Transcript

Good evening, everyone. Welcome to this meeting of the Planning Board. Filming and recording is allowed but must not disturb proceedings. Flash photography is not permitted. Only those public speakers who have requested and have been accepted will be called to speak. No other public speakers will be permitted to address the meeting. Speakers' comments must be relevant to the application and planning matters and you should not repeat comments already made. Once you have made your address, you will not be permitted to make further comments unless I invite you to do so. I retain the right to reduce time given to speakers. Councillors will have up to five minutes. Accepted representatives of residents and amenity groups up to four, individuals two and the applicants and their teams ten. On item five, I have Mark Pender, Anil Karan and Julian Williams. Item six, I have Councillor Greenwell, Jonathan Morris, Godfrey Monro, Nick Duffy, Kenny Douglas, Diane Morris, Ayesha Bajwa. I hope I got that right. You will tell me when you come up. Thank you. On behalf of the applicant, Alan Evans, Richard Brian and Anthony Fuzi. On item seven and eight, I have Paul Pritchard and Peter Edgar. Item one, apologies for absence. Apologies have been received from Councillors Babatola, Bower, Richards-Cottell and Burke Macdonald. We have received planning officer addendums for items five, two addendums, seven and eight and applicant submissions for items five, six and seven and eight. Item three, declarations of interest. Pat, I have got you listed for item six where you will be speaking. Item four, minutes of the last meeting, 17 September and 8 October. I take those as read. Any comments? Item five, items six, seven and eight. Item four, minutes of the last meeting, 17 September and 8 October. Item five, minutes of the last meeting, 17 September and 8 October. I take those as read. Item four, minutes of the last meeting, 17 September and 8 October. I take those as read. Item five, minutes of the last meeting, 17 September and 8 October. I take those as read. Item four, minutes of the last meeting, 17 September and 8 October. I take those as read. Item five, minutes of the last meeting, 17 September and 8 October. I take those as read. Item four, minutes of the last meeting, 17 September and 8 October. I take those as read. Item five, minutes of the last meeting, 17 December and 8 October. I take those as read. Item five, minutes of the last meeting, 17 September and 8 October. I take those as read. Item five, minutes of the last meeting, 17 December and 8 October. I take those as read. Item six, minutes of the last meeting, 17 December and 8 October. I take those as read. Item five, minutes of the last meeting, 17 December and 8 October. I take those as read. Item six, minutes of the last meeting, 17 December and 8 October. I take those as read. Item five, minutes of the last meeting, 17 December and 8 October. I take those as read. Item six, minutes of the last meeting, 17 December and 8 October. I take those as read. Item five, minutes of the last meeting, 17 December and 8 October. I take those as read. Item six, minutes of the last meeting, 17 December and 8 October. I take those as read. Item five, minutes of the last meeting, 17 December and 8 October. I take those as read. Item six, minutes of the last meeting, 17 December and 8 October. I take those as read. Item seven, minutes of the last meeting, 17 December and 8 October. I take those as read. Item six, minutes of the last meeting, 17 December and 8 October. I take those as read. Item seven, minutes of the last meeting, 17 December and 8 October. I take those as read. Item six, minutes of the last meeting, 17 December and 8 October. I take those as read. Item seven, minutes of the last meeting, 17 December and 8 October. I take those as read. Item six, minutes of the last meeting, 17 December and 8 October. I take those as read. Item seven, minutes of the last meeting, 17 December and 8 October. I take those as read. Item six, minutes of the last meeting, 17 December and 8 October. I take those as read. Item seven, minutes of the last meeting, 17 December and 8 October. I take those as read. However, that scheme was not implemented. The current proposal addresses previous concerns by removing taller buildings along Wellington Street and Thomas Street, as well as removing the additional floor on the Polytechnic Hall. Crucially, however, is that more historic buildings are retained, notably within the centre of the site, which were proposed to be demolished. I will draw your members' attention to the two taller buildings proposed, previously approved, such as the 10-storey building on Wellington Street and the 9-storey building on Thomas Street, which is shown in the image on the left of the screen. In terms of the proposal itself, site-wide, the scheme would comprise six different blocks, A to F as shown on the screen. These blocks would deliver a mix of uses, including retail, office, education and residential. Ground floor retail uses are located throughout, including fronting the central square, maintaining an active frontage, while the Polytechnic Hall's ground floor will be retained for educational use. Residential units, both conventional and co-living, are distributed throughout the site, although all of the social rent units are within block E. A key part of the scheme is that the proposed development will improve site accessibility by opening the site up with a new public square and pedestrian routes. The CGI on the right shows the new central square and the front face of the now-retained block F, which had been proposed to be demolished in the previous scheme. The scheme will have a maximum height of six storeys, with the tallest building elements predominantly the new elements of the scheme. The design incorporates a mix of new buildings and retained buildings, with the new buildings and extension considered to complement well the scale and character of the surrounding context, as well as the heritage assets, as shown on the screen. The scheme also includes a reduction in the height of the Polytechnic Hall extension, as previously mentioned, and is circled, which was predominantly to address concerns raised by Historic England. This is considered to be a notable improvement over the previously approved scheme. This change has resulted in Historic England no longer raising concern from a heritage perspective, as noted in the addendum report. This CG on screen shows the new main pedestrian access from Wellington Street. In particular, I just want to note the heights of the neighbouring buildings, and to reference the heights themselves in line with the surrounding context within the immediate site. The landscape strategy provides a number of new public spaces, covering approximately 2,900 square metres, and includes a wall garden, supported by existing and new trees, a generous public square, better integrating with the landscaping, and providing a more prominent entrance to Wellington Street, as previously mentioned. The layout improves site accessibility compared to the currently inaccessible site. Five new entrances into the site are proposed, which will significantly improve permeability in this part of Woolwich. Also, a biodiversity net gain strategy addresses ecological concerns, which has balanced the site constraints, as well as heritage preservation on the site. The proposed development site is within the Woolwich Conservation Area, and as previously mentioned, has multiple heritage assets, including a Grade 2 listed building, locally listed buildings, and non-designated heritage assets, which all contribute to the character of the conservation area. The design has carefully considered these heritage assets, which has restrained the proposed height and massing of the scheme. Alterations to the Grade 2 listed polytechnic building are designed to preserve its architectural and historical significance. While certain elements of the proposed works may impact specific parts of the building, the scheme overall seeks to enhance its unique qualities, restoration efforts, and improved accessibility, and the creation of more inviting public spaces all can contribute to the area's improved heritage value. In line with the MPPF and London Plan policies, the scheme's public benefits, including bringing the historic buildings back into use, are considered to outweigh the minor harm to some of the original features. Regarding non-designated heritage assets, the proposed development incorporates fewer demolitions, as previously mentioned, than the previously approved scheme. In our view, it would preserve the heritage assets in accordance with the MPPF. In terms of off-site heritage assets, the scheme has been assessed to have less than substantial harm on surrounding designated heritage assets. However, this harm is considered to be outweighed by the public benefits, increased housing, job creation, and public realm improvements. Heritage assets will also be restored and their visibility enhanced, aligning the proposal with relevant policies and supporting the area's regeneration through a new public square and improved pedestrian connectivity. More recently, as I mentioned on the previous slide, Historic England has withdrawn the objection on heritage grounds recognising the heritage-led approach taken by the applicants and their architects. This development will offer quality accommodation for future residents, including access to amenity spaces, both internal and external, and new public realm. All units and rooms will meet minimum space standards and code living standards. While there may be some minor shortfalls in some of the recommendations, while there are some shortfalls identified in the Planning Board report, these are noted and considered to be acceptable in this context, and detailed assessment against of civic co-living requirements has also been undertaken. In terms of external amenity spaces, while a number of spaces have been provided, the Council has also secured a contribution towards off-site play space. An extensive list of conditions have also been secured to ensure the quality of accommodation is delivered, and particularly for the co-living element. As detailed within the Planning Board report, it has identified that there are some properties which would experience a minor degree or some degree of loss of sunlight and daylight. However, this is a typical outcome for major developments on underdeveloped sites. Any reductions in line with BRE guidelines and residual values are considered to remain appropriate for an urban area, and having regard to regeneration benefits as detailed in the report. In terms of other amenity impacts, a thorough analysis of privacy, outlook and a sense of enclosure has been undertaken, and it's considered that the development would not adversely affect nearby residential units. It is noted since the publication of the Addendum report, officers have had discussions with the GLA regarding viability and the late stage of view. Unfortunately, the GLA have raised objection and do not agree that the revised offer, as mentioned in the second Addendum, meets the 35% viability threshold. In this case, the application for members to consider is whether the original scheme and the original offer that was in the Planning Board report of the £5,065,000 plus a late stage review is acceptable, or the alternative offer which was also published in the second Addendum, which was the £9,315,000 but without a late stage review. Those are the two options that are before members with regard to affordable housing. But regardless, the affordable housing offer that was originally considered was considered to be the maximum reasonable at the time, and was supported by a viability assessment that was reviewed by council officers and external consultants on the scheme. Also, with the pressing need for affordable housing in the borough, the revisions, regardless of the option, do still have a significant public benefit and viability review mechanisms will ensure compliance with affordable housing commitments. All of the social rent homes are located within Block E, which I have highlighted on screen, as outlined in red. The proposed development aligns with London Plan and Core Strategy policies promoting sustainable transport and reducing reliance on private cars. The site's excellent public transport accessibility, coupled with the proposed pedestrian cycling improvements, will significantly enhance the area's walkability and reduce the need for private vehicle travel. While the development itself is largely car-free, the proposed measures to manage parking demand, including a 106 agreement to restrict parking permits and the requirement by condition to provide electric vehicle charging and cycle storage, will mitigate the potential impacts on the local highway network. The scheme will provide a 401,000 contribution towards transport, including 294,000 towards cycle infrastructure improvements, and also a number of other planning conditions that have also been secured to manage transport impacts. The proposed development in Woolwich is a significant mixed-use scheme that aligns with London Plan and Core Strategy policies for town centre growth, regeneration and housing delivery. The scheme will deliver 485 new large-scale, purpose-built shared living rooms and 20 social rent units with a substantial financial contribution towards affordable housing. Additionally, it will create approximately 3,296 square metres of commercial space, providing employment opportunities, including 182 new jobs at operation. The development will have significant regeneration benefits by creating new public spaces and improving connectivity. While some impact on heritage assets is acknowledged, the overall benefits, including housing delivery, affordable housing provision and regeneration are all considered to outweigh this harm. The scheme will also contribute to local infrastructure and services, including healthcare and transport, through various financial contributions. Overall, the proposal is considered to be sustainable and consistent with the development plan. Given the significant housing need and the wider benefits of the scheme, it is recommended that full Planning Commission and listed building consent are granted. Thank you. Thanks, Jonathan. Questions for the officer? David, Pat. Thank you very much. I must say, obviously, this has been a vacant site for a long time and the development, you know, on the face of it does appear to be quite sympathetic and to make a great contribution to Woolwich. But I am concerned, Chair, about the affordable element and I'm trying to unpack this and I've been trying to unpack the numbers, that even, you know, it's a shame that the numbers aren't very clear in front of us. If our policy is for 35 per cent and if the 9 million is meant to meet that 35 per cent, I make it that there are 629 habitable rooms, assuming you can afford 23, thus 92 habitable rooms, 23 units, therefore 92 habitable rooms off site. That would make it 134 habitable rooms, including off site, out of a total of 629, which includes a 485 plus a 42 in the 20 units, which is a total of 21.3 per cent, which is nowhere near 35 per cent. So I just wondered how you got to 35 per cent. Is there an element of the co-living, which is London Living rent or discount? I don't regard discounted market rent really as affordable at all, but is it London Living rent? You know, we need to drill down how we've reached this 35 per cent on the basis of 9 million, because I'm very, very, obviously the GLA are very sceptical and I must say I haven't seen the figures from the GLA and I haven't seen the figures from our assessor either, so it would be very useful. I've got a few other questions on other issues, but firstly I think this is a key issue. I want to drill down to make sure we are getting, we are policy compliant on the 35 per cent. Well, the policy is the London Plan policy and that suggests to, because co-living units are not self-contained, it's a cash computation that it's looking at. So what it's requiring you to do is to take 35 per cent of the co-living units, which would be 173, and then to apply a 50 per cent discount to their rental value, which is in effect what we've done. From that you would still have to deduct the operating expenditure and then what we've done is to capitalise a scheme where there is no discount and then we've capitalised a scheme where there is a discount on 35 per cent of the unit and compared the gross values to arrive at the conclusion of what the contribution should be. The methodology is not set out in GLA policy. All it refers to is this 50 per cent discount on 35 per cent of the rooms. So we have been through a number of these schemes with GLA and there are a variety of ways you can approach it. It's one of those things where there isn't a defined SPD methodology that sets out a calculation. So our calculation we think follows that methodology, but clearly the GLA have a different view. So until they've seen what we've done and we've seen what they've done, we can't actually arrive at a mutually agreed figure on that computation.

Thank you. And on the affordable housing that's on site, and as I say, I always much prefer to have mixed development. On site has the policy rather than offset, you know, put it somewhere cheaper. But of the on site, the 20 units, I'm just slightly concerned in the report that firstly they're all very small, they're one bed, but also I don't know whether I've read this right, but it gives the minimum standard size and the actual size of the unit. Some of the units seem to be, have I read this right, below the recommended sizes of the 20 units. Thank you for your question. None of the units themselves are below the required minimum space standards, which are, you know, 50 square metres or 61 square metres for the relevant unit. What is, I'm trying to express in the report was that some of them don't have external balconies and external amenity space, and that's mostly by virtue of that's a listed building and it's, you know, we can't, it's difficult to put a balcony or et cetera on those buildings. So in some cases it is suggested to add on the difference, i.e. the five square metres of the balcony to the internal floor space of the units themselves. When you add on those, the external space, some of the units don't comply with that. So in short, they comply with the standards that sit on the national space standards and the London Plan. But what we've tried to do on many cases is try to compensate somehow where we could internally. The issue with this building being grade two, it limited how the units themselves could be reconfigured as well. So we're kind of fixed to certain room layouts because obviously we have an original floor plate that we have to retain in some form. There isn't large scale removals and we're trying to better the grade two building or try to revert some of the, some of the unsympathetic changes that have already been undertaken on the site itself. Hopefully that answers your question. Thank you, but not quite. If you look at paragraph 18.5 where there is a table, it gives the minimum internal space standard and then the unit sizes. And there are a good number of them. There are a few that are over, but there's a good number of them which are under the minimum internal space standard. Yeah. Surely we just cannot allow that. We can't allow flats to be built which are below the minimum internal. It's a minimum standard. It's not an average. It's not a desired level. It's a minimum standard. So surely that has to change. Some of them like flat 20 are 17 square metres below. Some of them are just a fraction below, but there are one or two which are significantly below the minimum internal standards. So I'd like to just clarify this table. I can see that it is as clear as it should be. The number that's listed in the column that minimum internal space standard is inclusive of the external amenity space. So I've added on in that column, for example, five square metres on the 50 square metres which is the national space standards for the one bed, two person. So I've taken that to 55. I probably should have been more clearer and split them out into 50 plus five or something along those lines. But if I rewrote that column again and discounted all the balconies, they would all comply. It's just that I've probably represented that column there and it's definitely not as clear as I should have made it. Thank you, Chair, and thank you for your presentation. My question is, I don't know, we seem to have a plethora of suddenly of these sort of shared living accommodations. And also, again, and I keep bringing this up, what's happened, we are desperately short and have been for a long time of three bedroom properties which are just not coming up. Now, those, again, you know, sort of the 20 conventional units I've got, there are 12 one bed and eight two bed, but we have got nowhere have we got any three -- now, I don't know whether it's a question to ask for the developers as well, but that always concerns me. What is -- we need those properties. And I've got another question later. Well, also as well, coupled with that, I read that someone has said in objections that they find that there's an oversupply of commercial space. So, you know, is there room for maneuvering and it's just -- I'm not quite sure I'm happy with this with the lack of three beds. Thank you, Councillor Greenwell. I completely am sympathetic to the concern around the quantum of conventional units. Obviously, you know, we would prefer a greater mix, maybe more in line with our policy and maybe more conventional units. But the scheme that we have had submitted to us is the 485 co-living and this 20 conventional unit scheme. I think it's important to note with co-living schemes generally that this is maybe an outlier in so far that many of the co-living schemes that I'm aware of don't have a conventional component to it. They typically come in with a scheme that's just all 485 co-living units, for example, without any conventional units, but this through our discussions with the applicant, albeit it's a modest element of the scheme, is still some contribution which we thought was beneficial, but also not just being conventional units on their own, but being social rented units, which was, I think, more important than just having conventional units in the scheme. Because where we were -- the discussion with the applicant on this point was we wanted to have some mixed and balanced communities, you know, and I think the discussion led us to having some of these conventional units on site. But I, yeah, I empathize about that maybe, you know, large units, of course, would be preferable in terms of wider need anyway. Pat, do you want to turn your mic on? Thanks. The question is at bottom of page 71, the delivery -- to do with delivery services, in Thomas Street, large vehicles have to undertake a reversing manoeuvre, and obviously it's shared with pedestrians, and that's going to be a massive health and safety hazard. Yeah. Yeah, no, thanks for that question. What paragraph was that? And again, sorry, I recall the point, but I'm just trying to get to the paragraph myself. Is it in the comments section? Bottom of page 71, talking about delivery and servicing, deliveries and servicing are proposed to be handed -- oh, regarding the service access off Thomas Street, it appears that the arrangements require large vehicles to undertake reversing manoeuvre. Bottom of page 71. Oh, yes, yes, sorry, I've just found that. I've gone to that comment there. All right, sorry, that was our comment from TFL on that. We do acknowledge that there will have to be a manoeuvre on the site, particularly for refuse servicing. We've conditioned a delivery and servicing plan to manage how those operations will be undertaken on site, because this isn't -- particularly with larger vehicles, such as a refuse vehicle, the collections aren't going to be as once a week or as not as -- particularly for the residential activities on the site. So there won't be an everyday large vehicle manoeuvring on the site, but we have considered that there will be -- there will have to be some manoeuvring internally within the site, because the manoeuvring is tight within the site itself. It's just that I thought that our policy was -- I know with refuse vehicles that they could not reverse, that they had to be able to do a manoeuvre on site, that they could not reverse, that they weren't -- the waste services has reviewed their operational waste strategy and how they're proposing to undertake everything on the site, and they haven't raised that as an issue or a concern, and maybe it's the shortness of the manoeuvre that has to occur for them to undertake their turn that they need to do. But all I can say from the advice that I've got from my transport colleagues and my waste colleagues is they haven't -- well, they haven't raised it as a concern with me on that. Yeah, so I think there is a distance that the refuse vehicles won't reverse is my understanding, so it's possible in this case that the distance is within acceptable tolerances. And if I -- could I just add to Jonathan's point about the co-living issue and the conventional housing? Just I think it's worth flagging up the planning history of the site as well. So there was planning permission for conventional housing on the site, which was never implemented and in fact lapsed. And I don't know exactly the reasons for that. Perhaps there might be something to ask the applicants, but we need to balance some redevelopment of the site and, you know, bringing the listed buildings back into use as well. And if a co-living scheme is able to achieve that, then that's one of the benefits we feel of this application. David, you had more questions? Oh, yes, I did. Thank you. So I was going to ask about the urban greening factor, which is just 0.24, which I think is the lowest I've seen in any application since it's come in in the 21 London plan. And I just ask you to explain that, you know, we'll ask the applicant, and what can be done to bring it up to 0.4, which I thought was a minimum, but it may be the -- I'm just trying to look up the London plan. It may be the desired level. But what elements could help to improve that? Would more street trees outside improve it, or has it got to be greening within the actual site? Potentially external -- sorry. In terms of the urban greening factor itself, yes, it is 0.24, so it is relatively low compared to other schemes that you've seen. I think it should be recognized that the site itself has a lot of constraints and challenges because of all these historic buildings that, if you compare to another site that may be a complete brownfield that you could redevelop from a blank slate, it makes it much easier to -- or much easier to achieve some of the urban greening factor targets. The site is, as I was just saying, is constrained a lot by the buildings, and particularly now more so that the applicant has retained more of the units on the -- sorry, more of the historic buildings on the site. We have worked with the applicant to, you know, to look at all the available roof spaces to maximize where we think ground -- you know, all the ground level planting can be achieved. And despite all maximizing all these areas, we still haven't been able to achieve that improved urban greening factor to what we would have expected, I suppose. We have -- and sorry, this is all even with 35 new trees that have been, you know, put on the site within the new public realm and within the red line boundary, still haven't been able to achieve that. So we've devised a condition where we still are expecting maybe a detailed design stage for the applicant that they look at ways that they could improve the urban greening factor score, because, you know, we do recognize it as low, and whether there is, you know, some scope to potentially provide more urban factor benefits and more trees or more ground level planting once they get to that detailed stage. So which leads me to my next question. I was just looking at the criteria in fact for UGF. But the -- one of the things about Wellington Street, I mean, the vision is very much that we should have a boulevard which leads down from the top of Wellington Street all the way to -- through the Royal Arsenal to the pier. But of course there are only one tree in this section of Wellington Street at the moment from Polytechnic Street down to Thomas Street, according to the Google view. But as far as I can see, despite the great references to healthy streets and so forth, and all the contributions to great transport schemes, not proposing any further street trees on Wellington Street. Have I got that wrong or right? But there are. Is that Wellington Street there? I'm just trying to get back to the -- here we go. This may be it. So there are some trees that are proposed on the public highway and in particular up the central access into the site. So there are some greening benefits on the highway along Wellington Street, maybe not to the extent that you're describing, but there is some, yeah, on the public highway area. So can you just point out where they would be on Wellington Street, which I think is on the right-hand side. Sorry, this might be a clearer image. The other one had a bit of overlay. So there's some proposed there. And I think I might have another landscaping plan earlier. Yeah, that's probably a bit clearer for everyone. So on this landscaping plan, they've included some new trees going up in that L shape along there. So next to where there is currently one large tree, there would be three small trees, but no trees then from the entry point from Wellington Street down to the corner with Thomas Street where the Earl of Chatham is. And this access here. On Wellington Street on the right-hand side there, no street trees, and yet there's plenty of scope there to reduce, you know, take up parking spaces, reduce the carriageway and really better meet the Healthy Streets criteria on the Healthy Streets scorecard. Has that been discussed at all with the applicant how we can really turn Wellington Street and the other streets like Polytechnic Street, Thomas Street and so forth into really up the Healthy Streets scorecard? In terms of specific -- Because there's lots of references to Healthy Streets in the report, but I'm trying to actually work out in practical terms what, apart from the cycle lanes, C4 cycle route, what the contribution is to Healthy Streets in the immediate vicinity, which will have a lot more people now walking around it and cycling around it and so forth. And with global warming and so forth, obviously, canopy cover is so important, so a couple of sort of cherry trees doesn't really do it and doesn't meet our vision of that boulevard either. So I wondered whether we properly played that aspect. This is about place-making after all, isn't it? Yes. So if I could just come back on that point really quickly, while we haven't gone to the degree of, you know, in terms of the discussion with the applicant of having an outside the red line boundary landscaping master plan off of Wellington Street or Thomas Street or Polytechnic Street, we have secured an improvement to the public realm in the immediate vicinity of 40,000 pounds towards some improvements. And which was secured to improve the immediate vicinity of the site. So while conceivably not forming part of the UGF scores we discussed earlier, we do have contributions that can go some way potentially as providing some greening on the public highway potentially from the secured contributions. Okay. Any other questions for the officer? No. Jonathan, thank you very much. Before I introduce the applicant, there are no other speakers tonight. Planning board members have been receiving an awful lot of direct mail from applicants. This is not acceptable. There are procedures in place for submitting documentation to the board. And we have safeguards in so that we only consider documentation that forms part of an official bundle. So in future, if anyone is writing in directly to board members, we won't accept that information. And there is a deadline for submitting documents. So please adhere to the dates and to the processes that we have in place so that we can avoid future confusion. Thank you very much. I now wish to call on Mark Pender, Anil Kiran and Julian Williams on behalf of the applicant. Thank you, chair, planning board. My name is Mark Pender and I'm the applicant's planning consultant. First of all, apologies for the briefing. I wasn't aware of the protocol, but won't do it again. Since acquiring the site in 2021, we have embarked upon a significant consultation process prior to submitting the application before you this evening. The level of consultation very much reflects the sensitivity of the site and surrounding area and the overwhelming desire to create a high quality development, meeting a need and enhancing the town centre. I guess it's also a reflection of the fact that there's just been two objections to such a major application. I'm joined by Anil who is from node, the operator of the code living element who will describe what co-living is. I'm also joined by Julian from BBP architecture who will say a few words about his approach to the design. Before handing over, I'd like to just run through the public benefits rising from the scheme, some of which you've already heard. Provision of 20 conventional residential homes which are all affordable housing, specifically social rent. 485 co-living units equating to the delivery of 269 conventional residential homes. Delivery of both co-living and affordable housing, contributing to achieving the five-year housing land supply, where a substantial shortfall of 2.46 years currently exists. The proposal represents 10.4% of the annual borough-wide housing target. Financial contributions toward affordable housing of just over £5 million or as you've heard £9 million if there is no late stage review. Other section 106 contributions totalling around £1.8 million including towards cycleway extension from Woolwich roundabout into Woolwich town centre. Public realm, legible London signage, cycle training, bus stop accessibility, additional health facilities in the local area and Greenwich local labour and business services. CIL contribution of almost 2 million. The creation of about 3,300 square metres of non-residential floor space, generating around 182 full-time additional jobs on site. On site provision of affordable work space and community floor space. Sustainable development and design through the use of air source heat pumps and photovoltaic arrays with a commitment to achieving net zero carbon through financial contributions. Significant enhancement of the public realm and natural environment with landscaping, greening and pedestrian friendly features. Introduction of a new public square and attractive pedestrian routes to improve connectivity within the town centre. A biodiversity net gain of 435% against a target of 10% will generate an additional £2.15 million in net local expenditure annually equating to approximately 43 jobs. And finally the restoration of both the grade 2 listed rotunda, gymnasium and polytechnic building and several locally listed buildings on the site. I hope you agree that's quite a significant list of benefits. I'll hand over to Anil who will talk you through what the co-living concept is. Thank you chair and planning board, it's great to be here today. My name is Anil Kara, I'm the founder and CEO of Note Living, we're a co-living owner, operator and asset manager globally. A little bit of background of me, I grew up in Canada, came here 20 years ago and I know what it's like as a young person trying to find housing in a big city. And my background is in real estate investment management and operations and I realized that there's a brokenness in cities, you know, coming out of being a student before you're on the housing ladder. How do you find people? We have a loneliness epidemic, how do you find an affordable place, how do you find a safe place, how do you find a community, how do you get your bearings in a city? And out of that 8 years ago is why we started Note. We're a family owned business, we're entrepreneurial but we have institutional backgrounds and we're really here to be a point of connection. The idea of being Note is being a connecting point, it's a place to live, it's a place to connect but ultimately if we do a good job it's a place to thrive. Fast forward 8 years, we're involved in projects in 5 countries, 5000 beds, 30 different projects. We have a design team that sits in Barcelona that takes best ideas from around the world, both from our projects and from our peers. We want to be collaborative, this is a new sector, we want to learn, share best ideas and bring those projects, ideas to projects just like this. We're very excited about this project in particular, I think it's a real opportunity to activate a community to really bring back energy into the area and a real live, work, play environment with all the ancillary uses. It's going to be quite special and I think it can be a landmark project for London and the UK. With that I'll just open to any questions after I want to keep it brief but thank you for your time. I would say that we would be investing in this project ourselves in this, we really believe in it so we're not coming as a service provider, we're really coming as a partner in this and we'd love to partner with you, thank you. Good evening Chair and Planning Board, I'm Julian Williams from BB Partnership, we're the architects for the project. As you heard the scheme aims to transform a largely derelict and closed off site into a vibrant mixed use community. The project very much respects the historic character of Woolwich while creating a dynamic environment where people can live, work and engage with their community. The vision very much centres on revitalising the existing buildings and weaving them into the townscape with new pedestrian routes and public spaces. This approach will support Woolwich's infrastructure and provide new amenities enhancing the streetscape and permeability of the town centre. The site will feature high quality landscaping and a variety of green spaces along with the public square that's already been mentioned. We've developed the scheme working very closely with the Royal Borough of Greenwich planning team via a planning performance agreement. Also along with Historic England, TFL and the GLA the design has evolved through the pre-application and application process to address the comments raised by the multiple stakeholders in the scheme. As we've heard the site is within the bath way quarter of the Woolwich conservation area and the site includes Grade 2 listed and locally listed buildings. The scheme's height and massing has been limited to six storeys in order to preserve and enhance the appearance of both the heritage assets on the site and also those in the wider conservation area. Including the key view of the Grade 2 listed former town hall where we are now from General Gordon Square and touching on the point on Wellington Street. That's the one area where we've actually pushed the existing building line back into the actual site boundary where we've managed to create a wider area of pavement. Which is where those street trees have been introduced. Elsewhere the site is pretty much the existing buildings and existing pavement line. So in terms of our site boundary that's what we're working to but on Wellington Street we've been able to create some new public realm on the outside of the site as it were. Obviously you're very familiar with the number of homes and units being created. I would add the 2020 conventional flats are within the listed building and do respond very much to the constraints of that listed building. The listed building equally isn't particularly good for co-living so it is a very good mix to revitalise that building and put it back into use and to restore it. Within the workspace that's going to provide it there's an intention to provide co-working spaces as well so that will encourage young entrepreneurs and start-up businesses. Coming on to the sustainability point, the scheme achieves a 55% reduction in carbon emissions when compared to the requirements of the building regulations along with a very significant biodiversity net gain. The urban greening factor issue is very much a product of the number of buildings retained on the site and the limitations with what we can and can't do to a Grade 2 listed building and also locally listed buildings. A further development is previous schemes including the previous scheme for this site would have been powered by gas boilers located in the basement. This scheme is completely clean, we've got air source heat pumps which are on the roof but that does take away some of our opportunity for greening on the roof. That said there is a planning condition to develop the potential to increase the urban greening factor. Since this scheme has been developed there's been great advancements in bio-solar which is photovoltaic panels that can sit above green roofs so there are opportunities. We're also looking to upgrade the, obviously we're trying to heat existing buildings which are listed so again we have limitations on the amount of thermal upgrading that we can do which might require more air source heat pumps than in a new build but that's something we want to do. I'm a certified Passive House Designer, it's something I'm passionate about and want to take forward. I think hopefully that does, oh sorry one other point, on deliveries the scheme has been designed so at present the only vehicular entrance to the site is off Thomas Street. The scheme has been designed so Amazon deliveries and Deliveroo mopeds which is very much a part of one day life. There's a point on Polytechnic Street so deliveries are not entirely off Thomas Street, it is mainly the refuse collection which will be a management strategy in place to address. I think I've hopefully covered all the points raised and in general we've very much enjoyed working on this project and we think it offers significant benefits to Woolwich and the surrounding area so thank you very much. Thanks Julian. Nada. Thank you. I noticed there's no prototype of what the quality of the space would look like. It would have been nice to include a picture of what that would look like. I know you've just described, sorry I don't have your name, the gentleman in the middle, you were about to describe what co-living space would look like but you didn't go into details. So you mentioned the co-working space, is there going to be a gene, are there going to be, what would it look like? Yeah I mean I think, I mean I'll start maybe and then hand over to Anil. So the way the co-living units work is they are all, there's a hierarchy of how it drops down in terms of the level of social interaction that the tenants can have. So in the rooms themselves and there was details of the rooms submitted in the application, they're all self-contained, they've got a shower room and a very small kitchenette. There's also a ratio of between for every seven units to nine units, there's a shared kitchen/living/dining room space so then people can come and prepare food and interact on a slightly larger scale. And then when you get down to the ground floor and basement there are larger breakout spaces and they can be co-working cafeterias, gym, laundry, screening rooms and also a series of rooms that can be used and flexible. So for gym classes, yoga, talks, seminars, so it's very much driven by the tenants with a variety of spaces they can use how they want but I think Anil can probably add a lot more to that. In terms of the amenities that will be offered to everybody maybe on the ground floor and basement areas, the shared facilities? Yeah, I think that covered it. I think in addition, you know, co-working is really important. People work from home a couple days a week and allowing them to do that not in their room but having spaces to do that, also have community in place to kind of refresh, that's going to be an important part of this. I would also say it's not just about amenities, it's about connecting people. We have an app and so our residents opt in and they really connect and you create this and what that does is it activates the community, it allows our residents to create events, it allows them to be empowered, it allows them to decide what happens. And so we're really giving them a platform and so while you can have all these amenities spaces, what's really important is allowing our community to sort of take that over and really dictate what they want to do and so that's a big part of the amenity package is allowing our residents to choose their adventure and keeping some flexibility so that over time, if certain amenities in the area become more popular, we can have some flexibility to adapt towards that. I'm sorry, Chair. Thank you. So the target group for this quality space would be what age range? And there's a reason why I've asked this. So what's the age range for the target group? Well, I would say the age range of probably 22 to late 30s will be a significant portion of it, but we have residents that are 82 years old who live in our building, so there will be outliers. So yes, it's targeting usually young single professionals. I expect in this building, given the diversity of the type of product, we will have couples there and so that will be a part of the demographic. But it's a stage of life sometimes, not just an age range. It's for people who want to live in an urban experience and probably don't have kids and so we don't necessarily pinpoint just an age range because sometimes it's where you are in life that co-living really caters to, not just your age. When we talk about target and demography, we're not saying 100%, we're saying the bulk of the core of those you're targeting are the age range you mentioned. So I'm not saying there will be no 70-year-old or 50-year-old that might choose to live in a co-living space. What's the intended rent for this space? I know it's not yet, but what's the potential rent? That's a great question. Well, there's a diversity of spaces as you can see in it and what we really like about the scheme is there could be multiple price points for the different products here. So a starting rent, we're hoping will start something in the 1300 pounds per month range that includes Wi-Fi, council tax utilities and then sort of just depending on spaces, sizes, where they are, it'll go from there and I know there's a report that does that. But look, we want to have an entry point that for high quality space is still accessible to people. That was the reason why I asked the age range of 1300. So we're saying that the minimum that we're expecting anyone living there should be earning is about 30,000. Affordable housing, housing for young people is just something that I think for, I mean, as developers for you to take back in making sure that we are building homes that are indeed affordable. How many young people can pay a 1300 every month? And those are some of the things that we need to think as we're future planning. Also, the last question is around the clusters. How many clusters? So you said about seven to three or seven to nine in a cluster. Sorry, just one minute so that you can answer one. So how many rooms would you have in a cluster? And what's the management going to be like? Because we know that when you have young people living in a cluster, all kinds of things come up and social behaviour and all of that. So it's about forward planning. How do you intend to manage residents that live there? Thank you. Well, on the cluster size, it is generally between seven to nine units per shared kitchen living/dining space. Obviously, sorry, is that okay? No, seven to nine people sharing one kitchen. Yeah, but the kitchen is sized appropriately for that. And this is one of the first schemes that was submitted that was in accordance with the London Plan guidance on purpose-built shared living. Prior to that, there was actually no guidance. A lot of the schemes that were approved many years ago now, such as those by the Collective, just had one massive kitchen on the ground floor. And above that was just individual rooms. Whereas this goes back to the cluster model, which is as prescribed in the purpose and the guidance on shared living. But obviously, there's still a big management piece, which obviously, node, I've got familiarity in doing that. But in terms of the design, it is compliant with the policy, which was pretty much introduced for this, when this project started out in life. If I could just add to that. I think the point Julian made about the guidance from the Mayor of London that was adopted earlier this year, but it's obviously being prepared over the last 18 months, two years. And that does actually set out very, very detailed guidance in relation to what a co-living scheme should actually include in terms of laundries, in terms of how many ovens and so on. So the scheme that's been designed, although the application was submitted before the GLA embarked upon that process, does actually comply with all of those requirements. And the reason for that is because our client's obviously trying to create a really good quality scheme here. In relation to the point you made about management, management is absolutely key to this site, to this proposal. You've got 485 rooms, there's going to be a lot of activity. And again, with reference to London Plan, a management plan will be required. In the Section 106, the legal document, there will be a requirement to submit a very, very detailed management plan. Now it's not just a prescriptive document, it's a document that will evolve working with your officers and anybody else that is considered appropriate in that process. And I think if you just look at the Section 106 list of heads in the Commission Report, I think the one that says you will submit a management plan and that must be approved, I think is the longest one. It runs into about two pages in the Commission Report and I think that just reinforces how important it is. Because without that, it's not going to be a great scheme. Thank you. Pat and Dave. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Right. I'll go back to what I said before. I mean, this is not the first co-living project that we've had in front of us. So yes, it does exist. And again, I will repeat what I said before. We've got sort of like a plethora of single bed accommodation, whether or not it's for co-living. One word that you have not mentioned in all of this is the word family, families, children. I go back again and I say, again, we are desperately short of accommodation for families. And I look at this, go back to the 20 units, one bed, 12. So, you know, that's not for families. Eight, two beds. So, in all this application, we have got eight houses or eight accommodation suitable for families in what, sort of 419 plus, what is it, 419 plus, that's 429. That's 430 odd properties and only eight for families. And that's too bad. And this is what I find difficulty coming to terms with. And the other thing that I wanted to mention as well, in the Healthy Streets, it mentions, it says that consideration should be given to the design of the passages that lead from these units. Because a lot of them are very, round Pollard Street, Polytechnic Street, a lot of them are very dark. And if you're saying that people are going to be by themselves, they need to make, you know, we need to make sure that they're safe. But I will just go back to this, you know, families and where is their accommodation? It's all for single people. Is there no way that this can be changed? Because we, you know, yeah, as Greenwich, we are. We all know, as ward councillors, that this can, time and time again, we know the waiting list that there are for three bedroom properties and the way families are crowded into one room or two beds. And we're just lacking. Thank you, Councillor. I think you've made reference to a scheme that you recently approved at Abbey Wood. I think, in fact, it was at the last committee. And I think with that scheme, what they were proposing was a co-living scheme. In addition, it had a hotel and I think a replacement pet hospital. But fundamentally, they were pursuing the co-living scheme because they considered, as we do, that there is a market for that type of accommodation. And that type of accommodation does count toward your own housing targets. So we are meeting a demand. Fully understand what you're saying about family units, but this is a co-living scheme. Nevertheless, we are including 20 conventional dwellings. Originally, the first proposal we put forward to your officers during the pre-app process didn't have any dwellings. But your officers considered that if it was all just co-living, it would not be a mixed community. So we listened to what your officers said and we followed the approach in terms of the previous consent on site, which wasn't viable to build. But that included 20 dwellings in that building, the one up there on the top left, which is a listed building. So there's only so much we can do with a listed building without it becoming a damaged heritage asset. So we've sought to adopt a minimal intervention approach in that building and ended up with the 20 units, some of which are two and some of which are one. But that was very much determined by the building itself. But more fundamentally, we're proposing a co-living scheme here for which there is a need. And I absolutely agree, there's also a need for family units. But in this instance, we are looking to contribute toward the need for this type of accommodation, which does count toward your housing targets. Just to address the specific point you made about the alleyways and the entrances. So this came up through the consultation process. So the scheme has been designed so that you can access every single unit by entering through the bigger entrances off Thomas Street or off Wellington Street and then securely get to your unit. The external area has been designed so that there's provision to gate it at certain times of the day. And the smaller accesses, whilst you can use them to get to your apartment, they will also be on a time control. And that's very, again, part of a management strategy. What we're trying to do, I mean, as Bill already mentioned, Polytechnic Street is a great looking street, but it's completely dead. There's nothing goes on there. But on the other side of it, the rest of the Bathway Court, hopefully that will come forward and be rejuvenated over time. And we're hopefully providing a route through to connect to the town centre. And those entrances will then be more, there'll be more activity, there'll be more passive surveillance and they can be utilised. But we have designed it so that on day one everybody can get to their unit safely in a very managed way. Thank you. I'd just like to say one other thing. Look, as a father, as a five and an eight year old, I know it's like having families in cities. And so we completely agree with you that we need more family accommodation. Where I think co-living can help is to alleviate the burden on other types of housing that have been used as co-living. So homes that were single family homes or family homes have been turned into HMOs as a shadow way of young people living together. And the more co-living space that comes out can potentially take that burden off and allow those homes to become family homes. Again, I live on a street where there's a lot of chopped up family homes that were used to do this. So I think where we can help as a macro is allow this purpose-built safe space to come and allow those things to potentially return to family. So I appreciate it's not necessarily on this site, but I think that is how we can help you guys. Thank you. Dave. Yeah, thank you. I was mainly addressed to Neil, I think, but feel free to chip in. I'm quite curious about this new model. I call it new because it's quite new to me, but this co-living. I was reading only today in the Greenwich Wire there was a reference to the scheme in Lewisham. And I've seen elsewhere in other reports and other feedback I've actually had from other councils across London that this is the new thing. This is a new model. It's a rapidly increasing concept across London. Just in the last few months, I've only been on this planning board for about nine months or something. But the number of co-living schemes that we're actually seeing coming forward, it's quite surprised me that the volume of them. And I'm interested if there's ever going to be a situation, even locally, whether we'll actually have oversupply. I don't really understand the industry. I don't know whether we've actually got a cumulative figure actually here in Greenwich and around us. But it does seem to me there's the development or the potential danger of oversupply. But I hope that's not true for your sake as much as ours and the young people that would occupy these places. The second point I wanted to make really was about NODE. I had a quick look on your... Is it NODE? NODE? I just had a quick... Is it NODE? N-O-D-E? Is it N-O-D-E? Is that you? N-O-D-E, yes. Yeah. I had a quick look. You've got sites in New York. You've got sites in Madrid, Barcelona. Have you got any sites actually functioning actually here in the UK at the moment? I'm due to go to New York in January. I'd be interested to know whether it's possible for me to observe. I'm not asking for anything else, but to be able to observe one of your sites actually in the operation. Just tell me something about where you are at the moment. Is it something I can go along and see at some point in the future, either locally or when I'm on holiday? The long and short way down there was have you got anything in the UK at this moment in time that members could view or you could show us? Yeah, absolutely. We opened a boutique project in Brixton that's in its second year of operation. Happy to show you around. It's smaller. It's smaller. You can come to Madrid. We just opened 888 beds. We have a 1,059 bed project also opening. We opened in Dublin, 114 beds three weeks ago. We're also involved in another project in London opening in Q1 next year, about 140 beds, and another one in 2026 that will be opening and being just under 200 beds. We've been involved in both boutique projects as well as large scale ones. There's different management approaches towards what we call the boutiques and we kind of call them city hubs and how you manage those. Part of this one is it's a hub. It's a larger scale one, but yeah, we're happy to engage and kind of take through learning lessons and journeys, and this will be part of the management plan that we put together to make sure it works for this one. What's unique about this building is because it's a collection of buildings, what we really like about it is you can create smaller communities within the big building, so it's a collection of small projects that then you can put together. We think that's actually pretty special compared to a lot of co-living buildings of 500 units that are just sort of one tower, one building. What about the supply side? Is there a demand side? Do you see this industry, if you like, or this concept growing and growing? Sir, I can't hear you. What's the problem with this? I'm concerned about, I'm just asking what you think is the long-term future actually of this industry, co-living? Sorry about that, oversupply. I think we're drifting away from the planning application here, and we're sort of drifting into what may happen, what may happen, market research. David, we'll come back to that, Dave, right at the end when we're rounding up. You had a question for the applicant. Yeah, well, thank you very much for all the work you've put into this. I'm intrigued by, I mean, I very much support the principle of co-living, but I'm just following on Dave's question, really. I mean, I stayed in a place recently in Marseille, Odalis, and there was, they had hotel and co-living alongside each other virtually, the Odalis model. And my daughter in France, when she moved there, she lived in something called a foyer, which was, you know, very cheap entry-level accommodation for young people, similar sort of co-living principles. But if you look at the Odalis site, you go to Spain, it's 650 euros, or Portugal, or somewhere, or France, or maybe slightly more. Here we're talking about 1,300 pounds. There's a huge difference, really. When you consider that lots of these people would be on London Living Wage, they'd be taking home 26,000 pounds a year, assuming 35-hour week and so forth, and then they'd be forking out 15,600 for their accommodation. So, just might comment on how affordable it is, but secondly, I'm also interested in terms of sustainability, to what extent, I mean, obviously, we have to take account of the NPPF very much, which is all about sustainable growth. This is clearly growth, but I want to ensure the community is sustainable. How long will people, what is the minimum stay, what will be the minimum stay, and what will be the average length of stay? So, how durable is it? How many people are going to put down roots in this accommodation? I mean, you know, we've got to differentiate, how do we differentiate from a hotel, which I assume needs a separate planning class, so it's not going to be a hotel, but what's the differentiation, you know, what's the minimum period someone could stay, what's the average stay in your accommodations elsewhere in the UK? Well, it is very different from a hotel. I mean, the length of stay we expect to be somewhere sitting between PBSA and Bill to Rent. In our current projects, usually that's somewhere between 15 to 18 months, and that number we're seeing going up as people, as our buildings mature and they come, you get renewal rates of anywhere from 50% plus. So, you know, sometimes residents like flexibility of their leases, so what they want is they're a bit of, well, I don't know what's happening with my job or my consulting project, and so we find that they like to opt into shorter leases. We put them on ASTs. They like to have the break optionality, but we find they renew more often. So this is really a medium-term accommodation for the vast majority of working professionals and young people in cities that just want that flexibility because they're nervous about the future and what they want. They want a turnkey solution. So that's the type of stays that we would be expecting here. I think a project like this, we will have a longer stay. When you just look how amazing it is, you can be in this community, you can have all these things around you, you can be connected to all sorts of people and interest groups. I think you can really plant seeds here. You know, you imagine you have a co-working cohort and other people to work together in the gym or yoga or whatever it is. And so these are things that keep people together. One of the things we do is we have referral programs. So we give, you know, one of our best ways of marketing is our residents market to other residents. So these are things that we do continuously. And we also get people from around the world. So they hear about, oh, notes coming, Woolwich, oh, amazing. If they're moving here from another city, that happens. So we'll get a mix of both locals and internationals. The length of stay is probably a year and a half. But I think it can be longer over time as these communities patina. Thanks. And I just wanted to bring up another angle, if I might. You seem to be very nervous about having a long-term review. Saville's five days ago estimate predicted that house prices in London, the price levels in London will go up by 23 and a half percent in the next five years. Is that why you're suddenly nervous about having a long-term viability review? I'm not an expert when it comes to viability. But my understanding is that when there's a late-stage review, it makes it slightly more difficult to get funding. So if you don't have a late-stage review and you make that payment effectively up front, it makes it slightly more attractive to a funder. Okay. Any further questions? On that, you say a funder. I was trying to trace the ownership of the company. It's something called Nueva Limited that seems to be the ultimate owner. Aren't they invested in it anyway? Or are you still looking to raise external funds or lending? I think it will be like a joint venture. So there is some funding there in place now. And obviously the intention is or the idea is that when we've secured planning permission, it makes it more attractive to funders so we can get the shortfall effectively to bring it forward. Okay. Don. Back in 2020, we had an application that came before us, which was delivering 298 family dwellings. We were told it was an exciting landmark development and everyone was excited. The developer was very enthusiastic, like you are tonight. I'd like to know why that application was allowed to lapse and why you haven't come forward with something similar, because we approved that and it clearly worked, so family accommodation could easily be accommodated within that site. And my second question, because the two were interlinked, what stats have you seen that suggest that the Royal Borough of Greenwich needs co-living rooms instead of family dwellings? I think I can answer the second question and if it's okay with you, Chair, I can invite the applicant to speak in response to the first question about the previous consent. Sorry, having said that, I've forgotten what the second question was. Apologies. Second question was what stats, because you mentioned you've done research, so my question was what stats have you seen that suggest that the Royal Borough of Greenwich needs co-living rooms more urgently than it does family dwellings? I think the simple answer to that is we don't have stats and we're not making that claim. We know that not only in Greenwich, but throughout the country pretty much, but more so in London, I guess, that there is a huge need for family units, whether they're two, three, four or more beds. So we're not actually making that assertion. What we're saying is that co-living in this area is a product that we believe will work and there is a need for co-living, but that doesn't take away from the fact there's also a need for family housing. My client, the applicant, his formula in terms of taking sites forward is he largely works in the co-living field, student accommodation field as well. He does some residential work, but it's largely co-living. And we've commissioned studies by Savills, amongst others, to look into the demand. And as I said, there is a demand for co-living in this location, but also London-wide. But I agree, there's also a need for family housing. Just before Guy answers the first question, I'll also go back to this comparison with the extent scheme. This scheme, obviously, preserves a significantly greater percentage of the existing buildings, the existing heritage on the site, because the co-living model fits into it really well. We've already had this conversation about how it's difficult to provide balconies on listed buildings and also locally listed buildings, so it's a very good fit to retain the incredibly high proportion of buildings it has retained, which is why the scheme does so well in terms of its circular economic credentials as well. So it's, in my view, a very good fit to retain all the existing buildings, and that's allowing us to do that. Hi, Joe. Sorry, your name is? Guy Zisser from New Avra Limited. Okay, thanks. So the question was why the previous scheme, which I presume the applicant was very excited when they were here and they got their consent through, didn't come forward. Ultimately, not all schemes are viable, not all schemes that come to this and go through a viability process are actually commercially viable. The previous owners of the site were consortium, which had it for many years. They very much built up a consent to sell the site, and when we bought it, we knew that that was not a viable consent. The built cost with all of the demolitions and where you would end up was never going to stack up, and when we say funders, that means we might need senior lenders on it, we might need a bank on it. Not all of these, especially of this scale, would be funded with someone's private cash. You ultimately might need a partner, you might need a lender. And when we decide what's appropriate commercially for a site, we have to bear that in mind, because ultimately if nothing comes forward, no affordable housing comes forward, no undue payment comes forward, and the site will sit for however many more years, which is hopefully not something that anybody wants over here. Thank you. Any further questions, members? No? Thank you very much. I'm now going to open this for deliberation. David? Thank you, Chair. I'm probably going to surprise people by saying I actually support this application in principle, certainly. I think that it could make a great contribution to bringing new life and vitality to Woolwich, to our nighttime economy, given its significant number of younger people, and to the footfall around Woolwich as well. And it could make a big difference to the area, and bring that connectivity, if you like, between Power Street and the town hall, and contribute to what I say is the boulevard vision, hopefully a few more trees as well. So I think it is actually very positive. I see that there is, I said this on the Abbey Wood application, there is certainly room for co-living, and housing generally is sadly far too expensive. I do have concerns, obviously. I don't like offsetting, as I said. I don't like the lack of family accommodation, but then there is a scope for this. What I do think, and we need to have a wider look in terms of our policy at the space for co-living and student accommodation, but we are dealing just tonight with this application. What I would like to add, though, Chair, is I'm prepared to support the original application, which is for, includes as a conditional late stage review, with a 5 million plus offset, as well as 20 social rented units. While it is nice to have an additional 4 million, which is, what, 10 houses, or 10 homes, it's, you know, the swing of the dice with 23.5% potential uplift is much, much greater with a late stage review. So I think we should stick to our knitting in terms of late stage review, and on that basis. On balance, while I obviously would much prefer social housing, family housing, on balance, for the reasons I stated, I think we should support this, because this site has been empty for so, so long, and I think it does make a good attempt to maintain and enhance the heritage features of the site. Thanks, David. So Jonathan, what David has brought up there is covered by option B, is that correct? Option A. So option A retains the late stage review, option B does not. That's right, yes. Okay. From members. David. Just to endorse what David said, I'd like to second that proposal. I think it's a very good response to a very challenging site. I just hope we're not back here in a couple of years' time saying, you know, that we've misjudged the market. But I'd support it this evening. Nade. I'm going to support. However, I'd like to just note my concerns, and some of them are things I've said already, so I would not repeat them, but also to second what Councillor Pat has said earlier. This is around the fact that we need accommodation, we need homes. We need to reduce the number of people who are on our waiting list on the housing register. And the majority of those who are there are families, they need family units. And what's concerning for me is that a lot of people are more out, pardon me, for profit, and not just about providing accommodation that is needed. So for me it's really important that, you know, the developers take this on board, maybe their next development. They think of us having three-bed units to meeting those needs and reducing the numbers that we have. Majority of those who will be eligible or who are within the core group, the core target group, are those who we do not have reasons to believe are priority, so they would not be on our housing register. So they would not be waiting to be housed on social housing. So that's a major concern for me. The second one is around the rent. $1,300 for young people or even those who think are in their 50s, that is a lot of money. For a one-bed, in the shared accommodation, it's a lot of money. My third concern is around the number of people that will be sharing the kitchen, the clusters. I know that they said that there is a model from the GLA about how many people, you know, how many people can share the core living space, but I'm just thinking, you know, having seven people share a kitchen, that's a lot. Housing management is something that's very, very key, and I'm glad that you agreed, that they agreed, that it's something that they definitely will be looking into, but we definitely need more housing, and I'm hoping, like Councillor Dave said, we're not going to be back here in the next few years asking for this to be repurposed, because we have the 486 units coming up in Abbeywood, and then we have this. So, you know, thank you. Pat. Thank you, Chair. I am obviously very, very concerned about the lack of family units, and the fact that children, you know, sort of were not mentioned at all by the developers, and also about the cost of renting, and in fact, we haven't got any, the developer couldn't provide any stats, and I know, I understand what the developers say, that yes, by doing this, we are taking people out of other accommodation, possibly homes that have been divided up for sort of, for living accommodation, for sort of various numbers of people units, that's, they're going to be back on the market, but at the same time, I also, I can't 100% support this application, because I just can't get out of my mind that we need family homes, and also, we don't know long term, the developers are trying to say that this is actually not just the co-living, the kind that came up before in Abbeywood, but this is something entirely different, and we don't know whether this is going to be successful or not. I do understand, I really do understand that lots of people are lonely, I'm always sort of talking about loneliness, and I get it, but we don't know that this will be successful, even in sort of this time of a cop type of accommodation, you could still get people who are lonely, and refuse to join in, but I do understand that part, but I think, all in all, I'm going to abstain on this. Thank you, Chair. Thanks, Pat. Any further comments, members? Okay, so I'm going to put this to the vote, and I'm going to put three options. Option A is to retain the late stage review, but also include listed building consent. Option B is to accept the four million, and take away the late stage review, and option C, well, there are four options, sorry, Pat, because now you've mentioned about abstentions. Option C will be against, and option D will be to abstain. So, with that in mind, all those in favour of option A, which is to retain the late stage review, but approve with listed building consent, please raise your hands. Option B. Option C is against. Option D, abstention. Thanks, Pat. The item is approved with option A, to retain the late stage review. The item is approved. Thank you very much. Pat. Members, do you want to take a quick break? Pat is going to remove herself, because she's going to speak on the next item. Thanks. Thanks, everyone. We now move on to item 6, which is 260 Eltham High Street, Eltham, London SE9-1AA, reference 241225F. Andy. Thank you, Chair, and those in the gallery. The current application seeks planning approval for the demolition of the existing buildings on site, and the construction of a multi-storey building, plus basement, to be used as use class B8 storage, along with associated landscaping, vehicle maneuvering, car parking, and refurbishment of the locally listed building to the front of the site. The application site is shown on screen. It's approximately 5,200 meters squared, and it's located off of Eltham High Street, and is currently used by White Woods Removals, 8 meters squared of B8 storage use. While the site is adjacent to the Eltham Town Center, the areas surrounding the application site, to the east, south, and west, are residential. The site is irregular shaped, and addresses Eltham High Street to the north, Southink Crescent to the east, and the properties were Front Woodcroft Close and Footscray Road to the west. The objections received are summarized on screen, and are addressed in the officer's report. In addition, comments of support were also received. As is shown on screen, and as viewed by officers during the site visit, the application site, which is used for a storage and removals company, features historic buildings in various states of repair, and waste materials associated with the current use are stored on the site. The application site, as I said, features an existing warehouse-style building, which is positioned near the western boundary, and this is surrounded by lower-rise existing buildings to the east and south of the existing warehouse. While a locally-listed building at the front of the site would be retained and refurbished, it is proposed that the remaining buildings on the site would be demolished. The proposed storage facility will be positioned along the western boundary, with a more generous setback from the boundary than the existing warehouse on the site. To further soften impacts of the development towards the western boundary with Woodcroft Close, a setback of 6.5 meters is provided where the building meets the cul-de-sac, and landscaping and two bench seats will be provided facing Woodcroft Close to further knit the scheme into the existing neighborhood. The proposed self-storage facility will have a maximum height of 12.1 meters at the highest point, with the exception of a lift-over run which will protrude 0.9 meters over the roof parapet. Although the majority of the building will be much lower, it's circa 9.15 meters, and it will step down to 7.21 meters to 6.5 meters towards the southern extent of the scheme. The proposed self-storage facility features a basement which is 3.3 meters deep from street level, and the office space associated with the site will be contained in a reception in the refurbished locally listed building at the front of the site. As shown on screen, the proposed development features four floors with a maximum of 5,627 GIA without the mezzanine floors, and the development has an option to add two additional levels resulting in a GIA of 7,900 square meters. And the developer considers there will be no external amendments required to install the additional mezzanine levels. The proposed office use will not alter the height of the existing locally listed building, which has a maximum height of approximately 8.8 meters. As shown on screen, the existing building shows signs of disrepair, and it will be brought back into active use as a result of the proposed development. While a side entrance will be added, the arrangement of the existing windows and doors facing Eltham High Street will be retained intact, which officers will consider will improve and appropriately maintain the significance of the adjoining group of locally listed buildings which face Eltham High Street and South End Crescent, as shown on screen. So above is the existing situation, and below is the proposed refurbishment of the locally listed building in the new warehouse shown at the back of the site. This slide shows the proposed façade is visible from Woodcroft Close. So from the west of the site looking towards the east, as shown on screen, the proposed building will be visible from Woodcroft Close. This is also the case with the existing warehouse building on the site. As I noted earlier, the building will be set back 6.5 meters from the boundary. For a width of approximately 23 meters in length, there will be an inset into the building. And this was increased through the course of processing the application in response to comments raised by the urban design officer to ensure the building was appropriately responding to the existing context. The building will be set back at least 3.3 meters to 2.5 meters from the boundary where the inset isn't provided. As is shown on screen, the proposed building will be set back further from the site boundary shown by the red vertical line. It will be set back further than the existing situation. So these are the views I'm about to show. View point one from the north of the site, view point two taken from the east of the site, and view points three and four taken from the west of the site. The following screens show the verified views of the proposed development compared to the existing situation. Through the course of the pre-application stages and through processing the application, the applicant has reduced the overall height of the building at the main bulk of the building and also further reduced it at the southern extent of the building. And these changes have ensured that the proposed roof form and materials will be visually recessive and consistent with the existing character. So this is the view from the north of the site looking to the south. You can see the refurbishment of the building, replacement of the proposed building. This is the view from the east of the site. While you can see the building from South End Crescent, from this view due to the setback and the separation distance, it will appear consistent with the existing roof heights in the area. And this is the view from Woodcroft Close. The materials palette is included in the design and access statement and plans and is shown here. And this would be subject to officer's final agreement at the submission of detail stage subject to reviewing physical samples. Through the course of processing the application, the design was revised to remove a large extent of the metal cladding on the exterior which is initially proposed and would often be featured on storage facilities of this nature so they've softened the design to appropriately respond to the existing character. Officers are content with these changes and they ensured that the development is appropriate in terms of the approach to materials. In addition, the roof form has been varied. As I said earlier, it was lowered through the course of processing the application and also additional steps in the Mansard-style roof were incorporated to ensure it was closer to the existing roof forms in the area which generally featured pitched roof designs. In terms of landscaping, the proposed development will provide 69 replacement trees along with 248 meters squared of linear native hedge planting. It will achieve a biodiversity net gain of 12.8% and an urban greening factor of 0.5% which exceeds the targets for commercial development. On screen is shown the proposed landscaping in relationship to Woodcroft Close including the bench seating and significant greening along the western boundary. In regard to the previous slide, just to note that the council's tree officer and the council's consultant ecologist have found the biodiversity net gain and approach to trees acceptable. It is considered that it impacts the surrounding properties in terms of loss of privacy, loss of daylight and sunlight overshadowing, loss of outlook and impacts in terms of enclosure would be acceptable as a result of the proposed development with only minor exceedances recorded to the BRE daylight and sunlight guidelines. No privacy concerns are raised due to the separation distances achieved, the location of the entrances which will face the east and the lack of windows generally on the proposed scheme due to the storage use and overshadowing impacts would be in line with the BRE guidance. In addition to the regeneration of the site, the applicant considers the development will provide four direct jobs in the equivalent of 51 to 55 employment opportunities as a result of small to medium enterprises using the self-storage facility. The following financial obligations would also be secured through a section 106 legal agreement, 10,000 pounds towards public random improvements, 20,000 pounds towards active travel improvements, a carbon offsetting payment of 15,400 pounds and a GLAB contribution towards local employment of 56,270 pounds. As is set out in the officer's report, the recommendation is to grant approval for the proposed development. Thank you, Chair. Thanks, Andy. Questions for the officer? David. Thank you very much. I was interested in the not that aspect which looks very good, but you've turned around to South End Crescent, the next view, I think. It was a view after the Heltham High Street view. Yeah, I was concerned about the impact. That's Woodcroft Close, isn't there? There's also one from South End Crescent, which I thought was slightly more stark. Yes, it's quite a comparison in terms of the impact, particularly on both the street view and the residential houses and wondered particularly in terms of what the distance was from the back of that house there to the new unit. And also, whether there could be better screening is a screening that is proposed. I was a bit disappointed really in the tree element and wondered about living walls and so forth. I mean, I don't know the greening element. I mean, overall, the UGF is good and the biodiversity is good, but it doesn't look that green, and I wondered if that could be screened and whether you'd look to discuss with the applicant how that could be screened. Maybe with evergreen or a living wall. So it's not so much in your face, particularly South End Crescent, but maybe also the other view as well. Thanks very much for that question, Councillor Gardner. The first point I would make is just I can flip back. So just flipping through these slides. I'm not confident that the full landscaping proposal is shown on this slide, so I can have the applicant maybe answer that question when they come up to speak. But in terms of the planting, there's large mature trees that are established in that area where it's visible from South End Crescent, and the benefit of this scheme is that those larger mature trees in that area will be retained, and so that's also shown in the verified view. So when they're in leaf, for example, in the summer months, it will screen views of the development, and then they'll be planting -- it's difficult to see, but perhaps we can zoom in on the plan -- is that we'll be planting along the full extent of that eastern property boundary, and there will also be a wooden boundary fence that will be provided along the boundary, which will provide some screening as well. In terms of the separation distances, it's about 18 to 20 meters from the back of those properties to the building. And just to pursue the point about trees, Andy, the report doesn't specify what type of trees the new trees will be, just native trees, but that's quite important to me, the height of the trees and so forth, whether they are mature trees we're planting or they're saplings, clearly it won't make a difference for many years, and how many of them will be evergreen. But we don't want cherry trees. I just wondered whether we could be more specific. Yes, certainly. So I can open up the landscape plan if that helps, but it has a full planting schedule, so it's detailed in the plan tree by tree, including the tree diameter at the time of planting. And the majority of the trees trend towards the -- it's called heavy standard to standard, so there will only be a few standard trees. The majority, I think over 45, will be heavy standard to advanced heavy standard, which is about a 12-centimeter diameter to an 18-centimeter diameter at the time of planting. And that's something that's generally the first question that our tree officer will ask, is where is the planting schedule and where is the time at planting confirmed, and she was happy with those details in this instance. Thanks, and if I may, Chair, another aspect that took my attention -- caught my attention was around parking, and the TFL made some very good comments about over-parking and there needs to be a CPZ in South End Crescent, funding towards a CPZ in South End Crescent to avoid people street parking that are using the facility, but we dismissed that, which given our presumption towards CPZs and modal shift and so forth and avoiding trips by car, that seemed rather odd that we sort of dismissed TFL's suggestion. So TFL's comment, from my understanding, was they were supportive of a CPZ at the construction stage, so to avoid construction-stage impacts. And officers' view was that it's a large site with ample opportunities for construction workers to park on the site. And then at the developed stage, car parking will be provided on-site, which generally, you know, it's a difficult battle for applicants to confirm the need for car parking on-site. In this instance, both TFL and highways accepted that the proposed parking provision was justified, so consider there will be ample parking opportunities for any trips to the site. Thank you. Thanks. I know the site quite well. I used to live very, very close to it, and pretty well every time I drove past it or walked past it, it occurred to me we'd make an absolutely great housing site. I don't understand why we've been reduced to this. Could you run that by me, Andy, please, why it wasn't considered as a suitable housing site? So thanks for that question. Council is maybe aware there was a previous draft site allocation plan that set this site aside for housing. That site allocation plan wasn't adopted, and it's currently being reviewed, so we were advised by our policy department that that draft site allocation doesn't currently hold any weight. So this was the proposal by the applicant. It's for a B8 use class. It's an existing B8 use class on the site. So in terms of considering alternate uses, given that there's no weight to that previous draft site allocation plan, an alternate use for the site wasn't considered a material consideration in this instance in terms of determining this particular application. Any further questions for the officer? Andy, thank you very much. I now wish to call on Councillor Greenwell. Pat, do you want to go first, or do you want to come after the residents? Okay. Before I start with my five minutes, can I just say that one of the people who was going to speak, Mr Nick De Fiers, had to go home, is not feeling very well. He was here, but he had to go. Yeah, I think the gentleman next to you notified her. Thanks. It's difficult also, before I speak, we can't get a true picture. Those diagrams do not give a true picture. Is this part of your five minutes? No, I'm starting now. On the 23rd of the 1st, 24, permission was granted to build a storage facility in Messeter Place, which is just around the corner from the proposed White Woods development. The whole area is primarily residential. Two storage facilities will have a huge effect on people's lives. Bear in mind that the permission has already been given for one large storage facility just around the corner, 2024, the 1st, 23rd of the 1st. The latest proposal will have hours, which nobody's mentioned yet, of opening Monday to Sunday, 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. It then states in the application that outside these hours, outside this, hours are restricted, and I'm not quite sure what that means, because to me, the word restricted does not mean forbidden, it just means reduced. So it could go on 24 hours a day. Residents who live in Southend Crescent, whose houses, quite rightly, which Councillor Gardner has said, back onto the proposed site, will be continually disturbed by vehicles parking, car headlights, fumes and noise disturbance on an almost permanent basis. Again, that has not come up. The vehicles on the site, when they're offloading 6 o'clock in the morning, bright lights and noise aren't disturbing these people. The proposed development will, it states, have a maximum height of 12.1 metres, with the exception of a lift overrun, which will protrude 0.9 metres above the roof. What also has come up is that the elevation of the land on the proposed site is higher than Woodcroft Close, so this is going to affect residents in Woodcroft Close and add to the overbearing effect, because that land is higher on the site, the elevation. This is also very important to note, that in March 2021, an appeal was rejected for the building of apartment blocks on Whitewood's site, on this site. One of the reasons given for the appeal being rejected was that one proposed block was going to be four storeys high. How does this compare? I'm not quite sure, with the new application of 12.1 metres, plus the lift overrun. Also, it wasn't clear on the drawings, but numbers 8 and 9 Woodcroft, they're the ones just below in the cul-de-sac end, the ones just below this proposed building, 8 and 9 Woodcroft are two existing cottagers, and they sit below the application. They've always been there since the last century, they're probably 100 years old. The plans there, as I say, have to go down steps, so that they will feel totally enclosed by this development. The plans also, now this is, I would like the reasoning behind this, the plans also show two benches facing Woodcroft Close. To clarify, there is an existing wall there, which is privately owned by, I think it's Fairlight Builders. There's a notice up saying this is a private wall, not to be removed. We in Woodcroft Close, pay for our own maintenance, it's an unadopted road, and that wall belongs to a building company. Nobody has got any right, and I haven't seen anything about removing that wall, yet the plans show no wall and two benches facing into Woodcroft. I would like that to be noted, please. The Council's Urban Design Officer has said, make this your last point. The Council's Urban Design Officer has said, Although the proposed storage building will be visible from Woodcroft Close, the proposed design will minimise the impact of over-dominance. Absolutely total nonsense. This proposal, if allowed, will have a huge effect on the lives of local residents, both in Woodcroft Close and Southend Crescent. And I will now leave it to other residents to explain their reasons why. I haven't actually mentioned the fact that there is also a very busy junction at the bottom of Westmount Road, Southend Crescent and Eltham High Street, and at the moment, anybody who enters or leaves Whitewood site has to press a particular button to allow access. So this is going to be an absolute nightmare because those streets are busy. Can I just like to add, while I would just like to add, most residents are in favour of some kind of housing, not another giant great box that will cause havoc and harm to local residents. And that's your 15 minutes up, Pat. Thank you. Any questions for the speaker? David. Well, thank you very much, Councillor Greenwell. That was very informative and passionate. But hasn't this site for a long time been a removals storage place, and presumably they would have gone out early in the morning and lorries are much noisier than cars and they'd have come back late at night having been to the other end of the country or wherever, and there would have been a fair bit of noise and disturbance and they'd have been used in the same junction. Also, if it was residential, and I'm not sure that that's not a planning issue that's before us, I don't think we can consider that this evening, but if it was residential, there'd also be the problem of people coming in and out of that busy junction, presumably. But my main point there, my main question is, wasn't always a similar sort of business, removals business, operating early in the morning and late in the evening as well? You can ask people who are going to speak who live in South End Crescent because I have never been aware of any issue. I'm talking here about opening from six o'clock in the morning until midnight, seven days a week, cars coming in with flashing headlights at six o'clock or whenever, banging the doors open, trying to get the belongings in and out, fumes, noise. Yes, nightmare. And then that particular clause which says, outside this, hours are restricted. So what do we mean by restricted hours? It could be 24 hours a day. Is that…? Labe. Have I answered your question? Yeah, Councillor Pat, thank you for the passionate… Yeah, it's close enough. I'm just trying to think, if it was a housing development there, people would be going in and out unrestricted, people would not have any restrictions to the time they would come in and that they would go out. So if it is not a car-free development, they would drive at any time. What's the difference? With this one, there's a restriction, quote, unquote, from 6am till 12pm, I can't remember, 12am, I can't remember, there's a restriction with that. I'm equally very much for us having and building as many affordable, using the sites that we have to use them for affordable housing. But however, I'm just thinking, you know, in this instance, the traffic that you're mentioning will be negatively impacting current residents there. Would we not have the same thing if it was going to be a housing development? Of course, here we've got 6am to 11am and then actually, you know, sort of with a restricted use. It's totally different from people coming in and out of houses. They will be parking the cars facing south end crescent, facing their backs, their homes, their windows, their gardens and there will be associated noise of the clanking, you know, when they're removing furniture or whatever. Members, if I can draw your attention to condition 14 on page 427, hours of opening. We do have within our powers to alter the conditions within condition 14. So we do have that -- it is conditioned, but obviously we can contribute to what hours. Okay? So there is a condition there. Okay. Any further questions for Councillor Greenwell? No? Pat, thank you very much. Now wish to call on Jonathan Morris. You can pull that forward, Jonathan. It's not stuck on the desk. Lovely. Red button, red light glasses. Thank you. You've got two minutes. Thanks, Jonathan. I want to confirm my objections as listed on the sheet there, but I do just want to pick up on a couple of things that have been said. The previous application for housing went to the inspectorate and was turned down and it was the council who objected to it, but it was because of density and a few other minor things like turning circle for a dust cart, not enough room in a disabled flat for a wheelchair. It was minor details like that. It wasn't against houses in principle. And the other thing was that the housing development was that there would have been houses with very little windows facing the back of the houses in South End Crescent. So if there were cars, they would be sheltered from the houses, but also because of the general London and Borough rules, those properties are likely to be ones where people wouldn't have garages, so there would be very few cars coming in. But I wanted to speak about this safety of the coming in and going out on the site. There are many pictures and drawings being shown on the various things, but one came up, and I hadn't seen that in the booklet, which actually showed the whole junction because there are four major roads that all meet. One of them goes straight the way through the junction and the other one is staggered through the junction. There are eight sets of traffic lights with pedestrian lights. Two of the lights have got filters on them, and the removal site, which has been very, very inactive, or very minor removal work going on for a number of years, they have a special button on the inside of their gate that they can push that turns all the lights to red so that they can come out, because when they come out of their site, they would come out right opposite West Mount Road, and that is a very busy junction. This has been picked up a little bit on the building side because they've put restrictions on the building lawyers coming in and saying that there should be marshals to see them in and out, so there is a recognition that there is a problem, and they mention a couple of nursery schools. Through the area, there were five nursery schools within about 100 metres. There were another five between 200 and 300 metres. There were two infant primary schools within about 400 metres and three secondary schools within about a mile. There is a very substantial amount of traffic crossing that road. Where I live, I use that junction most days going out, and it is very populous with people. The other thing talking about the storage, yes, it has been a storage, but of course the storage goes back to the very early 1900s, and the vehicles then didn't cause so much problem because they were horse and carts. I really believe that it is suitable for a degree of housing similar to the type of housing that we have in Woodcroft Close. Is that my two minutes? That's three and a half. Thanks, Jonathan. Any questions for the speaker? Jonathan, thank you very much. Thank you. I am making a note of the points being raised around traffic light control and other issues that Councillor Greenwell has raised, and I will bring those up after we finish talking to the residents and to the applicant. I now wish to call on Godfrey Munro. I think Godfrey withdrew. I think it was a conflict of interest. Okay. Nick, you say he is gone? He is ill, yes. We now come to Kenny Douglas. Hi, Kenny. Hi there. For context, the rear of my property, which is 38 South End Crescent, will face the car park entrance and vehicle turning area of this proposed site. My objection is based on the opening hours of 6 to 11 every day. This will create a steady stream of customers to the site beyond sociable hour. That means before I rise in the morning and before I go to bed, there will be potential noise, loading, unloading goods, as well as lorries, transit, vans and cars manoeuvring the site, which will also impact light pollution given headlamps into the evening. This is a disturbance in the proposed car park and turning circles I consider will help create a potential health condition to me, such as sleep deprivation, and more so, the right to enjoy my property and garden. I object to the noise assessment outlined because there is a significant amount of footfall over 17 hours of a day every day. This is also coupled with the front of my property, 38 South End Crescent, which has numerous bus routes and is a main road, which has a lot of traffic. During literally all day. I consider the noise from this, compounded with the sure guard noise in this area, will drive significant noise levels all around my property. Additionally, as noted, the outlined landscaping provides me a little insight on the perimeter line of my property. There's talks about a wooden fence. However, the agricultural drawing shows, plots trees, but does not state what these are. I have a lack of information to determine what laps obscure the car park and the shielding I will have from my property. This affects my privacy and use of my garden. Finally, my property is a garage on the boundary line of this site. I have right of access over the passageway, which goes to 38 South End Crescent. There's no outline of any security measures that we placed around this car park in front of the facility facing my property, my garage, and over this emergency passageway, which is to be used for pedestrians and emergency exits from the facility. This exposes my garage and the back of my property to more potential security hazards in the area. Thank you. Thanks, Kenny. Any questions for the speaker? Kenny, thank you very much. I now wish to call on Diane Morris. Take your time, Diane. There's a button in the middle. A little red light will come on. That's it. Thank you very much. Good evening, everybody. I first would like to start with saying that I endorse everything that the other speakers have already mentioned, and I would like to add that the issues with the light and the noise of vehicles exiting all those hours during the day and night will impact on the residents of Woodcroft Close, especially as there are several who are shift workers and therefore need to sleep in the daytime as well as those that need to sleep in the nighttime. So that will have a great impact on the members there of the residents. I also would like you to note that for ease of exiting from the site, it would be easy to go left, which is fine. That would take you down towards the High Street or left again into Footscray Road, which is extremely busy. You have to go past a petrol station, filling station, and you have to go past the Meseter Place Road that takes cars up to Sainsbury's. You also then further down, you have the school pick up and drop off, which is very congested because you have all the parents parking along that road there, and that therefore restricts the parking facilities for any vehicles leaving or wanting to enter the site. And I consider that could be hazardous, not only to everyday pedestrians but to the school children that are using that road constantly. Also, the school is open during the evenings for after-hours activities, so it's always busy and you're always going to have some issues there, I would have thought. I think everybody else has covered a lot of what I wanted to say, but that is good. I would also like to point out that in the details of the plans, there was mention of the local shops using the facility for storage. Given that most of the shops in the High Street, a great deal of the shops in the High Street are food outlets, I wondered whether any consideration had been put to that. Were you considering offering food storage facilities there? Because that has to be approved by HSE, I believe. I don't understand fully, but can anybody answer that? I don't think that's a planning consideration for us, what goes into those units, no, unfortunately. No? Right, okay, well then it could be more of an issue then. It might be a different department, so things like food storage and food come under a different legislation, and probably a different department. I have heard of people storing within a facility similar to this one, where they've had their items chewed by rats, because other people have stored food in there, when perhaps they shouldn't be. So there would be need to tight control. Diane, we're drifting there, we'll raise that with the applicant. Okay. Okay, thank you very much. Any questions for the speaker? Diane, thank you very much. Okay, I now wish to call Ayesha Bourgeois. I pressed the button. No, it's already on. Oh, it's on, okay. Oh, good evening, thank you. My name is Ayesha Bourgeois, and I live at 36 South End Crescent, with my parents and my brother. I've lived there since 2012. We also own next door 34 South End Crescent. The house is a very old house, it was built in 1860, and it's very much a family home. In fact, we have a sort of joint family set up, which is why we bought it, because it was large, quiet, peaceful area, and that's where my parents wanted to spend the rest of their days. They are 89 years old each, both of them, and it's very much family home. Every single week, we get together to meet. I have five brothers and their children, every single week. The White Woods' premises are actually part of the original garden of the house. So when there was no more family left, the Moore family, the house was, the garden was divided off. So the boundary wall is very close to the actual house, and so all the surrounding land was sold. So we've already got very little light on one side, because that's where Kenny lives, sorry Kenny. Okay, so it's 38 South End Crescent. So our main living room, our kitchen, all the bedrooms, main bedrooms, are all facing White Woods, all of them. So this, we are extremely worried about the light, the noise, and as you say, the flood lights or whatever they're planning to put in. If I stand in the kitchen at the moment in the house, I can actually see the Woodcroft Estate directly right over the White Woods' premises. That's how unobstructed my view is. We have some lovely, lots of lovely trees there, lots of wildlife, a lot of birds. I don't know if a survey was done on the bats, which also live there, I'm not sure. But this proposed development will obviously completely dominate all our living areas. And the developers, I did read their report, and it said the daylight and sunlight one, and the results demonstrate apparently that the proposed development will have a low impact on the light receivable by its neighbouring properties. I can't believe that this could be true. The housing development that was already mentioned actually did admit that we would only have two hours of daylight in March. So the main living room and the kitchen and the garden, two hours of daylight in March. So we have actually accounted 16 windows facing White Woods, 16 windows, which are all going to be now-- Well over you too now, Aisha. I beg your pardon? Do you want to wind up now? Yeah, sure. So the boundary wall is only 13 feet away from Oakfield, so we can expect to receive little or no natural light in the living room, the kitchen, the bedroom, and the very small garden that we are left with. So please bring this down to a much, much smaller scale if it's going to be there. And yes, you mentioned-- sorry, you did mention the current White Woods people. Well, they never operated at 6 a.m. or later in the evening. They never did. And the drivers were always very respectful. They would put storage containers next to the boundary wall. Thank you very much. Any questions for the speaker? David, don't go. There's a question. Sorry, thank you. There's a question. I'm trying to find out actually the reasons for the rejection of the appeal in 2020, and no doubt the officer will illuminate. But from your perspective, you obviously looked in detail at that application for housing in 2019, which went to appeal in 2020. And I just wondered how far that high block, the 12-meter-plus block, was away from you from the back of your house compared to how high, how far this block, which is also around 12 meters, is away from you? This is further away. That one was very close to the boundary wall, much, much closer. And it even helpfully put balconies in the front so people could stand there and look directly into our bedrooms. That was actually our worst nightmare, I must admit. Thank you. Thank you very much. I now wish to call on Alan Evans, Richard Bryant and Anthony Fuzi on behalf of the applicant. Hi, guys. You have up to 10 minutes. Thank you, Chair. Good evening, members. The planning application before you is a result of over 12 months collaboration and consultation with local stakeholders and also with the Greenwich Planning and Design officers. The proposed delivery of a new self-storage facility, it will enhance a local employment and economic offer, which is relevant to the wider site and area. And it will also deliver significant additional benefits. There are a number of points in terms of operation and the type of use. So I'm going to hand you over briefly to Richard Byatt from Shergard, and then I'll pop back later. Thanks. Thank you, Alan. Thank you, committee. Yeah, I'm Richard Byatt from Shergard, so I'm representing the operator. I was going to talk to you about Shergard as a business. I'll do that very briefly. We have 45 stores across London at the moment. We also have a number of stores, over 307 European countries. We're a very professional brand-leading operator in the self-storage market. We actually have two stores in Greenwich already, in the borough of Greenwich. We have one at Horn Lane, Busby's Way, and we have one just down the road at Nathan Way, both of which have traded very, very well and brought economic benefit to the borough. A couple of points I'd like to talk about, and I'll address some of the points that have been raised by the previous speakers, if I can. But first, I just want to bring to your attention the employment benefits of self-storage. While we only employ three to four full-time people directly, across our stores we find that about 20% to 30% of our customers are small, local start-up businesses. So the storage facility provides a good economic support to the local community, and we would expect this store to support something like 200 to 300 businesses indirectly, therefore supporting jobs in the borough. However, I've listened to the people speaking previously, so if I may just address some of the points in terms of vehicle movements, noise, and security on the site. In terms of vehicle numbers -- sorry, opening hours, maybe I should address that. In terms of vehicle numbers, we find across our stores, and as I say, we have a huge number of stores across Europe, but certainly in London, four to five vehicle movements an hour. They generally peak mid-morning, something like that. So during the day, there's very, very little traffic in and out of the site. The majority of our customers are domestic customers. They put their stuff in storage. They pay for it. They leave it there. The traffic comes from our business customers generally. However, so that's two to three -- sorry, four to five vehicle movements an hour. In terms of security and how we manage this in terms of noise and in terms of ensuring that we manage the noise, all of our customers have a unique security code. So that code only lets them through the security gate. It will let them into the store, and it will only let them onto the floor that they're storing. But that is also traceable. We know exactly who's in the store at any time. So if we have any complaints, we know exactly who to speak to and how to manage it. With our 45 stores across London, we've got over 20,000 customers, and we have a very, very low, if negligible, rate of complaints about noise. In fact, in some locations, we actually provide on residential developments, new residential developments next to industrial sites, we provide an acoustic barrier because we are a very clean, quiet operation. And I think Anthony will talk about the design in terms of the landscape and the fencing. We have put mitigating -- we have tried to mitigate any impact on the local community. All of our stores, all of our trolleys and rubber wheels, most of everything happens inside the building, not outside the building. And as I say, it's very, very quiet. In terms of opening hours, 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. are our standard hours for access for our customers. Outside of that, no access. We're not a 24-hour operator like some of our other competitors. Our office hours are 9 to 6, but we do allow our customers because supporting local businesses, market traders, white van men, sometimes need to get in in the morning, 6, 7 o'clock, to get their goods and their tools for the day to go out to work. So we have to provide that flexibility and facility. But as I say, it's very, very securely managed with individual security codes so we know exactly who's in the building at any one time. And I will pass back to Alan now to talk about some of the other items. Thank you, Richard. Again, I just wanted to pick up on two or three of the points that have been raised and discussed helpfully this evening. I think just in terms of daylight and sunlight, and this is linked to the discussion as well with regard to the previously dismissed housing scheme proposal, there are five windows of in excess of 80 that were tested as part of this proposal, which failed, and four of those fails were less than 0.4 of a percent below the BRE guidelines. You guys will have sat here and discussed BRE fails in the tens and hundreds on other schemes, and of course, each site and each planning application is a judgment, but there's a very, very, very low fail or transgression rate with regard to daylight and sunlight as part of this proposal. The residential scheme, you can't build a residential scheme in one singular or part singular block like you can with this proposal. They need dual aspects, they need garden space, they need balconies. So what happens is a residential scheme of any nature on this site ends up with a compressed relationship with the existing dwellings. That creates a potential policy conflict, and it certainly creates a genuine concern in terms of intervisibility and local residents. Cell stories is genuinely an almost silent use. I'm boarding him now as well. It has a very neighborly relationship in terms of its surrounding properties. It's very, very quiet. There was a question in relation to the types of trees that are being planted. Biodiversity net gain and the urban greening factor ensure that on a site where there are existing tree species, you need to both improve the quality and the quantity of those. In this case, we're replacing a lot of, for example, self-sown sycamores with specific indigenous trees, including in the landscape plan, which is submitted as part of this application and in fact is on the screen now, but the actual specification for the trees is cut off there. But there are hornbeam, there are some hawthorn, there's rowan, there's birch, and there's some fruit trees. That is, again, dealt with by planning condition. There was a question in terms of the verified views. I think just in terms of where the 12.1 meters is taken from effectively. The views you've seen as part of the planning application are verified, and I think one way of addressing it is looking at the parapet levels on, for example, the Woodcroft Close block and in the proposed building. The levels are attuned to the specific starting point, if you like, on the ground. I'll let Anthony have a quick chat as well. Sorry. Just to touch on that, the height of the building is 12.1, but the parapet line is roughly just over 7.2 meters. So that's where the Mansard roof kicks in. So the previous residential buildings that were proposed were four stories, but they were to the parapet with a flat roof. This is around 7.2 meters to the parapet before the Mansard kicks off. Thanks, Anthony. Just one final point. The existing established use of the site is a storage use. It's a removals company. There are no conditions or restrictions on the operation of that building. So if Whitewood's left tomorrow and another removal company came in, they could operate it 24/7. This planning application will resolve that by imposing a level of control which is deemed acceptable in terms of the discussions that we've had with officers and indeed with things like noise guidelines. I'm happy to take any questions. So I think Richard wants to quickly -- yeah. Excuse me. Sorry. I dropped my stick. One point I'd just like to make is unlike the other self-storage application that was raised and you heard earlier in the year, that was a speculative application by a developer. We're owner-occupiers. This is our home in Eltham, and we want to work with the community, and we want to provide a facility to the community, and we want to ensure that we become part of that community and we serve it. So it's not in our interests to upset the neighbors or present something to you that we haven't collaborated with the local authority on for over 12 months now, working out the landscaping, ensuring that the safeguarding is in there, ensuring that the lighting systems and the security measures are all there to protect and to ensure that we operate as good neighbors. And I think what Kenny was saying about the access through to his garage, we've actually put the gate inside the site so he can access that road through to his garage. So the security gate will be on the store side of Kenny's garage so he can actually access that without any problems. And we would increase and we would improve the surface of the road as well. You all right with that, Kenny? Yeah, there's no mention of what that name will look like, how it's going to be used for pedestrian access, at what times in this emergency. Got any illustrations? Sorry, can I just answer that? It won't be used for access to the tool by us. It's an emergency escape route only. Yeah, so we've got two lines of defense, if you like, in terms of security. I mean, SureGuard's business is security. So there will be an access gate at the bottom of that lane, which the residents that share access will have a key for. And then as you come up past the garage, there will be another gate. The fencing that surrounds the site is secure by design. It's a hybrid fence, which is mainly timber, but it is reinforced with steel as well to provide SR2 rating. I think my main objection is that's a garage. You're going to put a fence in front of my garage. How much turning circle? Like, say, my garage. I'm not sure there's enough turning circle there. I'm not sure. I think that, sorry, just to take the conversation back to the presentation and happy to field any questions, the planning condition will detail the precise boundary treatment, which I think we will then, you know, should be able to accommodate any points. Sorry, members, if you've got questions, I'll carry on. So David Lardy, yeah. Thank you very much. So I have two questions. So firstly, would you be willing to accept a change condition in terms of the hours of operation to eight to eight? Maybe slightly less, maybe six on a Sunday, which would be far more reasonable, eight to eight to eight. And I was also going to ask about the junction, which was raised by a couple of people in the -- currently they have to -- removable lorries have to press a button in order to exit or enter because of the -- and I know that junction, a very complex arrangement, that junction between South End Crescent, West Mount, and Eltham High Street. And I wonder what your proposals there were to ensure safety, for people accessing the site by car, but also obviously pedestrians, busy pedestrian area. And sorry, I did say two, but the third point was the woman from number 36 and 34 talked about the light. And I didn't cop that before. The opening hours may help there. What would be the light impact on the neighboring, as in sort of spotlights and things like that, on the neighboring properties? Would there be spotlights on that facade that backs onto South End Crescent or backs onto Woodcraft, or would it be very low-level, low-lighting just for the car park? So will there be a light pollution impact on the neighboring properties? If I can answer the question about opening hours, I think we could probably accept a small reduction in the access hours that we allow. We would need -- sorry, can you hear me? We would need -- I think 8 o'clock to 8 o'clock would be too tight for us because obviously we have to operate with our customers, and if our competitors are offering 24-hour access, we're not offering that, but I think a start at 7 rather than 6 o'clock in the morning would be something we can work with, and maybe 10 o'clock in the evening rather than 11 o'clock, which in terms of noise pollution and whatever around a residential estate, I think it's very comparable, if not better, because we have less cars, less people, less movements. So I'm happy to consider that. In terms of the other questions, I'll pass over to my colleagues. Sorry, Richard, coming back on that. Yeah. So the 7 to 10, that would be Monday to Saturday. It's Monday to Sunday, but our office hours are less than that. Our office hours are 9 to 6, Monday to Friday, and shorter on Saturday. I'm happy to consider a proposal. Okay. So following on, while we're on this topic, 7 to 10, you're saying that a 7 to 10 is workable from Monday to Saturday, and then what about on Sundays? Could we possibly look at maybe an 8 a.m. till 10 or 8 a.m. till 9 on a Sunday? So I was just going to interject, if you don't mind. So a large part of the usage is for tradespersons. Traditionally, the working week will be Mondays and Fridays, but there is a small element of access required out of traditional sort of business or trading hours. And please remember, this is not a supermarket-type use. If you look at the transport assessment that's submitted with the application, the vehicle movement and the activity associated with the use, even though the hours may seem relatively lengthy, it's not a constant use. No, but what we're considering is the area as a whole. So if you've watched videos of this committee in recent months, you would have seen that we've gone through exactly the same process with another storage facility, which is probably less than five minutes away from where you are. And we've gone through exactly the same process, same questions, same everything else, because what we're looking at is a residential area, and I know exactly where your storage units are. We see them in East London and everywhere else. The difference with this location is that it's not as residential. Well, this is more residential than Horn Lane and Nathan Way. So there's a little bit more to consider. What I would say is in Himes Park we have a store. Oh, sorry. Yeah, sorry. Apologies. In Himes Park, which is a very similar area to Eltham, it's a very middle-class professional type of area, similar housing, et cetera, we actually have a store there which is bigger than this one, and it's very much an industrial building. But what that does, it provides an acoustic buffer between a residential development and a much larger, heavier industrial area. And that was part of the planning application and part of the reasons that the store was granted permission, is because we are a very quiet user. And with the lighting, I'm sure Anthony will confirm this, it's downlighting at a low level, so it's only the car park that's lit and it's only the access areas that are lit. So I think what Alan's saying is, yes, while it seems like they're long hours, actually the impact is very, very, very small. But if the council wants to come back and recommend other opening hours on a Sunday or a bank holiday, then we will obviously consider. Can I go, yeah. So there's another bit that number 36 mentioned, and that's the overlooking into our garden. I was just thinking, how many floors are there? Could you just go back on the -- because I thought I saw three floors. There's a ground floor or basement, kind of, and then another floor and another one on top. Okay. Just a little bit back, not that one. Yeah, that's correct. So there's a basement, then you've got ground floor, and then you've got one floor above, and then there's the opportunity to put two mezzanines in at a later date. And the reason why we do it like that is because it minimizes disruption in the future. We're building in flexibility for expansion at a later date. That's the bit, yeah. That's the bit where I'm thinking, because we need to be considerate as well. That's the bit I'm thinking that, Chair, that my submission is that the opportunity to extend any further, we should not be granting. This height is just enough so that there's no future disruption to -- I don't know, but that's one bit. And then the second bit is around the light. You know, the walls of the fence can be fenced up so that when the light, when the cars put the light on, it doesn't extend out. I think that's a modification that we can ask for so that it doesn't disturb the peace, doesn't disturb the neighbors, so that the light doesn't go out, doesn't travel outside of the compound. And Anthony will just give you the more detail on this, but we are putting close-boarded fence along that boundary with the residential and also landscaping. So there will be a solid close-boarded wooden fence there with trees and other landscaping along there. So that will stop any headlight spillage into the gardens or into the housing. And as I say, around the building, we'll have low-level downlighting around the car parking. Sorry. Can I answer just a point about height? So you're doing that. What you see there before you is the absolute maximum building envelope that is for determination this evening. There's nothing else additional on the cards, on the table, nothing. Additional flooring would be, if added at a later date through a mezzanine floor, would interject halfway between the two larger gaps, the two six-meter, five-and-a-half-meter gaps that you see on the screen before you. So you can either have – that's double height is shown there, effectively. I have a question. It was raised during the speakers. Is there a button on your site that impacts the regularity of the local traffic lights? Yes. It's almost like a pelican crossing button as you go out of the site on the right-hand side that you press. And then it kicks into the sequence with the other traffic lights. We have – and Alan, you can – we have been asked to look at this as part of a potential – well, with TFL. So let me just pass on to Alan. Yeah. I'll just clarify that point. One of the heads of terms for the planning legal agreement that would be signed up to, if a resolution is granted or made this evening, is to – before any development is completed, is to provide a fully automated system. So in effect, the signal junction has a new member of the family. The signal junction that exists now on the site becomes automated with a sensor trigger for any vehicles waiting to exit the site. So you remove the discretionary element of pushing a button. The signaling will happen automatically as a car or a vehicle approaches from inside the site to leave. And it then has a phasing effect on the remainder of the existing traffic signals that control the four roads. Because you're right, it is a very basic junction, and there's a significant element of the Section 106 which will require us to upgrade the signal to ensure it has the capacity to accommodate that. So there is no more, as I say, arbitrary pushing a button. It will be imposed upon vehicles exiting the site. They fall into the phasing of the rest of the junction. And TFL have confirmed that that detail will need to be submitted and approved before any occupation of the building. That's within the conditions. Okay, any further questions? Okay, I'm going to come back. Pat, you know. I'm going to come back to Sunday. We haven't agreed a time on a Sunday or we haven't got round to some common ground on a Sunday. So it's been mentioned 7 to 10 during the week. What can we agree on the possibility of Sunday hours? Sorry. I think that because we have such a small traffic flow and such a limited amount of customers coming into that time. But we do have market traders, we do have some boot sale people, I suppose. We do have online traders. We'd like to keep the opening as early as we possibly can. But I'm not saying that, you know, that has to be 6 o'clock or 7 o'clock on Sunday. So, I mean, what would the committee -- I think we -- I mean, could we say 8 to 10 on a Sunday? How about 8 to 9.30? I mean, there are no restrictions. There are no restrictions on the use of the site. I'm looking at good neighbour, you know. As you mentioned, good neighbours. Not being funny, someone's doing a boot fair at 6 o'clock. They've already left at 4 a.m. in the morning to get the best pitches. Yeah, that's a fair point. They've come in at 10 o'clock -- they've come in 8, 9 o'clock on a Saturday. And realistically, they're not going to turn up till 3, 4, 5 o'clock in the afternoon when they've had a long day, haven't they? So, I'm looking at -- what I'm looking at is the amenity space of the residents that are living in close proximity. And just giving a little bit of respite. You know, you never know how busy -- as you said, you know -- If your suggestion is 8 to 9.30 on Sunday, we'll run with that. Is it acceptable, yeah? So, I'm going to add that under Condition 14. So, Monday to Saturday would be 7 till 10, and then Sunday would be 8 a.m. to 9.30 p.m. And then what I'm also looking at is, under Condition 48, is looking to protect the right-of-way for Keith's garage. To make sure that there is ample space for him to get in and out, turning curves and whatever. So, that will also be there to make sure there's adequate space for him to be able to carry on using his garage as and when. Okay. Anything else, members? No? David? Well, I will have comments, but I would prefer a further reduction of the opening hours, actually. But, you know, that's all they're prepared to agree. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Any further -- It's a question that I didn't get answered. What question is that, Beth? Let me go back. I asked when I was speaking why it looks -- according to one of the diagrams, there are two benches that face out into Woodcroft Close, and there is no wall there. At the moment, there's a wall there which is owned -- Okay. I got that. Is the wall part of your property, or is there a party wall agreement that needs to be discussed with whoever does it on the wall? There's nothing on the title that suggests there's anything else other than the current landowners that have any ownership over the site, including the walls. And the purpose of this is to show guys' interest is to then purchase from that landowner, so there's a clean title, as far as we understand. And the benches were actually provided as part of the ongoing collaboration with Andy and his team and Francesco, the design officer, in order to provide a quiet pocket park there for the residents of Woodcroft to sit in a quiet green space to enjoy the peaceful surroundings. So the benches are staying? Yeah. And so is the wall staying in? No, we'll take the wall out and we'll put a nice fence around and lots of landscaping around to provide that quiet space for the residents. The wall is not -- Pat, not a plan in consideration. The ownership of the wall ends up becoming a civil matter. It's not part of this application. Okay. I got that. Thanks. No further questions, members? No? Thank you very much. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Councillors. Can I open this up for deliberation now? With the points we've noted and the modification and the modifications we've asked for, I'm going to support this planning. Change of opening hours, making sure that the light from the cars is deflected and doesn't go -- it doesn't disturb the neighbourhood. I'm supporting this application. Thanks, Lara. Dave Sullivan. I don't have any doubts about the management of the site or the reputation. The brand is very strong, so I have no doubts about how this site would be managed on an ongoing basis. These particular sorts of developments are not very popular when they're placed, located next to residential communities. But these sort of places, there is a demand for them, and they do need to go somewhere. But I can't help thinking that this is just not an appropriate site for them to be located. I think given the development that's around the corner, I think perhaps this sort of neighbourhood has probably got enough storage to suffice. I don't think they need any more. But I also think, which may not have to be discussed at a later date, a later discussion, but I just think it's not an appropriate use of the site. For me, it's residential all day long. But that's for another discussion. I think there are issues about the scale of it, the size of it, the height of it, which would not just worry me, but I'm sure will worry local residents. There's also issues around that junction. Because I've sat at those lights many a times staring into that space, and I don't think this junction is manageable. I don't think it's suitable at all. So I'd have concerns about that. And I can't help thinking that if this was to go ahead, it would have a serious deterioration. No matter how well it's managed, I think there would be a serious deterioration in the quality of life. Public immunity of people who live adjacent to it. So I would be opposing it. Thanks Dave. David. Thanks very much. I'm very much into minds about this. Clearly a lot of effort and thought has gone in, and that is appreciated. And it's good that you want to be good neighbours. But we don't see the neighbours here coming in in support of this application. I tend to agree with Councillor Sullivan. I think that this is the wrong site. But it is, and we have to take account of the fact that it is an existing employment site. And therefore we can't obviously oppose it on the basis that it should be housing rather than employment. But we can be cognisant of the previous refusal and the appeal decision for a similar height of building. And we can be cognisant of clearly from the views it's very dominant. I think I would have been, in the case of balance, I think I would have been more inclined to support it had you agreed to eight to eight opening hours. Which would have been far more, you know, far more in keeping with residential patterns. I'm also slightly concerned that having four phases to the lights rather than three phases could slow bus times even further. It's such a heavy bus route. And obviously that's critical in terms of our policy. But I think I do come down to the massing and the height, the over dominance. And obviously policy DHB, protection of immunity for adjacent occupiers. Which is, you know, a strong presumption against an unable sense of enclosure. So I do think on balance I can't support the application as it is in front of us and therefore I will be voting against it tonight. What if the applicant was to consider your recommendation on the hours? If it was eight till eight, Mondays to Sundays, then I think that would bring me to an abstention perhaps. Chair? Chair, sorry. Is it worth very quickly just showing the comparison with the refused residential scheme? You can see here it was a lot closer to the neighbors and it was also taller. Just to set that out. Don't want to get into deliberations, I appreciate. But there's just the comparison of the floor plans. Can you throw a bit more detail on how much difference in height, Beth? So it's four stories. And it's seven meters to -- so equivalent of four stories is approximately 12 meters. But you're looking at the parapet of the storage building being about seven meters. So about a story less but also further off the boundary. So roughly about three meters lower and a further setback than what was refused. Now what we're saying, Dave, is the previous one was higher. Sorry to interrupt, Chair, but my reading of it is that the previous application was also -- they're both around 12 meters, the height. But this is the height of the parapet. As you see, the building will be seven point something meters. But it will actually rise to 12 meters with the roof. Yeah, that's correct. Which is a similar height to the -- A similar height to -- Because it's the roof, it will be further away from -- so in terms of overlooking and so forth, it will be far superior to the refused scheme. Yeah, also there's no windows because it's a storage unit. But then in terms of being just block without windows and so forth, it would not look as nice as the -- So it's -- yeah, it's still quite -- when you look at the views, it's still quite dominant when you look back from Southend Crescent or from Woodcroft Close. So coming back to Richard on the hours. Can we come to a compromise, I think, between our two suggested solutions? Because I think eight to eight would be too restrictive on our business. I don't have a mandate to agree that from my superiors. So, I mean, we have worked on stores before where we've had 7 o'clock to 10 o'clock, Monday to Saturday, and shorter hours on a Sunday. I think eight to eight on a Sunday would be acceptable. David? You're putting the onus on me. So if it's -- no, I think I will -- I mean, it's all a matter of, you know, the balance, isn't it? And I think that if there's not a movement on the -- I mean, I'm pleased there's a slight movement on Sunday. So that's brilliant. But if there was not a Monday to Saturday movement, I think that I will still on balance vote against. When you said hum, I thought you were just about to say something. I was going to speak. We agreed eight to nine-thirty on a Sunday, didn't we? I think when we were talking earlier, we said eight to nine-thirty. We spoke earlier about eight to nine-thirty. My colleague has just commented about eight to eight. I think you were just about to do the big hum on the Monday to Saturday. Is there any chance we can take a small break? And I need to just make a phone call. Is that something that's allowed? Sorry? Okay. Do we have a seconder on the vote? Can I just very quickly -- an applicant always has the ability to apply to vary a condition later on as well. There's nothing to stop the planning board considering that. Hold on. My phone is ringing. Not that one. And I thought I'd turn this off. Sorry. It's the wife. Apologies. Yeah. As I'm advised, Richard, we can impose a condition. Okay. And it can be appealed or you can come back and request an amendment. If it's a difference between a positive vote or a negative vote, impose the condition and we will discuss it. Okay. So the condition was eight till eight Monday to Sunday. Can we send that to eight till nine? In the interest of trying to make progress, I'm prepared to accept eight till nine Monday to Saturday and eight to eight Sunday. And then on that basis I would abstain. Okay. Okay. Thank you. We clear on that? Okay. Eight till nine Monday to Saturday, eight till eight Sunday. Okay. I understand. Okay. Cool. Thanks, Richard. Thank you. So taking that into consideration and the cooperation from the applicant and the improved condition or the extra addition to condition 48 regarding Kenny's garage, I am going to support the application. So I'm now going to put this to the vote. All those in favor of the officer's recommendation with the additions to condition 48 and condition 14 around the hours, which will be eight till nine Monday to Saturday and eight till eight on the Sunday. All those in favor of the application, please raise your hand. All those against. Abstentions. The item is approved subject to conditions. Thanks. We now move on to items 7 and 8, land bounded by Petman Crescent, Nathan Way and Haddon Road, reference 241575NM and reference 241565R. Matthew. Thank you, Chair. We have two applications to consider alongside each other, a non-material amendment one, application A there on the slide, and then the reserve matters details to be considered. The applications relate both to the same site known as Plumstead West Thamesby site, which is shown on the slide here. The site comprised of the blue land and the smaller red parcel separate. The applications today relate mainly and chiefly to plot one, which is the site outlined in red. And it's the last plot to come forward out of nine for approval on the wider site. So it's the last piece of the jigsaw. The site is shown there, so I'm sure members are aware of the site and having dealt with many applications previously. Some photographs of the wider context looking to the site and away from the site, which, again, we won't dwell on because I think we're all quite well versed with those. The non-material amendments have come about by a design change to the original master plan for plot one. The left-hand slide shows the approved master plan for the site. The right-hand slide shows what's currently proposed to amend plot one site from being one continuous J-shaped building which was divided into four segments previously into three separate buildings. In order to do that, some of the parameters need to change on the consented scheme. They're all detailed in the reports, not run through all of them, but mainly, so we're separating the buildings into three separate elements, A, B, C. A is a tall tower at the north end, so 21 stories in total. B is a cruciform tower at the southern end, and C is the bit in the middle, so it goes A, C, B, not A, B, C. The slide shows different elements of public open space and the second slide from the left. We now have ground floor amenity space in the blue area between blocks A and C. Before, there was none. There's a difference in the podium-level amenity space, which is the third slide from the left, which takes account because you've now got ground amenity space as well. What that does is open up the site and give more daylight and sunlight to the amenity space at podium level than there was in the original scheme, and the entrances have moved as well. Another key issue here is building B, which is a southern site, the one that's heavily aligned in black, seeks to be amended by raising its overall height by less than three metres. It's 2.85 overall from the consented scheme, which is shown red dotted line there. Another change is to the description of the original permission, which allows up to 16 stories above ground level to be built as consented. The current amendment seeks to allow 20 stories within the taller building A. It doesn't change the overall height of the building, I'll stress that point, and it's said that in the report. But it's come about by change of building techniques, so there'll be more stories, no more height, no more units within the scheme. Another change is the change of housing mix, come about through design changes to the whole site. So the overall mix of dwellings will marginally change, as shown in the table there. So what we have is an increase in two bed and three bed units, and a decrease in one bed units. We've had no individual objections from residents, because there aren't many there now. We have a concern expressed by the Ministry of Justice in terms of overlooking and security issues arising from the tall tower block, looking towards HM Prison Thamesmead and the adjacent prisons further away. The details of how we've addressed that are in the reports, so we're not going into detail now. But these slides illustrate the distances between the closest part of the tower building, building A, which is there, you can see, over 290 metres away, horizontal, and over 300 metres from the top floor down to ground, or down to the wall of the prison. As we detailed in the reports, we believe the relationship to be an acceptable one, given the distances involved. You are looking over other intervening buildings, so it's not all the floors that may have a degree of overlooking, but 300 metres is a very long distance to see anything with the naked eye. This shows the general layout of the plot, so building A, the tower at the top, the L-shaped building C, the lower one in the middle, and the other cruciform-shaped tower at the bottom, with the open spaces in between. There's some more public amenity land on the Petman Crescent frontage. Because of the Thames water easement, buildings set back off the road further than anticipated, so overall we have more space, and the whole bulk is broken up. Looking at floor plans, all three buildings have access arrangements at ground floor, with cycle stores, refuge stores. There's also an occupies gym in building A, the northernmost point of the building. Upper floors, all residential, in all buildings. So it takes you through the tower, which has a lower element at the bottom end, southern end, and the northern end, so it breaks up the bulk there. This is the ground floor beneath the podium of buildings B and C, which share an access route to the only parking within the site, which is 19 spaces, 10 of which are blue badge, cycle storage, refuge stores, all access via Petman Crescent. And again, typical upper floor layouts across the two buildings, mixture of one-, two-, and three-bed units. This is the Petman Crescent elevation to building A, showing the step between the taller element and the shorter one, which came about us through design review panel recommendations. Big buff bricks, similar to those used opposite on Plot 3, the main site. That's the west elevation, the return facing the trade park at the moment. And the north-south, so the north elevation is what you'll see as you come round the road, Petman Crescent down from the prison sites, going south towards Plumstead. These are buildings B and C, so they're lower, they're red bricks, mixture of two different tones of red brick, again picking up on details of the existing site and the main site across the road. And there's horizontal white banding as well, again picking up details of what's already been approved elsewhere within the wider master plan. And there's the elevations of building B and C. So this is the elevation of building C that faces north towards the open space between that and building A. This just shows a relationship between all the buildings on the southern aspect of the entire master plan site. So they are taller than the other buildings, they're always planned to be, and they are pretty much within the red dotted lines shows what has already been consented as part of the parameters. A bit more detail about landscaping, so the podium garden will be landscaped in a very similar way to other podiums within the wider master plan. And finally there's some CGI images showing how it would be visualized, we're looking from different viewpoints. This is Petman Crescent looking south, that's from Plumstead Road looking north. That's building B on the left hand side in the foreground and C behind it. That's Petman Crescent again looking from the south looking north, with plot 1 on the left hand side. That's looking from within the existing master plan, sorry, in the main body of the master plan looking west towards building B. And that's a view further west looking towards the tower building A with what I believe is plot 3 on the main site, the left hand side. And that's it. Thanks Matthew. Any questions for the officer? Lade, David. What alteration is going to happen to the building where you're having more floors but the height of the building is not higher? So how many floors did you have before and how many floors are we going to have now? As consented 16 floors are allowed within that part of the building, it will be 20. But there will be no more dwellings than as consented, it will just be reconfigured across the building to accommodate. It's a different change of construction, it's allowed more floors to be inserted. Why has that been done? That's probably a question best answered by the applicant I think. I just wanted to try and understand the Ministry of Justice objection that presumably this would have been, given there's no change to the height, the same issues would have applied to the substantive approval. So in that case it's probably not something that we can take account of because we've already approved it unless there are more windows and balconies facing on to the, that are 200 metres plus to the prison. So I just want that to be clarified, it's a point they could have raised originally and then we could have looked at it before giving our original approval. My second point was around the design, I mean I just feel it's a pretty ubiquitous design that we get everywhere. But obviously we can only take account of any changes and I just wonder whether the design has changed at all. Particularly on that rather iconic site, the 21 storey building occupies. I mean it could have been circular, it could have been triangular, it could have had some really interesting features to it but it's just ubiquitous standard, bog standard sort of brick building with balconies. But obviously we can take account of any changes since the substantive approval. And my third question is pretty similar really because probably this is something we should have addressed earlier. It's a very challenging site because it's surrounded by a roundabout and those awful car parks and retail units and McDonalds and everything that's there. But how are we ensuring, and maybe the applicants can answer this, that there will be good permeability, that people can easily get to the railway station and out to the ridgeway and to the other parts and so forth over that horrible, busy, very wide road that's outside. But I'm not sure there will be any changes to improve that but I will ask the applicant that question. All good questions, taking them all in order. The Ministry of Justice is detailed in the main report but they were heavily involved in the outline application and subsequent changes to that in the 106. There are requirements in the 106 agreement and conditions in the planning permission which the Ministry of Justice was all too aware of and helped shape at the beginning. And indeed the mitigations as shown in the red there are for those four plots, prison mitigation, and that was a direct consequence of discussion of Ministry of Justice applicant and the council. So those have already been considered. Shut the door after the horse has bolted. So I think rightly so, the Ministry of Justice is saying well hang on, let's review it, it's reserve matters, we can review it. But the principal issue is they have been addressed in terms of prison mitigation. The applicant has done some further work and said well not withstanding that point, we've looked at it again and we can see that there's a considerable distance away. We wouldn't know how many balconies there were in the original parameter because it was an outline but it was always indicated to be that high. You know, windows, whether it's 20 storeys or 16, windows would have been at that point above ground level. So we believe that the distance, the views would be or their privacy be safeguarded to what we say is a reasonable level using the houses being occupied by reasonable people and I think that's how we have to consider that. So we don't believe any further mitigation is required. A, because it's already been considered outline and B, the relationship is not one where we believe mitigation should be required in this case. Second point, yes there have been design changes. What came in at three application stage on this scheme and indeed post application in May went through design review and several iterations with their own head of urban design as well and numerous changes have been made. I would say the basic forms have changed the same since submission. The main change is the largest tower had two steps and was bulkier so they've taken a chunk out of it, so a lower bit. Of course that's required those flats to be relocated which is why building B is proposed to be enlarged in height to cater for those flats being offset from one building to another. As I said the overall number of units is not increased or changed from the original consented scheme. So the design tweaks and changes and trying to attempt to reduce the bulkiness and the mass of the tall building and bearing in mind the consented building was a continuous building albeit in four sections. Taller section, lower middle section and then the taller southern section and this design of course breaks up the bulk with gaps, more meaningful gaps which brings on the issue of permeability. So there's already been agreed a crossing, Petman Crescent from plot one to the main body of the site. That's embodied within the section 106 agreement. There have been other active travel measures already consented and again all contained within the section 106 agreement. Contributions to the council's highway authority of over £600,000 which would include provision of cycling footpaths, signalised and unsignalised crossings. TFL have a contribution of over a million pounds with bus service improvements, cycle training, the other ones. So there's all manner of improvements agreed upon already. This is a reserve matter submission so it's not appropriate time to seek any further. We will assess those transport impacts. But it's a challenging site, there's no doubt about that. I believe that answers all the questions. Any further questions for the officer? No. I'd like to call Paul Pritchard and Peter Aker. Morning, Chair and members. A long evening, but thank you. So I think your officer has very eloquently answered most of those questions. Perhaps I can just come back to the explanation around the floor height change for building A, so that's a northerly building. It is at the outline consented height, building height, so we're not exceeding that. What has happened as we have reported on several of the preceding phases of development is that initially we had expected these buildings to be delivered through modular construction from a factory that Barclay had, which is sadly now closed as has a number of other modular system factories throughout the country. The floor to floor heights of those modules were significantly higher, about a foot higher or 300mm higher than traditional construction. So we've effectively been able to reduce the floor to floor heights and introduce further floors without exceeding the consented height of the buildings. So building A has retained the same height, building B, as your officer explained, has gone up very slightly, but actually building C has come down quite significantly in height overall. So hopefully that offers a clearer explanation. Yeah, the reason why I ask is, are we now going to, or not we, is there now going to be more units? No. The master plan consent overall has 1913 homes consented, including 40% affordable housing. They are all on the main site, they are all being delivered early because that was one of the commitments. This phase has acted as the balancing phase, so we're not exceeding the overall numbers within the master plan and it is 328 homes, no more as a result of the scheme. That's what was sort of anticipated in the outline phase. Any other questions? If I may just comment though, I must commend the fact that there's a play area for children. Absolutely. There was one key thing that I'd raised, I know the previous planning had been given before I became a Councillor because I know it was one of the things I raised when I came to the, we were not there, I don't think it was you I met. It was the fact that I noted that there is no play area and I was very shocked and I'm happy and I must commend the fact that that's been captured here now, that there'll be a play area for children. Thank you. Importantly, in the middle, central square of the main body of the site, there's a very significant play space there for all generations. Each podium has dedicated doorstep play, as does plot one scheme. Any further comments? Sorry, just to come to the design, sorry to ask you this, but how does a design actually differ? As I said to the officer, it's just quite a prominent site that many, many people pass and all the buses and so forth. It would have been an excellent spot to put a little of a landmark iconic building with a very different design, but it's a very plain, ubiquitous design. Obviously, design is subjective. As your officer reported, it has been through design review panel on several occasions, so various experts have contributed to that, including your urban design officer, who was very firmly of the view that that building should be powerful in its presence, a landmark. As you come down through from the north, you can see that building for about half a mile distance, so its thin end, as it were, its slender elevation, is the landmark statement. And then originally the scheme stepped up, the building stepped up in two steps towards north. It was felt through the design review panel and on advice that actually a more muscular building, I suppose, I think the description was at the time, should be delivered. There are design codes throughout the whole master plan to tie, to make sure that the design is back in to the overall. Sorry, Chair, can I just pick up one final point that your officer didn't quite touch upon? I think he covered everything else on the connectivity and the permeability. I think members will be aware that there is a local public realm improvement plan to ensure better permeability and connectivity to the station. The plot one site affords assistance in this by separating, retaining the existing cycleway alongside the carriageway, separating that with a more dedicated public footway with landscaping, tree planting along the street, but then it picks up and connects into the PRIP, which is GLA funded Greenwich Council led, and we've been through substantial consultation around that, which has been very positive. I think the works are being tendered. The whole piece has been triggered by our section 106 agreement for the whole master plan. And the obligation is for those works to be completed by first occupations, which is due to be in October next year. Paul, I have a question around the road safety and crossings. As we know, the area has a very large amount of traffic, the island site, going into Thamesmead and coming back round onto Plumstead Ice Street. I think at the moment, the proposal is to have a zebra crossing coming from Patman to Nathan Way across to the main site. Correct. And I just wondered if there was any ways of having further discussions with TFL and the GLA to make a safer crossing, either a subway or some sort of bridge, which will then alleviate further congestion. Because if you've got you've got a set of traffic lights right on the main junction where everything sort of splits off, you've got another set of traffic lights on the lower part where the dual carriageway is. And also another set of traffic lights as you're just approaching into Plumstead Ice Street. If you've got the addition of young families crossing either way, every time they push the button on that crossing, it's going to add to the congestion, which in turn will add to pollution levels and everything else. And I'm thinking, considering the amount of family dwellings within both developments, I'm wondering if it would actually make more sense to find something that is not going to interfere with traffic flow. I think the irony with traffic movement is actually the introduction of lights and crossings slows and controls that traffic more safely so you can't actually speed up. And I think one of the important things along Petman Crescent here is that actually you've obviously got at the north and south you've got the lights in the junction. So the introduction through 278 works of this additional crossing will help slow traffic. The members may be aware that I think this whole gyratory has been subject to quite a lot of scrutiny over the years strategically about whether it should not be a gyratory roundabout, whether it should be a T-junction. It's significant to TFL. I think there's a more strategic piece that ultimately is beyond this application and our ability to deliver. A bridge and a tunnel would be unviable in this instance for us. So I think we would say at this point in time we can't commit to doing that. I think we acknowledge there's a broader and much more strategic challenge for the borough. So maybe I'll phone TFL then and have that conversation. Okay. Any further questions? No? Paul, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Members, I'm going to open this for deliberation. David. Thank you, Chair. I support this application of the Office of Recommendations. I think clearly the changes are welcome in terms of more three-bed units and fewer one-bed units and understand the changes to layout and dimensions. The only thing I would say is I would have preferred a more iconic design on that site. And I just think a gyratory system is totally untenable, but that's not before us on the application. And TFL are going out, taking out gyratory. This isn't a TFL thing. This is Greenwich. And I think it's not for planning board tonight, but we really need to lean on our transport people to do something about this gyratory. It will make it very challenging, I think, for people living in this new accommodation. And I can see ways around it to deal with it, but maybe that's not for discussion tonight. But, yes, I mean, on balance, I think very much to support this application. Thank you. Any further comments? Lade. This is in my ward. So I totally support this, the recommendations and also the modifications that have been brought forward. I am happy that we have increased three-bed spaces, which is really important. And those are the key things that we're asking for in the borough. I am happy and I've commented earlier the fact that we have police spaces there and the fact that we're going to be having that even across the road, which is really good. And I'm in total support. Thanks. Okay. I'm going to go straight to the vote. There are two votes because we heard the presentation for both Item 7 and Item 8. So all those in favor of the officer's recommendation for Item 7, please raise your hands. All those in favor of the officer's recommendation for Item 8, please raise your hands. Worth the wait, Paul. Thank you very much. Thank you, members, for coming. Thanks, officers. Thank you very much. [BLANK_AUDIO]