to the community in our hamlets and we are struggling for the number of homes we need in our hamlets. And the officers have done very thorough work to mitigate objections, circumstances and I think it's a very decent development we can consider in the grant application. Thank you, Mr Chair. I want to echo with Councillor Hussain, but my big concern is still because a lot of objectors, they mention in school because still now we have been facing running is our beyond capacity, for example, Narsari NHS, a time frame about this kind of school. Yes, thank you, Chair. What happened in Tauranga is something we all have to think about. As a Councillor, a lot of parents coming to us, very disappointed parents coming to us. They are children living next door to George Greening School and they are not able to have a place for their children, for sixth form, for colleges. So it's really desperately needed, a secondary school for these documented areas. That is one of the things I can see benefited. Also I'm a little bit concerned that is that going to be delivered first. That's what we wanted to do, that education should be delivered and also the objectors are doubting this, that the applicant will be able to deliver the secondary school in this project. So we have to overcome the doubt and give the benefit of doubt to the developer to prove us wrong and prove the objector wrong as well. Second thing is that housing, as I have mentioned that we need housing. We need housing desperately. We need nearly more than 23,000 people are waiting for the bigger sizes of housing. This is also one of the benefits that if they build bigger houses, people will be rehoused there. So this is one of the public benefits as well. So in my mind, I think that to the applicant, there is a lot of doubts, a lot of confusion. They have to overcome this and deliver this project accordingly. My comments will be echoing my colleagues. The project itself is a huge project and is a huge department to the area and I would be more than happy if the project goes with minimum disruption to the local community. Also I would like to echo the other ones that were mentioned about the housing. We have over 25,000 people in housing. Everyone is working hard to rehouse those people who are in desperate need, including our offices, Mayor's team, all the councillors. They all know about it. So I would appreciate that if the developers take this seriously and in terms of building the whole process, if they prioritize the social housing before if there is anything they could do to deliver the social housing first. They will be grateful. Thank you. Yeah, similar thing I would like to echo. I think the island has only one secondary school, which is George Green. It does need another secondary school, maybe two, maybe three, but it is a beautiful masterpiece you've presented. Obviously there is a lot of large family homes which excites me about this application, secondary school, police stations and other benefits coming to the island. So I quite like this application and I will leave it to you to answer what you wanted to answer regarding one of the questions. I was just going to say to Councillor Bustin that the parks are phased as well, so there will be immunity space coming forward on a phase by phase basis, that's what I was going to say. I would just like to ask Paul and our legal officer Astrid to share the final advice before we move to a vote. Thank you very much, Chair. I suppose just to sum up, grateful that the committee have really looked into all the various planning issues on this site and obviously thought very carefully about the questions they want to ask and how to deal with some of the issues being raised by objectors as well. I think just in terms of conclusion, this is, there's no doubt about it, this is a huge development, it's probably one of the largest developments in this part of the Isle of Dogs. That said, it is a site allocation of local plan, the development will offer a lot in terms of place making, urban design, genuinely mixed use, it's not just housing, there are other uses there, including community facilities and much needed infrastructure. And of course the delivery of affordable housing. We've heard about the relationship with the scheme that was dismissed and refused on appeal and I think that's really important and I hope that the report and the presentation have tried to draw out where the scheme has tried to respond to the inspectors concerns when they recommended refusal of that scheme and that was eventually refused by the Secretary of State. So there are differences there and I think it's important to note those and I think in terms of the relationship to the extant planning commission granted back in 2016, yes this is a denser development, there's more homes there but equally there's a higher proportion of affordable housing and a better affordable housing offer that meets current needs. Listen very carefully to the issues around the school, it's quite complicated because it isn't the developer or the council directly delivering the school but we have our respective roles. So as a planning authority our role is about the allocation of the land, it's about ensuring that the planning commission includes the school that's appropriately designed and ensuring that the section 106 does everything it can to secure that. The approach to the negotiation of this section 106 is different to the previous one so there are more sureties there. The lease is not, the council isn't a party to the lease but we've heard about how the lease is really important in transferring the land to the Department for Education who would be the ultimate arbiters of when the school comes forward. And I think collectively we will do everything we can to make sure those processes are as joined up and give as much certainty as possible for that delivery but recognising that ultimately it is a third party that's responsible. And then finally just to mention I think some really good points have been made around the timing of the delivery of the affordable housing, the timing and the phasing around the, if you like, the place making ingredients so things like place space, open space, etc. and how they fit with the delivery of the housing. And again that's something that as officers we will take away and work very carefully, sorry if you're minded to grant planning commission we would work very carefully with the applicants to make sure that those things are embedded in the phasing conditions and the 106 to make sure that you don't end up with the scenario that I think some members refer to where you perhaps get sort of part built phases and then you don't get the amenities to go with them. So I think, sorry I probably spent longer than I intended to but it is a very detailed complex scheme and I think it does deserve that level of scrutiny and attention so thank you chair. Thank you. I think Paul has covered off anything that I was going to say so I haven't got anything else to add. Okay now moving on to the vote, can I see all those in favour of this application? Paul can you please confirm the committee decision? Thank you chair so on our vote of six members in favour and one against the committee has voted in favour of the officer recommendation to grant planning commission subject to the conditions and obligations listed in the main report and the update report and of course this will be subject to the state's due referral to the mayor of London as well. Thank you chair. Thank you. Just let the committee know, I know it is Maghrib time, we will take a comfort break for ten minutes so everyone to be back by quarter past please, quick one, by quarter past, comfort break. Thank you very much everyone. First of all we will take a quick vote as this meeting has reached up to coming up to three hours, we are going to take a quick vote to see if we are okay to carry on after the three hour mark. Can I see everyone who would be alright to carry on after three hours? All those in favour? So I think I am happy to stay on. I don't know whether the lights are on there. Electricity my runner. This has clearly been a really packed agenda and it was obvious from reading the report that that West Ferry application was going to take a long time to debate. I think I would ask that officers are just conscious of not over packing the agenda going forward so as much as for yourselves you shouldn't need to be here at eleven, twelve o'clock at night. Thank you. Agenda item 5.2 is PA4/21/02707 Whitechapel Road development site, Whitechapel Road, London E12BB, pages 367 to 482. I now invite Mr Paul Beckenham to introduce this application. Thank you very much, Chair. The Chair said this is described as the Whitechapel Road development site. You will see from the report and the presentation is actually a number of linked sites to the south of Whitechapel Road. The planning application proposes the redevelopment of the site with the action of five buildings and retention of one building for the provision of up to 69,033 square metres of life science purpose uses and the provision of up to 6,363 square metres of flexible class E supporting uses. There's also a number of class F1, class F2 community uses proposed along with associated landscaping public realm and highway works. I'm not going to read out the whole description because it's quite detailed. You can see that in the report. The recommendation to the committee is to grant planning permission subject to conditions and planning obligations. There is an update report that's been circulated this evening and the update report looks quite long but it's because it deals primarily with some minor corrections to some of the daylight and sunlight assessments. Which are not overly significant in themselves but obviously we do need to be accurate in our reporting to you so that's included. Also we have some minor changes to the planning obligations and planning conditions so therefore for completeness the whole of that section again is reproduced with the amendments and corrections in the update report. So just like the previous item if members did want to explore any of those issues in more detail then please refer to the update report because that's the most accurate representation of those. And finally I just wanted to say that we've probably got a few more offices than we do have normally and that's because the development which includes life sciences is not the kind of application that the council receives every day. So we do have some colleagues who have been supporting planning offices in the assessment of the application and some of the negotiations representing our public health service and also our growth and economic development service as well. Thank you chair. Thank you. I will now invite Robin Bennett, planning officer to present the application. Thank you Robin. Thank you. Good evening members. So as introduced by Mr. Booknam this is a development proposal for a life science development so not something that we see very often really. It's a growth sector. It's something that is being developed across other parts of London such as in White City and around King's Cross but it's also something where there's a lot of interest in around Whitechapel so the site allocation in the local plan envisages life sciences on this site. And also the regional planning framework in the form of the London plan and the associated opportunity area planning framework also envisages life sciences in the Whitechapel area. So I just wanted to sort of set the scene a little bit before going into the detail of the presentation as to what life sciences is and throughout the course of the application we've been working with the applicant to define life sciences and make sure that it's aligned with what is within the application which is very much an emphasis on benefits to human health. So in terms of where we've arrived at that we've come up with a definition in conjunction with the applicant to set out that life science use means basically research, development, discovery and innovation connected with the study of the structure and behaviour of living organisms or life processes for human health purposes. And as Mr Bruckenham said this is the thrust of this application, the majority of the floor space in this development is for life science purposes. So in terms of what's actually proposed this is the location plan on the screen so there's a number of plots labelled A, B1, B2, B3, C and they stretch from Whitechapel Road down New Road down towards Newgate Street. And then there's also the D plots, one of which is immediately behind the chamber that we're in at the moment and the other is next to the church which is behind the town hall here. In terms of heritage assets it's pretty constrained in terms of its heritage context. There's the Whitechapel Market conservation area opposite the site on the other side of Whitechapel Road. The site itself is partly within the former London Hospital conservation area and there's also the Modal Street conservation area on the opposite side of New Road. And on this plan on the screen you can see there's a number of listed buildings around the site. Just to point out the site is within a local employment location, that's the purple line on the plan and it's also partly within the Whitechapel District Centre. As I mentioned at the start it's within the Whitechapel site allocation, the light green shaded area in this diagram is the wider site allocation. So you can see the area that I've marked in red is the application site which takes a sizeable portion of the overall site allocation. This is just an aerial photo to show what's on the site at the moment. Plot A on the junction of New Road and Whitechapel Road is currently vacant lasting use as a car park. Mount Terrace, a list of terrace of residential properties is located next to that. That's adjacent to the site and it's actually enclosed by the site on all sides but it's not within the site itself. You've got Plot B1 which is where the chimney used to be and the boiler house. Next to that is Plot B2 which is occupied by the Sexual Health Clinic. And then Plot B3 is where the former outpatients department is and it's annex which runs on to New Road. Plot C is the former dental institute next to Newark Street in New Road and D1 is behind the town hall, D2 next to the listed church, they're both currently vacant at the moment. Just some site photos quickly, so you've got Plot A looking towards Mount Terrace and a view looking down Mount Terrace with the edge of Plot A just to the right hand side, B2 and B1 to the left. This is the former outpatients department within the conservation area and this is the outpatient just sits outside the conservation area. This is the former dental hospital on Plot C and this is a photo looking across Plot D1 towards the back of our town hall. This is just a high level overview of the form of the development that's proposed on the site so you can see Plot A being developed with a building on the currently undeveloped site. Plot B3, upward extension around some of the retained existing outpatients department. Plot C, a brand new building along with Plot D1 which is brand new on the vacant plot behind us. This is the master plan of the proposed site. It's just worth noting on there where I've got the Plot D annotation down towards the bottom right hand corner, that's where the new public square was proposed next to the listed church. And there's also a connection proposed from that new bit of public realm up to London Square behind the town hall. Some elevations. Plot A, a fairly modestly scaled building near Mount Terrace. And Plot B1, again fairly modestly scaled opposite Mount Terrace on the southern side. B3, one of the larger buildings set behind the retained southern and eastern elevation of the former outpatients department. And this is Plot C which is to be occupied by Queen Mary University. And this is Plot D1 which would sit behind the town hall here and you can see the relative scale next to the hospital which is the sort of lighter grey shaded building just to the left of the brown building. And then on the public square there's a couple of small pavilion buildings proposed. So in terms of the key considerations, these are public consultation, land use, design and heritage, amenity, highways and transport, environmental matters and then financial and non-financial obligations. With regard to public consultation there were two rounds. There was one when the application first came in in early 2022 and there was also one in December 2023. The 2023 one followed a period of negotiations with the applicant to improve the relationship of the development to meant that there was a package of amended plans and application documents which we had to re-consult on. We sent out 898 neighbour letters both times. There were also five site notices erected around the site in the newspaper advert and in response to that we received 41 letters of representation. There were five letters of objection and two petitions. The petitions contained 63 individual signatures. One of the objections was from NWTV Residence Association and the summary of the matters that were being raised in those objections were relating to scale, amenity, construction impacts, heritage, waste, architecture, landscaping and highways. We also received 35 letters in support. They were mainly from the NHS and other public bodies involved in life sciences and related health uses as well as associated private businesses in the sector. Moving on to the matter of land use. This table just shows the uses that are proposed within the development. You can see from this that the majority of the floor space out of the almost 81,000, just under 70,000 square metres is proposed for life science purpose uses which I explained what that was at the start. Also a number of other uses to go alongside that. Notably they are just under 3,000 square metres for research and development and teaching associated with Queen Mary University. In terms of design and heritage, it's obviously covering a large area. There's a lot of works proposed across the ground plane. There's significant public realm improvements both on existing areas, public realm, on the public highway and on private land. As I said before there's also a new public square proposed and the new which would contribute to provision of the green spine. A lot of works proposed and a lot of improvements at street level, improving permeability and improving the attractiveness and green aspects around the site. In terms of the built form that's proposed, like this image on the screen here, you can see it's looking down a new road. So you've got the plot A building on the left hand side and then the other buildings recede away behind that. You can see that the scale of the buildings you can see to the left hand side of new road there are very sympathetic to the existing surroundings on the other side of new road. This is just plot A looking closer and closer towards the town hall. Again a very sympathetic scale to the surroundings that exist. This is looking down Turner Street at the side of the new plot A building. So if you carried on along there you'd get to the existing former outpatients building and turn to go to Mount Terrace. This is looking from new road down Mount Terrace so you can see on the left hand side there's the new book ended part of plot A, similar scale to Mount Terrace properties behind that. And the new building B1 on the right hand side of the screen. As well as public realm improvements you can see to the ground level there to Mount Terrace itself. This is looking the other way along Mount Terrace towards the city. Again you can see the book ended part of the new plot A building on the right hand side of the screen and the public realm improvements that are proposed along Mount Terrace itself. This is an image looking along new road. The light grey one on the left hand side is plot A and then behind that the dark brown one is B1 and then the taller orangish coloured one that has the step facade. That's the upward extension behind the retained facades of the former outpatients and then the one that has the pinkish tone is the plot C Queen Mary University building. This is just looking up towards showing by the Good Samaritan public house northwards up Turner Street so you can see the retained facades of the former outpatients with the new upward extension behind it and the new public realm improvements. This image on the left is looking along Fieldgate Street. Again you can see the tallest building behind the town hall just in the distance there and Turner Street next to Gwyn House just to show the upward extension and another view behind the Good Samaritan there on the right. This is looking along Stepney Way in the direction of the city just to highlight really again the retained facades of the outpatients department and the new building behind it and then on the left hand side of the screen the pinkish tone building Mary building as proposed. This is looking southwards down Turner Street again just showing the retained facades of the outpatients in the conservation area. As I mentioned there's a new section of Greenspine proposed which links between Stepney Way and the back of the town hall here at London Square. This is a view looking up along the base of the largest building which is the plot D1 building behind up the new Greenspine towards the town hall. This is one just looking the other way down southwards down and through the course of the application we secured improvements to the width and quality of that Greenspine. Just another view looking north up Green Road so you can see the predominant scale is consistent with the existing scale along that section of road at shoulder height and that's just looking eastwards towards the hospital. So just stepping back a little bit further we've got this view just shows the tallest building really the one that sits behind the town hall here and a view looking southeast. And then this one is as if we're sort of on the station side looking back towards the town hall you can see the hospital just on the left and the brown building is the plot D1 building behind the town hall. And this is just another view from looking across directly towards the front of the town hall past the listed monuments and the listed side of the town hall with the new D1 building behind it. So hopefully you get a good impression from this of the development that's proposed and the extent of the public realm improvements that are proposed across the site and obviously there are certain elements within this proposal that are challenging not least the one on the screen in front of us and also the extent of the upward extension behind plot B3 the former outpatients department. And just to note that there is still an objection from Historic England which is mainly focused around those two elements. So whilst there are challenges to that and there is this outstanding objection from Historic England I think there's clearly a lot of elements of the scheme which are very sympathetically scaled relative to the sort of sensitive heritage context. There's clearly a lot of improvements proposed to the ground plane, it's providing strategic infrastructure which is a policy requirement, it's providing a key missing section of the green spine which is a long standing policy aspiration. So there are challenges but there's definitely benefits associated with it as well and obviously as decision maker you'll have to weigh up the public benefits against the harm that's been identified. And I'll talk more about benefits later. In terms of labour amenity this is a diagram which just shows the scale of impact against the vertical sky component measure of daylight. So the main impacts really are on Mount Terrace which is next to plot A and also on Gwyn House which is to the east of plot C. You can see the sort of orange to orangish colours are sort of the major to moderate major impacts there. And also some of the upper floor residential on the other side of New Road to plot C. And then this is one in relation to the NSL measure of daylight and you can see that the impacts aren't as great on that, they've improved and they're not within the major level for Mount Terrace either. Obviously I've gone into quite a bit of detail in the committee report about these impacts in terms of plot A, like that particular, sorry, Mount Terrace which is abutted by plot A and plot B1. Those plots, plot B1 has very little development on it at the moment and obviously plot A has none so when you have that situation it can result in a disproportionate impact when you look at it numerically in terms of the impact on those properties. Plot C would have some impacts on Gwyn House, there would also be some improvements in some areas including in terms of sunlight and overshadowing to their immunity areas so that's a positive. But we have to bear in mind that the site is within an opportunity area, it's within a site allocation, there is an expectation that there will be a particular quantum of development coming forward in this area. And we have worked with the applicant to reduce the scale and improve the level of amenity through the course of the application by separating the plot A block and setting it back a bit more. Plot C between Mary block was actually reduced in height by one storey which operation for them was not desirable but it has had a more beneficial impact in terms of protecting the resident's immunity. Again the harm that's been identified needs to be weighed in the balance against the benefits that are identified. Just in terms of other amenity impacts, outlook and enclosure, the bottom left hand image is a view across the new piece of public room that's proposed to the side of Queen Mary building at the back of Gwyn House. So essentially at the moment the building that's there, the dental hospital and the students union goes right up to the back boundary of the Gwyn House residential properties so I just put this image in really to show that there would be some improvement there in my view to the relationship to those to Gwyn House so they'd have much more relief at the moment in terms of the proximity of the proposed building relative to where the existing building on that site is. The image on the top right is just to show the relative scale of the proposed buildings next to it and we have taken the view that those buildings are sensitively scaled and appropriate and particularly in the context of the aspirations for the site including the OAPF allocation and the site allocation locally. In terms of highways it's a very accessible site, there's policy compliant cycle parking proposed, there would need to be provision for relocating the TfL cycle higher on new road and expanding that but that would be secured within a legal agreement. It's also a car free development and as I said earlier there's significant improvements proposed for the public realm as well as very beneficial in terms of public access across and through the site. In terms of waste collection it's a non-residential development so it would be private waste collection and that would be secured through a condition so acceptable from a highways and transport perspective and indeed delivering quite a lot of improvements over the existing situation. In terms of environments there's no objections raised from consultees in respect of biodiversity, energy, air quality, waste, drainage and social economy and anything pertaining to those matters could be adequately dealt with through conditions. There's a significant suite of public benefits associated with this application and that's not least required because of the harm that's been identified to heritage assets and the outstanding objection from Historic England. The public benefits in addition to outweighing the harm that arises from this, they help to deliver the local plan objectives of sharing the benefits of growth with the local area. So the first lot of public benefits is on the screen here. They're related to growth and economic development matters and obviously there'd be the establishment of a new life science cluster if this was approved. There'd be a new research and teaching building for Queen Mary University. There'd be up to 4180 full time equivalent jobs in the completed development as well as employment and training opportunities through the construction phase. And there would be a very good affordable workspace offer which is 10% of floor space for 25 years at significant discounts below the market rates. The next suite of public benefits in terms of growth and economic development ones are access to employment so procurement and labour and construction benefits and 61 construction apprenticeships. There's also provisions in relation to pathways into life science provisions. That's helping people to understand the employment opportunities from this development. There's a skills escalator programme as well as a campus strategy and as Mr Brookenham said at the beginning if there's any further questions or information required any of those then Shahi is here to answer those. In terms of other public benefits there's ones relating to the community so there's a new community involvement centre proposed. That would be a multi-purpose space provided on site and that would allow for community led public and patient involvement in research associated with essentially improving health outcomes for people in the borough. There would also be a link to the Tower Hamlets health determinants research programme and this has been secured in consultation with our public health colleagues and as Mr Brookenham said at the start there's Emily's on hand if there's any additional information required around this. There's also proposals around STEM provisions. There's an on site community lab proposed so that would provide as it says in the title really a lab on the site which could be utilised by the community. So school children to gain insight into possible future careers in the area of life sciences or just to further their science knowledge in general. In addition to the on site provisions that are proposed in relation to STEM there's also an education and outreach programme being agreed with the applicants and there's also a life science ambassador programme agreed and an annual life science festival. In terms of securing locally targeted benefits to human health which is the key aspect of this proposal there's a proposal for health outcomes strategy and working committee and that would be a committee which would have the purpose of maximising local health improvement outcomes. And that could include membership by people like Bart's NHS Trust or LBTH primary care providers and able to work together to bring those outcomes for the benefit of the community. And then I've mentioned public realm fairly extensively in the previous parts of the presentation so I won't dwell too much on this other than to say that the public realm will improve the setting of listed buildings in the locality. In terms of financial obligations associated with this application they are showing on the screen. Most of those are fairly standard I will just draw your attention to the one under point C which is £2.5 million contribution towards wellbeing women's health and community research that would feed into the Tower Hamlets health research collaboration. And then there's a number of non-financial obligations which I've talked about in association with the benefits. And that takes us to the recommendation which is the committee resolve to grant planning permission subject to any direction by the Mayor of London and a section 106 legal agreement including obligations and the conditions and informatives are set out in the committee report. Thank you, Robin. Very detailed application. Thank you very much. I now invite Tom Bruce to address the committee in objection to the application. You have up to three minutes. Residents of Mount Terrace are fully in favour of this development going ahead but would like some small changes to be made and some conditions agreed. There have been two consultation meetings held with residents over the last three years. Not one of the suggestions that we've made has been adopted. During 2005, the redevelopment project of the Royal London Hospital, we were promised that Mount Terrace would be resurfaced in Yorkstone and that plot A would be regreened. Neither of these two happened. We're put in this objection with a petition of 41 signatories in the hope that our voices might be heard. We're at the centre of what will be an enormous building site for years to come and residents will face huge disruption. We're pleased that Mount Terrace will be resurfaced but we would like Yorkstone rather than the coloured bitmak which is being proposed. Yorkstone will be easier to repair after roadworks and more in keeping with the conservation area and the grade two listed houses. It will also match Turner Street. To ensure this doesn't get forgotten again like last time, we would like it to be a condition that this resurfacing has to happen at the same time as the Turner Street resurfacing. We understand that the applicant is not willing to lower the height of any buildings even though some of our rooms will lose 90% of their natural daylight. If it's not possible to reduce the height of the development, we ask that the proposed planters that will be positioned directly over the light wells on our basements are removed from the plans. In their current position, these will block out the last remaining bit of light into our basements. There's an alleyway that's proposed to run between plot B1 and B2 and we would like this closed off at each end with secure gates. This spot already attracts antisocial behaviour. The applicant says that it is not possible to secure it with gates because it is a fire escape route but they've not been able to explain why a fire exit can't be secured as is the case with most buildings. The applicant proposes putting a bench at the east end of Mount Terrace where we already have a problem with large groups congregating to drink and take drugs late into the night. We would like this bench to be removed from the plans. We would ask that the plans be changed to leave the traffic gate in its current position at the west end of Mount Terrace rather than to move it to the boundary with new road. The applicant is proposing to remove residents right of access to the gate at the east end of Mount Terrace. We have a letter from the London Hospital, which is now the Royal London, sent to us in confirming our right of access. We request that this is officially noted and that it is a right of access that we have always enjoyed at both ends of our street. To summarise, we have six requests. 30 seconds. One, Mount Terrace be resurfaced in Yorkstone, not coloured bitmac. Two, the resurfacing is to happen at the same time as Turner Street. Three, no planters on top of our light wells. Four, secure the alleyway between plot B1 and B2. Five, no benches at the east end of Mount Terrace. And six, confirmed right of access for residents to both ends of Mount Terrace. Thank you, sir. I will now invite Edwin Mingard to address the committee in objection to the application. You also have three minutes. Can you hear me okay? So, I'm a resident of Gwynhouse, which you'll all be aware is the residential block that planning documents state will be severely affected by building works and adversely affected by the new buildings once they're up. I want to also start by stating clearly that I'm not against the broader developments. There are many real positives for the local area, from enhanced green space to a general improvement in the quality and maintenance of local facilities. But the impact on me and my fellow residents will be severe, and it doesn't have to be. I appreciate the planning committee and officers' findings that the development will result in noticeable changes to residents' access to sunlight. We're working within a faulty system which claims that a reduction of 20% direct sunlight won't be noticed by residents, which is absurd. I'm grateful that you have recognized critically that because of the construction of the building, it's the western face that overwhelmingly facilitates sunlight to pass into the building. Its construction means that light on this aspect is critical. The rooms can already feel dark and gloomy at times. The total number of rooms seeing a decrease in sunlight is 84, most of the building. 26 of those are so severe, between 20 and 100%, that they clearly breach BRE guidance. Just to be clear, this is the side of the building that faces plot C. Even on the poorer APSH measure referenced, 24% of expected sunlight is below the guidance. It is unacceptable that some windows would receive considerably over 30% reductions in sunlight. Sunlight is not a nice-to-have, it is an essential component of public health. We would not allow a development that reduced the purity of drinking water by these amounts. The block houses a large number of older residents, people on low incomes and young families. A new life sciences centre should not be having a negative impact on local public health. The permanent reduction in quality of life is not necessary to deliver the building works, it is only necessary to deliver plot C at its current mass, which is criticised elsewhere for its impact also. The solution I suggest is to step the building from the south also, so that it begins around two stories on the Newark Street side, and doesn't exceed the height of the current tower part of the College of Dentistry as it rises towards Stepney Way, until it has passed the point that the current tower occupies. This would have the further benefits of positively affecting the perception of mass from Newark Street benefiting the local area. Doing this would result in a reduction of about 20% floor space. If our lighting levels being reduced by 20% is considered negligible, then this reduction in floor space of a similar percentage should be considered negligible too. Another critical aspect of the development is that Gwyn House is overlooked on that side, and a further issue is that Gwyn House contains a lot of single glazing on the west aspect. The proposal is for building works lasting years to take place, and for a building to be demolished that contains many tonnes of asbestos. Thank you very much. And I invite the applicant Tom Horn, Planning Consultant from DP9 to address the Committee's support of the application. You have six minutes. If I may, Chair. Thank you for this opportunity to speak. My name is Adrian Powell from NHS Property Services, and I'm leading this application on behalf of the Department of Health. I'm joined this evening by Professor Sir Mark Caulfield from Queen Mary University of London and Barts Health, and, as you've mentioned, Tom Horn from DP9. I'll speak briefly about the long-held vision for a life sciences cluster in Whitechapel, which is shared with Queen Mary's, Barts Health NHS, the GLA and Tower Hamlets. Indeed, we are delivering Mayor Rahman's Whitechapel vision consistent with the existing and emerging local plan. As Robin mentioned in his comprehensive summary of the planning application, we've had 35 letters of support, and we've conducted extensive engagement to ensure this application meets the needs of Whitechapel and its residents, with many significant design changes, making it over 10% smaller since the original submission. The application is for specialist but adaptable life sciences buildings, including an important new building for the university. The proposals will deliver a major boost by creating thousands of new jobs, accessible to young Tower Hamlets residents through schools, outreach programmes, a bespoke lab facility, and sophisticated skills and training opportunities. Local businesses will also benefit from workers spending millions of pounds in the area, and the council will benefit from seven and a half generated in business rates. As Robin mentioned, our generous affordable workspace proposals will enable locals to access high quality discounted labs, research spaces and offices. These economic benefits will lead to health benefits here in the heart of Whitechapel and will be complemented by Communion Pound's contribution focused on women's health. And we will contribute to social value by creating the new square, green spaces and routes that are safe and accessible for all those who live here. So we have a real opportunity to make a difference in Whitechapel, which Professor Sir Mark Caulfield can elaborate on. Good evening everybody. I'm the head of medicine and dentistry at Queen Mary University of London and I've been a doctor here in Tower Hamlets for 40 years, most of it spent in this building. This life sciences proposal by the Department of Health has the strongest possible support from Bart's Health and Queen Mary. It is simply a once in several lifetimes opportunity to transform health for the residents of Tower Hamlets. This will enable a new NHS academic industry local authority involving Tower Hamlets ecosystem to be created. It will bring to life the former Royal London Hospital Estate offering a major step change in our ability to accelerate patient benefit. From this estate we will event in the buildings that you've seen in the presentation new diagnostics and treatments. We will test them in our hospital here and then we will deploy them in partnership with Tower Hamlets Public Health for the benefit of our community to address unmet need. So this site will invent, test and deploy new therapies. As evidence that we will succeed in this Queen Mary discovered a treatment for a particular form of hepatitis C which sadly affects our Bangladeshi and Pakistani communities. This led to a national NHS program that has halved the prevalence of hepatitis C and reduced death in these communities by 22%. In other work that we've done we've also shown that certain medicines should not be given after heart attacks because 57% of our Bangladeshi and Pakistani community in East London will not respond to them. So we have proposed an alternative which is now adopted at Bart's Health. This proposal will enable us to do this at far greater scale. It will attract vital investment to Tower Hamlets economy and new skilled life science jobs opening the doors to opportunity for our young people within Tower Hamlets. Queen Mary and Bart's Health are absolutely committed to this development and have jointly created Bart's Life Sciences to transform lives across Tower Hamlets and we will together with the local authority attract relevant life science industry to the site. Right now Bart's Health is building a new clinical research centre in the tower just there on the 15th floor in anticipation of this development. And Queen Mary has acquired the old dental hospital to build a 150 million life sciences building which will provide vital equipment for some of the smaller companies to come to this site who will not be able to afford this infrastructure themselves. So in accordance with the Planning Officer's recommendation I encourage you to accept this is the moment to mobilise this estate, create new innovations and to march them into healthcare for the benefit of the community of Tower Hamlets and well beyond across East London and the world. Thank you, Chair. Thank you very much. Do members have any questions for officers, objectors or applicants? So, this is a question to the applicant. So, the objections from Tom from Mount Terrace, the solutions that he's suggesting to be put in place, they all seem really reasonable to me and not particularly arduous. What have you considered them and would you be willing to take those on board? Thank you, Councillor. I mean, in short, we've designed the scheme up to a certain point in terms of the landscape but there'll be a condition which specifies exactly what materials are used and exactly what locations in actual detail. We're not proposing Yorkstone at this stage, we're proposing the same materials that you find all over Tower Hamlets and all over this local area. But we're certainly not closed to the idea of having a conversation around it. In terms of, you know, planters in front of light wells and things like that, that certainly won't happen in the detailed design again. The point on the rights of access, I mean, we don't control the one onto Turner Street, I think that's the London Fire Brigade one, but the access on the other end will remain entirely in the residents' control. And again, we've had discussions around whether we move it slightly, that access to prevent some of the antisocial behaviour that they've told us about or not, and again, those discussions remain open. In terms of the other comment around closing off movement between buildings and around the spaces, I think, you know, the area does suffer from really bad antisocial behaviour but largely because these are all vacant sites. Because there's no overlooking, there's, you know, aside from the residents on Mount Terrace, you know, Plot A, which is the silence of Whitechapel, just attracts bad behaviour. If you imagine, you know, looking forward in years to come, when those buildings are being used all the time, both north and south of Mount Terrace, the environment simply won't exist for people to dwell and cause problems. Many of these buildings will be used quite regularly in different times of the day, so I totally understand the concern as it is today, but I think it will look quite different in years to come. Thank you. So those sort of six points, so Robin, those six points that Tom has raised, are they going to be sort of conditioned, are they going to, how are they going to get, how are we going to make sure that they do get addressed? So I'll start with the easiest one, the point about access, it's a private matter to be resolved between anybody that's affected by it on Mount Terrace, it's not a public highway, so there's nothing that we can do to get involved in that. In terms of the sort of, anything to do with landscaping, as DP9 just said, there will be detailed conditions, or conditions requiring further details in due course, I've explained to the objector before this committee in the last couple of weeks that just because there's say a bench shown on the plans doesn't mean that there will ultimately be a bench in that location, obviously when it comes to approving the final landscape drawing, we obviously have on file now that residents are concerned about anti-social behaviour, there's been photos of the ASB sent to us, so we know that there's an issue along there, so we will take that into account when we're approving final details such as benches, and the planters over the light well, I mean clearly we would never approve a plan which showed something blocking somebody's light well to any basement accommodation, we just simply wouldn't confirm that they wouldn't do that either. Okay, now I understand that, can I go to you Tom, hi, thank you for your presentation, the question that remains for me is the right of access, so I don't necessarily understand where your right of access is to at the moment. (inaudible) Yes, you can go from New Road onto Mount Terrace through a traffic barrier which we have keys for, which is also a fire brigade accessible barrier, then at the east end of Mount Terrace there's another fire access barrier which we've always had access to and from, as exemplified by the letter from the London Hospital. I appreciate what Robin's saying in terms of this being a private matter, but what I'm concerned about is that the access appears to be being cemented, the removal of access appears to be being cemented in this application, so I want it to be noted that that is coming from a position which is not established, the note on the gate says keep clear for fire access, it doesn't say fire access only, it has signs from Mount Terrace saying left turn only, we've always had keys to it that have been supplied by the hospital, so I just want to make sure that is not cemented within this current plan. And I also just wanted to make sure that those other issues I raised in terms of planters moving the gates are also not cemented because in the plans, despite us asking repeatedly for them to be removed, the plans clearly show the planters over our light wells, the plans clearly show the gate moving to a new location which will be inaccessible for lorries, so I just want to make sure those are not cemented within this plan. I just want to clarify something, between, on the side plan, between A and B, the line of terrace houses there, marked up with the red box, is it something you're avoiding, or I'm not sure, I just want to clarify this. Thank you Councillor, I think the image behind you probably shows it best, so there is a red, in the top left hand corner of this image there is a red box within our application boundary, so that red box contains all the Mount Terrace properties and their gardens, so that's not part of our development, is that what you meant? Thank you Chair, so then looking at the second object to Edwin's concerns around overshadowing, so that's Gwyn House, so Robin would you mind just bringing up the slide that was related to that please, and just where the major moderate effects are I'm thinking, so could you just highlight where Gwyn House is and where the impacts are? So it's this rectangle that is cut out from the site, so it's just between, well to the right hand side of where it says plot C here, so it's this one that's in orange which is indicating the major adverse impacts. So what sort of mitigation can be taken there then, to support residents? The way that the BRE guidelines work, it's basically a numerical calculation to work out the degree of impact and what sort of category it falls into, so whether it's major, minor, moderate, which is the outcome of what this diagram is summarising, so it's not the guidelines that we work to on necessarily about working out what mitigation can flow from that, it's helping to understand the impacts, and obviously in making my recommendation and in making, as decision maker you'll need to weigh up the impacts of this development in terms of daylight, sunlight, to neighbour, alongside the benefits that flow from this development, which in our view are significant, it is a site in the urban area ultimately that is affected by a site that's in the urban area within a site allocation, within an opportunity area, highly accessible site, it's a building that's been vacant for quite some time, we've got somebody on, well the applicant has somebody on board to take this building on. Yeah, I understand all of that, I can see the benefits of the overall development of this, but I can understand for residents who have lived there a long time to suddenly have to cope with all of this increased impact, and as we've heard from our resident, this is going to have an impact on his health and wellbeing, so there is an irony there that this is a site that is about improving health of residents, and here we are hearing from a resident who's saying this is going to have a detrimental impact on his health, and just looking at that point there, I'm not going to repeat my question around right to light, because I got a very curt response from another member of, I don't know if he worked for DP now, but they seem to appear a lot in this council chamber, so my question is, as a committee we need to weigh up whether the benefit of this scheme outweighs the harm, so is there anything that we can do as a committee to mitigate the impact of this development on residents of Greenhouse? So I suppose I did sort of linger on this slide, which is relative to the first measure of assessing the impact, but when the impacts are quite noticeable, as they would be under the vertical sky component measure, then you'd sort of turn to the second measure, which is the NSL measure, which is in the committee report, it's under 7.236, so you can see against that secondary measure, the results are actually, well as you see on the screen here, that Greenhouse has turned from being orange, indicating major impacts, to minor, so it's… So just in layman's terms, I understand the difference, because it's late, and it's technical, what's the difference between the first diagram and the second diagram, and how has that been achieved? Yeah, Paul, do you want to comment on this one? Thank you, Chair, yeah, thank you, Councillor Busman, it is quite technical, but I suppose the best way to describe it is, the first assessment looks at daylight arriving at the window, and it looks at the proportion of, if that sky space is available, whereas the second measure is about light into the room, so how usable is the actual room that's being tested where the window is affected? So I suppose what we're saying is there is a technical decrease on the amount of light from the sky to the window, but then if you look at how that affects how the rooms themselves could be used, then the impact is actually not as great as you might imagine. So that's why it falls into two different categories. Thank you. Councillor Shabose? I just had a question, because I think I've heard the objectors saying they were promised some green space as well. That was a comment relating to our experiences of the development of the Royal London Hospital, because prior to that development, the area that is now referred to as Plot A was actually a grassed area surrounded all by trees. So as part of that initial planning application, I think it was PA04363, that application had a condition within it that it was a temporary building, would be regreened in 2011. Then, and also at that application, we were given assurances, as with a development committee and planning department, that no further extensions would be sought for that. So essentially what's happened is what was a green space has now been lost through a temporary development. That temporary development is being used as a justification for putting another building there. So obviously we realised that this is a good project for the area. We wanted to go ahead, we can understand why there's that loss of green space, but easily what you need to take into account is the impact that it's had on residents, because we've had that whole development for seven years that was going on. Now we're going to have this new development that's going to be going on for, you know, plot by plot. Could be 10, 20 years, couldn't it, you know? So we would just like, those six conditions that we were talking about there, that would really help us to feel like we weren't just being completely ignored with our concerns. Yeah, I, sorry, just wanted to come back on the point, if that's okay. The Councillor asked a really clear question just earlier about whether there was anything that could be done to affect the light levels in the flats, some of which, you know, are between, like, 40% plus reduction in light levels, and was essentially told you just have to choose between these two options. That is not true. The design of the building, particularly the way that it steps up from the street from Newark Street, can completely get rid of that problem. It would require a change in the design of the building, like, that's it. And I just felt like she asked a really straight question and was not given a straight answer. If the building stepped up, you could have it so that as the sun comes round, the amount of direct sunlight into the flats was just unaffected, but it would result in a bit of a loss of floor space. Thank you, Mr Chair. Thank you for your presentation. I have a lot of observations. First of all, I feel the local economic contribution does not satisfy what we would expect. In such a large development, it would seem that more than 68 construction apprenticeships should be possible. In relation to a work space, affordable, still it does not meet our resident requirements. And finally, this redevelopment site covers 255, sorry, 2.55 hectares. And erection of altogether 12 buildings, 5 and 7. I think we need to defer this, we need to visit this. It's very important and it will take time because it's a massive redevelopment. We are not getting anything in affordable housing or anything, just development. I think we need to take time to visit this. Thank you, Chair. I'm looking at the project, it's nothing less than what we've just been through. And it's a massive project. The layout of the floor plan is staggered, it's splitted everywhere. And I'm not sure whether there has been any site visit because I'm just sitting this one at first. Has there been any site visit at all? There was a site visit booked for today. However, I know a lot of councillors were in the mayor's MAB today. And I know you are new to this application, so you missed the opportunity. However, in that case, that's what I was thinking, looking at the development itself. That it needs a good site visit and I second Mr Choudry's proposal for a deferral of this item. And I think the site visit should be accompanied by a good guide who can explain a lot of things, because it's not one particular building itself. It's a huge portion there, a portion here, a portion there, including the heights and everything and the impact. So I think it should be guided by a good professional and all the councillors to be there. Actually, where we're sitting right now used to be a garden and with that size… Thank you, Councillor. One of our sites is entirely a green space. So the site just to the south of the plot behind here is a new square. So it's just to the east of St Philip's Church. Thank you, Chair. Thank you for your presentation. It's a wonderful presentation and a once in life opportunity. That project is so huge. The local will benefit immensely and the world will focus on Tower Hamlet due to this project. I'm not objecting on this, but there is something because always remember that good health needs good living conditions as well. If there is no good living condition, your health won't be good. So in that case, I'm asking the applicant. Have you ever thought of providing some sort of like… There is a development, there is a small focus of housing like Gwen's house and other terraces is there. People are living in there. Have you ever thought of developing some of the properties for people to live in those buildings in your development project? As I say, Tower Hamlet, we are the local representative and we are really suffering that we are not able to provide enough housing for the people. It's good, the job will be there, good, we economically will be benefited, but health-wise Tower Hamlet is lacking behind any other boroughs of Tower Hamlet due to our living conditions. So have you ever thought of this, that provide some housing for the local people? So they benefit economically, they benefit health-wise and also they benefit living-wise. Have you ever thought of that? If not, what is your future thinking about that? Thank you Councillor. It's a good question. I think a lot of the policy that exists in the area points us towards commercial development and towards life science development. So our site allocation requires these sites to deliver life sciences. We're in an employment area, all the sites contain either health or employment type uses as existing. So the policy imperative is very strongly for us to deliver life sciences and indeed there's an importance of delivering these buildings at scale in a cluster. Because there's a co-location point here where new companies, new businesses, all the research that goes on, they want to be next to each other, they want to be learning off each other and feeding off each other. And to a degree that's why some of the buildings are the sort of scale they are. We've spoken about Plot C to a degree. Plot C has reduced by an entire story since submission and actually that is teaching space that was lost for QM. So QM owned Plot C, they own that land, that's their building, that's the building they want to build. So we've taken the height off that in response to the daylight sunlight issues. That building is stepped back well away from Gwynhouse now in a way that it isn't at the moment. They do abut each other, the existing building. There is a new green space also between those two gaps and the building is stepping away. So the mass isn't hard up against the boundary so it does step away. But these are all things that we've discussed at length with officers and come to the conclusion that the scale and the mass is appropriate for this area right next to a crossrail station as well and to meet the Mayor's vision of sciences. Mark, did you want to comment? That's okay, chair. I just wanted to respond to Councillor's important question. There is a housing development to the south of this site that is not within our control. It's another developer. So there will be some housing to the south of this. But I put it to you all that the average healthy life expectancy of a woman on the road out there is 58. 58 years of age. If she had lived her life in Richmond upon Thames, just nine miles from here, she would live to be 72 healthy. We cannot accept that. We have to change it. And this development is our one and only opportunity to do it with the conjunction of a major university, the NHS and eventually industry. And I have stood on that road for 45 years and watched the money further west. It's a mile away. It never comes here. This is a chance for us to change this and to change the healthy life expectancy of that woman out on that road there. And that's what the balance is that needs to be struck. So it is not simply about individuals or individual perspectives. It's about the whole ecosystem that changes the lives of the residents of Tahamas. And having worked here for 40 years, I think we can probably all agree that's desperately needed. And so I agree with Councillor that housing is really important, but there is a development to the south that may address some of that. But also, I think we do have to work with Tahamas Public Health and the Health Determinants Research Collaborative, which we've established together with Tahamas, to change the healthy life expectancy of this community. It cannot be morally acceptable in 2024 that that difference can exist with just nine miles of distance. And unless we combine our endeavors to do this, it will not change. The committee might be minded to defer the matter, but when the item returns, I think the committee decision maker will still have to be mindful of determining the application against the development plan. And as has already been said, this is in the Whitechapel site allocation. As Robin said, and hopefully clearly in his presentation in the report, the land uses are wholly consistent with the site allocation. And although it should be added, all these sites were previously owned by the Royal London, and were surplus to the requirements, and so they were disposed. And as Tom was just saying, they were for employment, the expectation is for employment. In terms of the other site allocations that the development asked for, it asked for a consolidated open space. That is what I call the St. Philip's and St. Augustine Square, which is the space that you see on screen immediately to the east or to the right of the former church, which is now a hospital serving the hospital and bars. The site allocation asked for the safeguarding of the sexual health clinic, the oldest one in the country, a purpose-built one in the clinic, and the HIV specialist center that's also in the Ambrose King, that is provided. Again, consistent with the site allocation, and actually he's got a pet history long before that in terms of the Whitechapel vision, which doesn't carry any weight, but the green spine, which is the linear space. And it's the consolidation of the open space along that linear park, which is opening up onto this, what I call St. Philip's Square. So it's entirely consistent in those. And although it would be wrong for the committee or indeed offices to give any weight at this stage to the emerging local plan, I think it is informative to draw attention, although there's a kind of a drawing back in terms of the ambitions for life sciences across the site allocation as a whole. I think it is informative that for these sites, it's consistent with the current local plan, it's in current local plan, it's also consistent with the London plan, and indeed the mayor of London's city fringe opportunity area. So if there is a decision by the committee to defer the item tonight, there is no getting away from that. Thanks for that. There will still have to be a question in terms of all of those. Thank you. I think what's happened here is Councillor Choudry hasn't ruled it out. He feels like he wants to do a site visit. I get it. It's a very local area. We've had Councillor Surik Ahmad who has seconded that. So obviously, Councillor, I think just to summarise it, you said site visit and to see whether large contribution, okay, to re-evaluate the large contribution, and he has had someone formally second it. So shall we take it to a vote to see if we could do a site visit to defer the item? Is that okay to take it to a vote to see who is happy to defer this item on the basis of what Councillor Kibri Ahmad said? I'm going to take it to a vote, and if the vote falls, then we carry on and we'll take a decision on this matter. All those in favour of what Kibri Ahmad has deferred it for? All those against? Would you like to address the reasoning? Thank you, Chair. So on the proposal to defer the application for a site visit that was seconded, we've had five members in favour and two members against, so that proposal is carried. I appreciate that the site visit was offered, but I think unfortunately, as you said, Chair, there was a conflict with another council meeting, and that's just unfortunate, and sometimes the way these things land. But I do respect those members that have kind of acknowledged that this is a very significant development, and you need to be assured in your own minds around recommendation, although as Mr Gwynne has said, in management's terms, it's absolutely spot on in terms of being policy compliant. But there are lots of other issues around placemaking scale, et cetera. So on that, just to finish up, yes, we'll arrange that site visit at the earliest opportunity. I really hope that we can get a time that we can get everybody together, and we will do a thorough tour around the site, and bring that back to the next meeting of the Strategic Events Committee for a decision. Thank you very much. Thank you for your time. That concludes the business for this meeting. The council is collecting feedback from members about their experience speaking at this meeting. If you wish to participate, please complete a paper copy of the survey, and hand it to the committee of officers at the meeting. Or, if you prefer, you can complete the survey online. This committee of officers has a QR code to access the link. The next meeting will take place on Wednesday 9 October 2024. Thank you very much. (audience clapping)