Subscribe to updates
You'll receive weekly summaries about Greenwich Council every week.
If you have any requests or comments please let us know at community@opencouncil.network. We can also provide custom updates on particular topics across councils.
Planning Board - Tuesday, 10th December, 2024 6.30 pm
December 10, 2024 View on council website Watch video of meetingTranscript
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. The applicants and their teams ten. On items four and five I have Dr. Michael Doe, Paul Pritchard, Bob McCurry, Carolina Ferrando. Item six, Daniel Stainsbury, Dean Bresnahan, Jane Lawley, Davinda Gander. On item seven, Tim Gaskell, Phoebe Juggins and Barbara Nameth. Item one, apologies for absence. Apologies for absence. I have received apologies from Councillor Sandra Bauer and Clare Burke McDonald for absence. I have received apologies from Lade Hepzibam Albami for lateness. Item two, urgent business. Members and public are asked to note that there have been addendums issued for items four, five and six. In regards to item four there were two addendums. These were published online yesterday and today and paper copies are available. Applicant submission was circulated to members in advance of the meeting in respect to item four and five. And members' attention are drawn to the items four and five are to be considered in the reverse order. They've been presented on the agenda in the wrong order. But the chair will go through that at the debate. Item three, declarations of interest. Can I just at this point state that I am on the scrutiny of children and young people. This is regarding item six. A scrutiny of member of children and young people. It's to do with the SEND facility. No. They haven't discussed it. Items four and five are going to be considered together because they are the same site. So item five will be considered before item four, as the clerk has said. So we are now moving on to item five and four, the Rope Yard, Royal Arsenal, Riverside, plots D and K, reference 240848R and reference number 240887NM. Andy. Thank you chair members, those in attendance in the gallery. As discussed, we'll be presenting the two applications shown on screen. And the planning board will be asked to approve the non-material amendment and then approve the reserve matters under application 240848R. And accordingly in line with the chair's advice, the non-material amendment associated with 240887NM will be presented first. This site is shown on screen. It is bounded to the west and south by the A206 or Beresford Street. The waterfront master plan plots A and B of the Royal Arsenal boardroom and the academy are located to the north and northeast. And the Royal Arsenal Riverside phase three, including the laboratory, buildings, brass foundry, and the guardhouse are located to the east. The site falls within the Warren Royal Arsenal Master Plan strategic development area and within the Woolwich Town Center overlay, within the Royal Borough of Greenwich's local development framework. The nearest water course to the site, of course, is the Thames River, which is designated a site of nature conservation. It is located 95 meters to the north of the application site. And the northern extent of the site falls within the Thames policy area. And the site is located in near proximity to heritage assets, including two grade two heritage assets located to the north and northeast of the site, which are the listed laboratory pavilions and the Royal Military Academy. The AITU is a distributed road and is considered a classified road. The site is highly accessible. It benefits from a PTAL of 6A, which is the highest rating of accessibility. This is a view of the site. In terms of public responses that were received in relation to the non-material amendment application, 30 public objections were received and are summarized in full in the officer's report and are addressed in full in that report. In terms of the planning history, the principle of the development and the general parameters for the proposed buildings were established by the outline planning permission, which was granted in 2013. And then a subsequent application amended that original outline planning permission. So the current planning permission is the more recent of those two. And the blocks that are the subject of this application are highlighted in blue in the lower image. And so these parameters were established through the outline planning permission, as is the layout of the linear park, which runs through the site. There's currently planning, temporary planning permission for Maribor Park, which you can see shown in the top image. And while there's temporary planning permission for that layout of the park, the permanent park or that linear park that I showed previously, that's the site that has the long-term outline planning permission. And the constraint I mentioned earlier was across rail tunnels. And you can see those in the bottom image running through the middle of the site. So shown on screen, the application relates to two groups of buildings, which are the D blocks to the north and the K blocks to the south. In summary, non-material amendments seek to increase the heights of buildings D1 to 4 by 3 meters, increase the heights of buildings K5 by 3.5 meters, to bring buildings K3 and K4 to a consistent height, and to remove links between the buildings D1 and 2 and D4 and 5, and to add a further separation distance between buildings D1 and D5, some minor modifications to the footprint of plot D and K3, and to remove building K1 from the master plan, to update the non-residential use classes within this scheme, to bring them in line with the use classes that have been revised under the current use class order, and to amend some of the access routes within the site. And I will touch on these changes in detail as we go through the report. So the massing changes are shown in an illustrative plan on screen. And as I said, the majority of the buildings are being increased by 3 meters, with building K5 being increased by 3.5 meters, and there were some setbacks along some of the streets, and those are being removed or reduced to bring the buildings more or less into a consistent height. And I mentioned earlier about some of the linking blocks, or linking buildings between the blocks being removed. So as can be shown on the illustrative image to the left, is the approved scheme, and on the right is the proposed development. And you can see those linking buildings are removed, so it's freeing up space along the park, reducing some of the bulk and massing of that podium level. And as I said, there's also a further cut-through that's added between buildings D1 and D5, and that creates more visual permeability towards the adjacent grade 2 listed building. And this is the approved outline planning permission layout for the park, and that's the proposed layout. It's generally, it's consistent. There's not much change. And this is just the details of those heights, just confirming that they're all generally going up by a single story. As I indicated, there's some changes to the basement level. Under the outline planning permission, the building had permission to accommodate 253 car parking spaces. The submission outlines the construction of these car parks would create a significant amount of concrete in the form of frame, slab, and ramps. And the applicant proposes to reduce the car parking and consequently reduce the amount of cement and concrete, which they advise will have a positive impact in terms of lowering embodied carbon. Therefore, the associated reserve matters application only proposes parking at a small extent of the area underneath the block and doesn't go as deep as the previous approval. And highways and TFO raise no objection in terms of the loss of car parking, though they have advised that there could be a potential increase in demand on accessible modes of transportation and to offset any negative impacts on that. The applicant has agreed to a financial contribution of 120,000 pounds towards local cycle improvements to support a scheme which TFO is in the process of designing to upgrade cycle infrastructure on Beresford Street adjacent to the site. The proposed access under the approved scheme ran adjacent to Beresford Street and then adjacent to block K is shown in the image here and then went back onto Beresford Street. The revised proposal sees it link through the park. And then you can see there was also previously there was a link through the park that went straight to these blocks. And that's now removed with traffic filtering around on New Warren Lane. It's confirmed in the reserve matters submission that this portion linking through the park, it'll only be for residents using blue badge spaces and for delivery and services. It won't be open for general public to drive through the park only for residents accessing those blue badge spaces. That's been accepted subject to relevant signage being in place through the reserve matters application. And just quickly to link back to the overall purpose of the changes. When the application was approved in 2013, it was a different context. With the emerging fire safety guidance, there's now a need for an additional stair core and lift shafts in each buildings which have resulted in the need to revise the buildings. And that's where that need to increase the heights is coming from. That's the primary driver of that change. And in the context of the changing emerging fire safety guidance, they need to facilitate the delivery of homes on the site. The changes have been assessed as non-material. And we've received advice in terms of sunlight and daylight impacts, environmental impacts from our EIA consultant in design and heritage advice, and are content that overall the changes are non-material. As I said, the commercial changes are largely to bring the use classes in line with the current use classes under the use class order. And the only change being that the new use classes now provide for gyms. And we've included a further condition to ensure there's no adverse amenity impacts on future occupiers, so there's a further sound and vibration test that the developer will need to comply with. So based on the recommended heads of terms and the conditions which are attached to this non-material amendment, officers are satisfied that the changes are non-material in the context of this regeneration. So that's the first application. And I'll move on to the reserve matters approval. So subject to the satisfactory completion of a section 106 agreement and the further conditions recommended in appendix two of the officer's report, members are requested to grant reserve matters approval for application 240848R. In terms of public responses and objections, the officer's report and addendum contains a summary of 114 consultation responses comprising 112 objections and two comments of support and a comment of partial support. And these are addressed in full in the officer's report and addendums. And additionally, ward councillors were consulted and have not raised objection to the scheme. I won't go over the planning history and site context again. The key design intentions and considerations are shown on screen, including creating two focal point buildings to the north, which are buildings D3 of the D blocks and building K5 of the K blocks, and also responding to the surrounding adjacent context, including Beresford Street to the south, the portions of the building which front the park, and the historic context to the north and northeast as we touched on earlier. A key feature of the design is the linear park between the D and K blocks, which as I touched on earlier is a feature that's carried on from the outline planning permission. The D blocks comprise a perimeter block raised on a podium garden above basement car parking. Blocks K5 to K3 form a linear composition which fronts Beresford Street to the south and a linear park to the north. And as can be seen on screen, while the building has changed somewhat at the northern extent, it's more slim line than the original outline planning permission blocks. The D blocks K5 and D3, as I touched on earlier, form a key gateway to the scheme with heights above those of the other buildings. In terms of the layout, the urban design officer hasn't raised any overall concerns. There were some minor concerns raised by both the urban design officer and the highways officer just on the extent of hard standing and loading bays here. And they transport dominated design of this portion to the north. We've secured for these specific parts of the scheme to be reviewed in more details through the submission detail stage. So overall, the layout's been found to be acceptable. The scheme has been designed to align with the revised layout and parameter plans, which were submitted under the section 96A or non-material amendment application, which has resulted in further additional floors being added to the buildings at the upper extents. But the D blocks have been further slimmed down, as I explained in the presentation, so this is just showing where those linking blocks have been removed to reduce the scale where it fronts the park and that further cut through added between buildings D5 and D1. And that softens the transition between the podium block and the park and also reduces impacts on the adjacent heritage building. Officers concur with the urban design officer's overall finding that changes to masking are acceptable. They raised some minor issues in regard to the height increases to blocks K3 and K4, which officers have found acceptable overall. And that assessment's set out in full in the officer's report. The details of the proposed materials and architecture have been found acceptable by the council's urban design officer and conservation officer and are supported by a robust materials condition considering the surrounding context, including the adjacent heritage features. And on screen is shown the different materials treatments that apply to the different blocks within the scheme. So the blocks adjacent to the heritage features have a sympathetic materials finish, which is commensurate with that environment. And the key blocks both have a sort of linked shared identity, which adds to their presence on the site. And the K3 and K4 blocks have their own identity. And a key feature of the design, which is agreed through the pre-out process, is these lobbies, which you can see from the street through to the parks. It creates a clear visual link there opening up the site. And really the intention was to celebrate those entrances to the building and make them legible on Beresford Street. And just quickly on screen, again, overall the design's been found acceptable and this is just to give an overall view of the facades as viewed from different angles across the site. There were some amendments which were in the addendum report published today. So there was a concern raised in the officer's report initially in regard to balconies overselling on Beresford Street. The design has now been resolved to avoid any overselling on Beresford Street. So this was the original design. You can see three rows of balconies here. So these two southern balconies were overselling the public highway. And as can be seen in that last image, the design's now been resolved to feature an inset balcony here, which avoids the overselling issue. And then that southern balcony has been moved off Beresford Street. And there's only a minor amount of overselling of New Warren Lane, which the highways department have advised they're happy to proceed with undertakings to agree an overselling license. And that's secured through the heads of terms. So that issue is now considered resolved. In terms of affordable housing, the section 106 requires 306 affordable housing units to be provided within the application red line. 281 of those would be provided on site, including 90, which would be affordable rent. The overall affordable housing, which is shown on screen, has been reviewed by the council's housing new supply department, and has been found to be accessible as set out in detail in the officer's report. The proposal relies on the provision of 25 offsite three bedroom socially rented units. And an agreement is being reached with the council's housing new supply team to acquire the offsite units and the 90 onsite affordably rented units in place of another registered provider to ensure the units come forward as affordable rent, which is the council's preferred tenure. The housing mix shown on screen in the same... Oh, yeah. So moving on to the housing mix. The housing mix is shown on screen. The same details have been lodged under a separate submission of details under the outline planning permission if found acceptable by the council's housing new supply team and are also recommended for approvals as part of this application. And that includes 34 onsite private three bedroom five person units and 35 onsite affordably rented three bedroom units. And then there's the additional offsite three bedroom units that I touched on earlier. In terms of the commercial provision set out in the section 96 or non-material amendment application, the proposed use classes are considered appropriate within the outline planning permissions context. The position of the units is considered beneficial to the scheme design in terms of appropriately activating the ground floor spaces and no objection has been raised to the layout by the urban design officer. And the final details of the appropriate operation of the commercial units would be controlled through the conditions on the associated 96 A application or non-material amendment and the conditions on the existing outline planning permission. So overall, the proposed non-residential units are considered acceptable. I won't go over the same assessment I said earlier, but the reduction in car parking has been found acceptable by the council's highways officer and TFL on the basis of the secured 127,000 pound contribution towards cycle improvements. And this diagram is just to show you where that reduction in basements coming. So on this lower portion shown as green is the really, that's the only extent that will be truly basement level. So it's only a partial basement and this portion of the floor is actually at ground floor level. So there's a significant reduction in basement level as previously under the outline planning permission. They would have needed to deliver almost three floors of basement car parking. And now it's only that sliver that's really within the basement level. And that's just to show that that's the extent of over sailing. So it's been significantly reduced and highways are happy to agree that through an over sailing license. And just to move on to the landscaping, the submission explains that play space is integrated throughout the park and includes a variety of experiences in terms of flat mounds and other playable features making the most of the park's topography. And there's a whole lot of the history has been woven into the design, which the applicant can touch on later. The described concept creates accessible and an accessible and playable landscape, which encourages interaction and engagement with the natural world. As shown on screen, the majority of the play space will fall within the publicly accessible sections of the park with some private provision for the D blocks provided at the podium level, which is consistent with the outline planning permission. The application red line partially falls over an existing reserve matters application, which would be partially superseded. The proposal will achieve a 62% biodiversity net gain and urban greening factor score of 0.4, which is compliant with the London plan requirements. And the tree officers found the proposed tree replacement strategy acceptable. The council's parks, estates and open spaces department have raised no objection to the proposed layout. And ask some clarifying questions about sports facilities and about protections being put in place around swales, which officers consider can be resolved through the submission to detail stage as final details of the landscaping will be required for submission under the existing conditions. And further, the application has been reviewed by the lead local flood authority in terms of the flood risk assessment that was submitted and has been found acceptable. And that's the tree replacement strategy. And in terms of the play space, overall 2,059 square meters of play space are proposed in serving a variety of age groups. And these are compliant with the London plan's minimum requirements. So overall, in conclusion, members are recommended to grant approval for the reserve matters. Subject to the completion of a deed of variation of the Section 106 agreement to address the heads of terms laid out in the officer's report. And subject to the conditions in Appendix 2 of the officer's report. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, members. Thanks, Andy. Questions for the officer. David. Thanks very much, Andy. That was very detailed, comprehensive. I just wanted to be clear that in terms of the alterations, broadly, it's just allowing for the new fire guidance and so forth with two staircases and so forth. And there's no substantial change either in terms of the proportion of affordable housing or in the mix of housing sizes compared to the extent approval. The second question is, there seems to be a huge missed opportunity not to do something about Beresford Road, Beresford Street, and the horrible 806 dual carriageway, which presents a real barrier. There doesn't seem to be any nod to ensure much better permeability with Woodwich Town Centre from that part of the Arsenal. Narrowing the eastbound side would be possible because that's not our best bus route. The westbound is a bus route. The westbound is a bus route. It clearly needs a bus lane and bus standing and so forth, but the eastbound could be narrowed, providing more. One of your slides showed new trees suddenly appearing on that section of Beresford Street, which would be lovely, but another slide didn't show them there. So I want some clarification as to whether there is tree planting on Beresford Street as part of this, which would be brilliant. And also how it fits in with the, what at the moment are quite vague proposals for the extension of the C4 cycle lane from Woolwich to Thamesmeet. Would that deal with the issue about permeability and the barrier that the road presents? So I wouldn't be very keen on having a balcony which sort of overlooked that dual carriageway. So it just strikes me, I don't know what discussions have been had with transport and TFL and so forth about making that improvement, because a big challenge we have is to improve that permeability and to reduce the barrier of that road. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Councillor Gardner. So in terms of changes, whether there's changes to the housing mix and whether there's changes to the affordable housing provision. So the main change in that regard is there's a reduction of block K1, but those units are dealt with within the increases in height. So overall, there's 25 units which are being delivered offsite, but overall the mix, say for I think two private units, the mix of onsite housing is remaining as approved. And then in terms of opportunities to improve the permeability of Beresford Street. So I understand that part of the outline planning permission was upgrading the intersection of New Warren Lane and Beresford Street. And my understanding is those upgrades have already been completed as part of this process. And then in terms of opportunities that have arisen through this current scheme, what's been secured in light of the reduction in car parking to improve access to the site and to improve active travel opportunities within the site is to contribute towards cycle improvements. And that's going to go towards that scheme that's being designed by TFO. So I think it would potentially be going beyond the remit of this scheme to try and design that section of the road, given that's a comprehensive network that's being designed by TFO. I think just to add a bit more in terms of the wider context, I think obviously the outline parameters for the, particularly for the K blocks, were always quite linear buildings along Beresford Street. But I think probably in the next few months you'll see applications for the other side of the road, where permeability will start to improve as well between Riverside House, we've got McBean Street, future developments where access from the Arsenal through into Woolwich Town Centre should be improved as well. Answer your questions, David? Yeah, it answers my question, thank you. I still would like us to see tackle that barrier of Beresford Street and the A206 generally at that point, right through between the Arsenal and the Town Centre. But this was, you know, now this is car-free, this was an opportunity to do that. So it's how we tackle that in a holistic way, I suppose. I have a word with the applicant when they come up. Pat. Thank you, Chair. Yes, thank you for your very detailed report. Can I just ask you, one of the concerns that residents have is the lack of disabled parking. And obviously, you know, sort of looking at this in front of me and the layout, that is desperately going to be needed. So what provisions, I mean, I know, I will ask the applicant, but what provisions have been made for disabled parking, please? And also, can, just to get a picture, what height of these proposed, is the highest proposed building? I'm looking at K3 and D3. What's the original height before the additional three metres? Thanks for your questions, Councillor Greenwell. So the application provides two different areas where disabled car parking bays are located. Some of them will be located in close proximity in serving the K blocks. So they'll be located on that shared surface immediately adjacent to the K blocks. So they'll be located in this area, and I think some also on the street. And that was a, there's a condition on the outline planning permission that ensures that they're provided in close walking distance. And the other ones are provided in the basement car parking area. So there's sufficient provision to meet the London plan requirements. And TFO and highways and the council's occupational therapists have reviewed that, and they're comfortable with that, and they're comfortable with that the provision is acceptable. And then the other point was in relation to the maximum heights. So just to, sorry, let me quickly. Sorry, is it K3 and D3 that look? Yes, that's right. K5 and... K5, sorry. K5 and D3. It's probably a little difficult to see on the screen there. But it's, they're both going from 17 meters each to eight, or 17 floors each to 18 floors each. So it's gone up to a floor, 17 to 18 floors. Yeah. All right. Can I just ask, because I'm looking at the surrounding buildings. What about, have we, you know, sort of daylights, loss of light and shading? Because, I mean, sort of 17 to 18 floors is going to be a lot. I mean, is, I will probably ask the applicant, but how, what has been carried out so far? What measures for the shading and the loss of light? Yeah. So that's, that's a great question. So that was, um, a key concern of officers. And we've, uh, assessed this in the non-material amendment application. It's not just based on officers assessment. It was also based on, uh, the council's expert consultants, uh, have reviewed the proposal, both in terms of our EIA consultant, and we had an independent, uh, sunlight and daylight expert, uh, review the application. Um, and we're content that, that the, uh, the, the level of change is, is minimal. You know, I'm looking at, well, I know you can't really tell, but looking at D3, that seems to be very, very close. Although the buildings behind are that height, aren't they? Um, I, okay. The rest of the questions I'll ask the applicant. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Pat. Any further questions for the officer? Maisie. Thank you very much. Um, I have two questions. Uh, one, could you, could you give a sort of comparison, um, on the green space in terms of the temporary park to the approved, um, a plan here, and then the proposed development just sort of, sort of, sort of, percentage-wise, are we seeing an increase and decrease between green, of green space between, um, yeah, the temporary park, the approved, and then the proposed. And the, the second question is about, um, the commercial units, um, with gym spaces. And you sort of said there was going to be various conditions about that for noise and vibrations traveling up the building, which is, um, welcome. Um, are those conditions that the, the developer is going to fulfill during construction of the buildings, or is those conditions that it will be on the tenant, like the gym, to fulfill if they move into the space? Um, because we've seen lots of various developments around the borough where they've got gyms under flats, so they're having to retrospectively put in insulation in, but, um, interested in about that as well. Thank you. So, in, in terms of, um, uh, comparison between, uh, the, the existing, the existing green space and, uh, the, the linear park, uh, so currently the, the linear park, uh, the, the current temporary planning permission occupies this, this area, uh, while currently this, this area to the southern extent of the site, uh, this is, has temporary approval as a car park, and this has, um, temporary approval as, as, uh, a site office for the developer, uh, so, I mean, in terms of, I, I don't know the precise square meterage, uh, the applicant may know, uh, but I would say that that, the layout of that space is, is just changing as, as a result of this scheme, and I think my, my, my key point of assessing the application is, is a consistency, uh, of the proposed layout to what was approved at the outline planning permission stages and, and noting that, that, um, existing layout is, is, is provided a benefit in terms of that area of the site not being behind hoarding or, or something of that nature while, while the scheme was coming forward. Uh, so, I mean, it is a benefit that temporary planning, uh, approval was, was granted, uh, but it was always the case that this, this, um, this layout was, was the, the permanent solution. Yeah. Any further questions for the officer? Oh, yeah, and the question about, um, whether, uh, the obligation falls on, on the developer or on, uh, on the, uh, future occupier, uh, my understanding is, is, uh, and please correct me if I'm, if I'm wrong, uh, but that it could be submitted by either. Just to come back, um, on the comparison, it, I think it is in the report and it looks like it's an exact like-for-like replacement figures are correct. So. No further questions for the officer? Andy, thank you very much. Um, I now wish to call on Dr. Michael Doe. Hi, Michael. You have two minutes. Thank you. Thank you. My name is, uh, is Michael Doe. Uh, I've lived on the Arsenal for 14 years and I'm secretary of the Residents' Association. I object in principle to this application because Barclay Homes already exercises far too much unaccountable power over the Royal Arsenal. This is a private company which ignores existing residents and delivers services and utilities in ways which prevent, deliberately, residents having any say. And as we await, hopefully, the abolition of leasehold, this exercise of a, a medieval Lord of the Manor authority surely has no place in a modern democratic society. Looking more particularly at this application, I object on three grounds which are criteria for planning applications. Firstly, the lack of community engagement. There has been no general, genuine consultation over this proposal. But instead, Barclay employed a fig leaf marketing company which set up a misleading exhibition, undertook a community survey but refused to publish the results, and organised an online consultation in which we residents were forbidden to speak, and questions that we had submitted beforehand were largely ignored. Secondly, the guidelines speak of loss of green space and the effect on the availability of essential amenities, such as parks or recreational spaces. Planning guidelines make clear that new housing must take into consideration the wider environment and the need for open spaces and recreation. Barclay built over the Riverside Park. And even before you've decided on this application, they have destroyed Marable Park. Michael, you're over your, you're over your two minutes. Do you want to get to point three? Okay. Okay. But I do want to say on that point, that this narrow strip of land, at some point in the future, is a pitiful compensation for what we have lost in terms of green space. And thirdly, thank you, sir, the increased strain on infrastructure such as schools, healthcare facilities or public services. There has been no impact assessment on what this latest influx of population, let alone what will come with the new student blocks, which you will consider in the future, will have on public services and particularly primary healthcare. This application, I submit, is simply about making profit out of housing. And the residents of the Royal Arsenal deserve better. Michael, you're in. Hold on. Stay there. Stay there. You had four minutes there, because you mentioned that you were representing the residents. So I gave you the same time as the immunity groups. Thank you. Any questions for the speaker? David. Well, thank you very much, Dr. Doe, for coming along this evening to express the views of the Residence Association. And obviously, you've raised some points that we might ask the applicants in terms of the consultation and engagement. But I just wanted to put to you, obviously, our predecessors. I don't think any of us were on the council then, approved this in 2013. And we can only, tonight, look at the changes that have been made. So we can't look at the substantial application. We're going to look at the changes made since that original approval. And that's really where, that's our scope for this evening. So are there any of the changes made in this amended application, which you particularly would highlight or object to? Notwithstanding the fact that you would object to the original application, you know, 11 years ago. But that ship has sailed, if you like. Thank you. I think my point about consultation is there have been changes, but there hasn't been any consultation about them. But my second point, responding to what you've said, is about the loss of green space. The open spaces strategy, I say this in my written objection, the open spaces strategy contained in the 2013 application, included spaces which are not here. Along the riverside, to the west of Imperial Building. It's impossible for me to give you figures because they have not been supplied to us. Only artists' impressions. Even these planning, or plans, mislead us, I think, because they show private areas of green space. Not only, not just those open to the general public. If you look at the plans we've seen tonight, this strip of land replacing Marable Park in places is hardly wider than the entrance road. Pat. Thank you, Doctor, for sort of your words that you've said this evening. Can I just ask you, first of all, the residence association, is it a very large residence association? Do you have many people in it? We are a relatively new organisation. We are growing. We hoped to be recognised by the borough, but they say that's not possible because they only recognise council tenant associations. And the latest list of subscribers this morning was 519 people. And so, obviously, a lot of those people are of the same opinion. Am I right in thinking as you are? There are serious concerns, particularly about the loss of green space. And can I just ask you, I don't know whereabouts you actually live, but do you, and I know that loss of view is not a planning sort of criteria, but do you feel that even with this extra story that's going on, that you are going to feel almost hemmed in residents who live locally, existing residents? And lose, I mean, we've been told that light surveys have been carried out. But how do you feel personally about, do you think that you will lose light and get a sort of feeling of almost being hemmed in? I certainly hear a lot of concern about the height of the buildings. I recognise that the provision of light, the criteria by which that is judged have been met. But as with the previous application between East Carriage House and Windsor Square, meeting the criteria doesn't actually fully meet the needs of people and their concerns. Michael, thank you very much. Thank you, sir. I now wish to call on the Barclay Homes team, Paul Pritchard, Bob McCurry and Carolina Ferrando. Thank you, Chair, members. If I may, I will respond or further clarify to some of the questions raised by members and then Mr. Doe and hopefully within our ten minutes summarize just as a statement overall. Councillor Gardner, as your officer reported, the reason for the increase in height was substantially as a result of meeting highest design requirements in terms of fire safety standards. And that is the reason for the additional increase in floor height, single floor height across the majority of the buildings in the scheme. Permeability. Permeability. I think the East-West permeability is more of a strategic highway matter, which we acknowledge. I understand that the proposed cycle lane out of consultation is going to come up McBean Street to touch Beresford Street and then go east. So that's as we understand the strategic position at the moment. We have made the financial contribution towards improvements to the cycle network locally, anyway, historically, and we've volunteered a further contribution. Tree planting in Beresford Street, you, I think, perceptibly did pick up that actually there is some additional tree planting within the landscape proposal for the scheme. And this is actually a product of creating greater permeability between the town centre, Woolwich town centre, and the river and the Thames path. And your officer set out earlier the linear nature of the new park, and I'll come back to qualifying the areas on that shortly. But actually, we, in omitting building K1 from the original master plan, which was a market homes building on Beresford Street, that has allowed us to bring additional areas, something like 337 square metres of linear park, to touch Beresford Street. And indeed, it's directly opposite where the council are undertaking their amenity works to Beresford Square. Councillor Greenwell, lack of disabled parking spaces, your officer has hopefully clarified the position there. Ten percent provision for blue badge spaces located in basements and dedicated on street bays in proximity to the buildings. Maximum heights, we talked about, we won't go through that. Sunlight and daylight, supported by an EIA addendum, independently verified by the council's own independent EIA consultant. And set out in detail in the report, but in terms of sunlight and daylight and the updated parameter plans, which the 96A talks to, and the single storey increase in height. In summary, those amendments to an outline permission of 2,032 homes or 17 buildings. The overall consideration is that there are three elements to consider. Vertical sky component, sky limit, no skyline, and annual probable sunlight hours. Broadly, without going through all the minutiae, in summary, both our EIA consultant, sunlight and daylight consultant, and the independent one commissioned by the council, were demonstrating improvements in those three areas or passes of 99.6%, 94.70%, and 94.5%. So, whilst the perception of the increase, you know, could be considerable, they're relatively minor in nature. We have actually reduced the massing of some of the buildings and created a greater separation distance between the proposed buildings and the existing buildings. Just moving on to Councillor Richard Cottrell's area of green space. The outline consent for the linear park established many years ago, we have, by virtue of what I was just explaining by the omission of the building, added a net 337 square metres. Doesn't sound a great deal, but we are reinforcing the quality of that park. The biodiversity gain is at 62%. The urban greening factor is 0.4%. Importantly, trees are 181 trees being replaced, or being, sorry, are to replace the existing. Those that were in the temporary park and have now been removed have either been reapplanted throughout the estate or have been gifted to a local children's hospice for their use. The gym noise attenuation, we're acutely aware of that, given pure gym and issues with residents on the OSD scheme, the overstation development scheme. Actually, this gymnasium is in direct response to residence consultation and will be a residence only gym, not a commercial gym in this instance, but it will still be strictly in accordance with noise attenuation. And then turning to Dr Doe's comments, if I may. Three areas, lack of community engagement, loss of green space, immunity, the increasing impact on social infrastructure. I would like to point out that, actually, there's no formally recognised Residence Association at Royal Arts at the moment. It's been something we've been trying to encourage and support. Individual groups of people do convene. They do represent different areas. But at this moment, it's not a formally recognised Residence Association, although we do embrace that and hear the voice of residents. Mr Doe also attended two of the consultation events. We explicitly responded on three occasions to 16 separate questions, both before those events and post those events. So we have been genuinely trying to communicate the proposals. I've touched upon the loss of green space. Actually, the linear park running over the railway tunnels was almost a direct swap for the former strategic land that sat on the riverside. So that was a separate transaction many, many years ago. And we are improving both the extent, only slightly in terms of the area, but the quality of the space being delivered and making it more connectable to the town centre. And then in terms of increasing social infrastructure, finally, Barclays contributed some £13 million in Section 1-6 payments towards the impact of this scheme. Six million of which was paid last year. So that's the balance. But in partnership, we funded and constructed the Crossrail station box to deliver the station. We've provided listed buildings for which works. We've delivered 12 acres of open space, including refurbishing the one kilometre of the river path. We've brought back 23 listed buildings, originally funded the Thames Clipper, started the National Cycle Route 1 through the site. And we're currently working to find a nursery provider on site because we recognise there's a deficiency of day nursery provision. And we have been in discussion with the existing medical centre on Royal Arsenal, and potentially have an ability to expand that through relocating the pharmacy to another part of the site in the future. So I hope that addresses those questions. And if I may, Chair, I will finish off by saying your case officer, thank you. We have very clearly presented these application proposals for the final phase at Royal Arsenal. We hope these continue to reinforce the placemaking, the social and the economic benefits that the regeneration of the former munitions work has delivered for Woolwich. We have importantly sought to clarify or address the concerns raised through public consultation. And then in summary, we are therefore proposing 688 high quality sustainable homes, including the 306 affordable homes with a high percentage of a family accommodation. Landmark buildings of high architectural quality sympathetic to adjacent conservation areas. Delivery of four new flexible and sustainable commercial premises. The overall reduction in car parking provision. We actually have omitted a basement from the outline scheme, a whole basement. That's a reduction of 144 parking spaces. In favour of more sustainable travel in a location extremely well served by public transport. And then the reprovision of an enhanced linear park, as we've been discussing. Improving the connectivity from the town centre to the river. And if, Chair, your board is minded to approve these applications proposals this evening, your decision will enable us to deliver the affordable rent homes in buildings K3 and 4 first. And deliver this final phase at Royal Arsenal over the coming years. Thank you. Thanks, Paul. Questions? Pat. Thank you, Chair. Can I just ask you, I'm looking at the diagram. I'm looking at D3, which seems very, very, I mean, I know that you can't tell on diagrams, but it's very close to the other buildings. What actually is the distance? Between D3 and Judd House, which is the most immediate, they're both 18 storeys. Yeah. And the distance is 18.8 metres. Right metres. So, that is 20 centimetres less than the consented scheme. So, it's marginally closer. Okay. In all other instances, Council Greenwell, we have increased the separation distance between the buildings, the proposed buildings and the existing buildings, by up to two metres in some instances. And the other question, can I just ask you, what, you've removed the links between D3 and D4. What were, what were they before, when you say links, what do you actually mean by links? And links? They've been removed now, haven't they? They have indeed. Yes. So, you had a podium, which accommodated parking, which sat above a basement. The podium sat in grade. Above the podium, there were gardens. And then you had the three lines of buildings vertically. They were each linked by either north or south, either apartments or houses. And we felt that that wasn't an appropriate solution in design terms, basically because they would be seriously overlooked. And they created a significant barrier to the Duke of Wellington Avenue to the north and to the park to the south. So, beneficial in terms of creating more dual aspect homes, because you get the corners of each of the D blocks, opening up the podium environment, improve sunlight and daylight, and general amenity, including slightly additional amenity podium space. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Dave Sullivan. Dave Godwin. Just on one of your latter points about the affordable housing element, I mean, the quantum and the mix is quite impressive. Are you confident that you can deliver, or do you have partnerships in place with the social landlords or not? I mean, I've been at various things in the last few weeks, and the atmosphere is very negative vis-à-vis the Senate Section 106, affordable housing elements, and most of the RSLs seem to be down tools. What's your statement? Indeed. You're attuned to the market, I would say. We do still have registered providers that are interested in our portfolio of projects across the site. We do remain extremely confident that, given the mix of accommodation here and the ten-year split, and importantly, this 115 affordable rent homes we will have interest in, and indeed, we have heads of terms agreed to enable the Council to acquire these properties both here and at Kidbrook as necessary, which we hope we can bring forward. Thank you. David? Thank you. That's good news. But obviously not a planning consideration this evening. It's not. So, I just wanted to come back, sorry about this, come back to the trees, because you said in your response that yes, there would be trees in Beresford Street, which would be great. And just wanted you to confirm that that is part of the application, putting trees in the central carriageway in Beresford Street, which would be tremendous, I think, to do that. And just another question, if I might, you were a bit, and this reminds me a bit of Night Dragon in my ward and their sort of general attitude to residence groups. Sorry, I shouldn't say that really. But you were a bit dismissive of the Residence Association, saying it hadn't been 500 people and so forth. It sounds a reasonable group. I mean, why hasn't there been any dialogue with that group? And wouldn't it, you know, in terms of future plans and development, doesn't it make sense to have that sort of relationship? Have you looked at, you know, obviously under the Commonwealth and Leaseholder Reform Act, resident management companies and so forth? Obviously, it's a large area, so there might be more than one RMC. But you do need that sort of, if to be a sustainable community, you need that civic capacity. And actually, a bit of challenge, a bit of criticism, is not necessarily a bad thing. Understood. Thank you. Addressing the trees, I don't think I was explicit in saying there were trees in the National Reservation, I said, I believe I said, that the trees would be on Beresford Street, where we bring the park to touch Beresford Street. So, unfortunately, yes, that's not something we can deliver on the highway network. And apologies if it came across as being dismissive, certainly to Mr Doe here. We are certainly not dismissive of Residence Associations. I think I was simply pointing out that it's not a formally recognised resident association currently. We do have a Wormsley residence group and other groups. And I think they are trying to coalesce to create, you know, a single voice. And we very much embrace and welcome a recognised group, which we do consult with, and our managing agents consult with regularly. When you say recognised group, recognised by whom? Because obviously an RMC is very different, but recognised by whom for what purpose? I believe there's a formal process of registering. Under the Commonwealth Leasehold Reform Act, but this is a residence association. Yes. So, on the Greenwich Menelenium Village, for example, we have a resident management company, but at the same time there's a residence association, which they're very different. The residence association brings communities together, represents a community. The RMC manages the estate and the buildings and so forth. Yes. Very different purposes. And the GMVRA doesn't need any recognition. It just obviously liaises with the developer and others as relevant, whereas the RMC just, you know, has a statutory role, as it were. Yes. So, I think the issue is, as Mr. Doe points out, that it is a growing body of people that are trying to acknowledge, you know, their presence amongst different areas of the group. I mean, they have been consulted, not just by the residence management company and our managing agents, but in the consultation. I think some order of 3,600 letters were issued during the consultation events. So, yes, don't intend to be dismissive there and embrace the residence groups going forward, certainly. Any further questions? I've got one. So, picking up on a comment made by Mr. Doe and on some other residents on previous applications, I just have a cheeky question here. Is there a gagging order within your occupancy agreements that prohibits residents from commenting or objecting to applications? Residents' voices can be heard and made at consultation. There are controls within the residential leases that do ask that residents don't make formal objections to our planning applications. Thanks, Paul. Would you... I mean, I've never heard of that before. That's remarkable. That actually is an attack on democracy. Would you consider in this new application not making that, you know, if we give approval this evening, you know, not putting that stipulation into any future leases? We certainly could. And it's something we don't enforce ever. A attack on free speech is a basic human right, surely. No, we don't ever enforce that. It has been in our leases for a number of years. But we would never enforce that. And we believe in the right to free speech. So, as Councillor Gardner said, is that something that could possibly be removed from future leases? I would have to take that Barclay Group legal, yes. Potentially. Thanks, Paul. Any further questions? No? Paul? Thank you very much. Members, we're going to go into deliberation now. Remember, we are voting on item five first and then item four second. David. Well, thank you, Chair, and thank the applicant and Dr Doe and the officer for the work that's been done on this. Clearly, we have the extant approval and we're just looking at the changes, which strike me as necessary due to the change in building regulations after Grenfell and so forth. And I'm very pleased about the move towards a car-free development. Previously, the, you know, times were a bit different, but they agreed far too many car parking spaces. I'm pleased about the support for the cycle scheme. And I'm very pleased that we've got the level of affordable housing that we have. And I would thank you very much for maintaining that, despite the financial pressures that all developers are under. I think there are things at the edges. I would like to see some changes and improvements, but that's not a factor of the new, the amended application. So, I'm very happy to support this. I'd also like to say, Chair, that I like the design. I don't like the, I know these things are always subjective. I don't like the blocks next to it in Birdcage Walk that have a rather metallic look to it. I don't like those. But these, I thought some real thought had been put into the design and the brickwork and so forth, and the colouring. And that, to me, looked good and I think will be an enhancement, actually, to the Arsenal and Woolwich as a whole. Thank you. Thanks, David. Any further comments? Pat? Yes, I'm quite happy with this. I think that the removal of the link is an advantage. It's far better. I know that originally, you know, we have passed for this 18 storeys, is it, building? 18 storeys. And we can't do anything about that. It is obviously necessary, like Councillor Gardner has said, that you have that extra storage, story, sorry, for fire precautions. And we do need housing. So, yes, I will be supporting this application. Well, yes. Thanks, Pat. Any further comments? Okay. So, we are now voting on item five, which is reference 240887. All those in favour of the officer's recommendation, please raise your hand. Thank you very much. And we now vote on item four, reference 240848R. All those in favour of the officer's recommendation, please raise your hand. Both items are approved. We now move on to item six, the Environmental Curriculum Service, 77 Bexley Road, Eltham, London, SE92PE. Reference 242296F. Beth. Standing in for Joe. Okay. Thank you, Chair. Yes. So, the Board has requested full planning permission be granted for the demolition of the existing structures on-site, construction of a building comprising specials of the building. Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Transition Learning Centre, use class F1A, together with outbuildings, covered structures, hard and soft landscaping and including a new minibus drop-off bay. And that's subject to completion of a director's agreement and conditions. The application site is council-owned and comprised in a regular shaped plot located on the north side of Bexley Road, to the east of Eltham, town centre and to the west of Avery Hill. The vehicle and pedestrian access to the site is provided by private access from Bexley Road, which runs along the southern boundary of the site and gravel pit lane skirts the northern boundary. In terms of land use designations, the site is in metropolitan open land, a site of importance for nature conservation, an area of special character and is part of the south-east London green chain. The site has a PTAL of two, indicating a low level of accessibility by public transport and it is accessible by bus routes along Bexley Road. The site was formally known as the Eltham Environment Centre, which provided outdoor learning and sensory educational and therapy services for children and adults with learning disabilities, as well as autism spectrum disorders, which formed part of the borough's special educational needs and disability provision. The site ceased operation in 2018. This is just another view of the site looking eastwards. So here's some photos of the buildings. I believe these were taken probably a couple of years ago, so the state of the buildings has deteriorated since then. And it's understood that they aren't suitable for refurbishment. Here's just some more photos around the site. So the application was subject to statutory consultation. Two letters of support were received, one of those from Children's Services and the other from the South Greenwich Forum. No objections have been received from any local residents. And comments raising no objections were also received from the GLA, the Council's Planning Policy Team and the Council's Independent Ecology Consultant. So the site is currently occupied by one large building and approximately nine smaller outbuildings. These equate to a total gross area of 984 square metres. The proposal seeks to demolish all of these buildings and consolidate them in one larger building. However, it would only represent a 23% increase in building coverage across the site. So the proposed Transition Learning Centre seeks to provide teaching and learning facilities for young SEND adults. The facility would provide some services similar to the original Environment Centre on the site, including outdoor sensory learning experiences, horticulture and other skills-based training to support positive mental health outcomes. As well as learning objectives to achieve the wider aim of supporting young adults in developing their independent learning and living skills. The nature of this use would be educational and therefore falls within the existing use of the site. The new facility would serve 30 students and up to a total of 45 support staff and visitors. Within the site, there are 10 car parking spaces proposed, which includes two accessible parking bays, six minibus drop-off and pickup bays, as well as 16 covered cycle spaces. This is just a tracking diagram which shows the entrance is going to be widened on Bexley Road to allow two-way traffic in and out. So you can see that cars going in and out can both access that. The proposal comprises a single-storey building with a total floor space of 1,200 square metres. It would be 58 metres in length, 23 metres in width and 4 metres in height, which would not exceed the height of the existing structures on site. The external façade would be wrapped with timber frame glass curtain wall system and insulated panels with vertical timber battens. Set within the curtain walling would be aluminium framed windows and doors and colour-matched louvres above the curtain walling would be white. Sorry, there would be a white coloured parapet with a continuous canopy. The flat roof would support a green roof and photovoltaic panels. The proposed facility would contain an octagonal internal courtyard and the interior layout would comprise classrooms, workshop spaces, sensory learning rooms, as well as a kitchen and dining hall. There's no on-site sleeping accommodation and it's a non-residential institution. However, there is a mock residential flat to be provided in the north-east corner to facilitate life-skill coaching. So, as I've already touched on, the existing access onto the site via Bexley Road is to be widened by 6 metres to allow for two-way traffic and the new entrance gates and stone pillars here are shown in this drawing, this photo. The proposed building would remain well screened from views from Bexley Road as well as from the wider MOL due to retention of the existing trees along the boundary of the site. And this is just another image. You can see the building just there. Just there. In terms of sustainability measures, the new building would be BREAM excellent, be carbon neutral through the use of air source heat pumps and PV panels. It would also include a green roof, replacement tree planting for the trees lost through the construction of the building and the associated hard and soft landscaping. So, in summary, the proposed redevelopment of the site to provide a new transitional learning centre is considered to be acceptable and would make a significant positive contribution to the Royal Borough of Granite special educational needs and disabilities facilities for young people, addressing the existing shortfall of this provision within the borough. The site is previously developed land and the proposal would not have a greater impact on the openness of the MOL. The proposal would therefore meet the exception to inappropriate development, which is the test outlined in the MPPF. Furthermore, the borough lacks adequate facilities for the provision of education for young people aged 19 plus, necessitating young people with special educational needs and disabilities to currently be referred out of borough. The new facility at Bexley Road would enable the borough to meet its statutory obligations to provide this facility for students within the borough, thereby reducing unnecessary travel time for students and the financial burden to the Council in providing this transport. It is recommended that the development be approved, subject to conditions and the director's agreement. Thank you very much for your presentation. My concerns are basically to do with traffic management, my only concerns. We're told that this will open at 8.30 in the morning. I know this well, it's my ward and I know the road extremely well. And Bexley Road at 8.30 in the morning is an absolute nightmare. And you've got Cranwood School, you have, there are bollards all along the road. People, there is sort of lit time, CPZ parking, but there's no where people can park. It is an issue, a big issue. So I would like to know the entrance. You say that it is going to be, did you say it's going to be widened by six metres? Or how, how, or widened too, how wide is that entrance going to be, the new entrance, when you say widened by six metres? I don't have the details of how wide it is currently, but I believe it's been widened by six metres. But as you can see here on this diagram, this is the tracking for two, for a large car essentially. So the large car can come in, and one can go out at the same time. Right, but am I right also in thinking that there is a, it's going to be gated, the entrance. I've read that it's going to be gated. Save that for the applicant. Yeah, I'm not sure it is. Okay. Right. Okay, because if it is going to be gated, what I am, I'm concerned that how far off the highway is the gate going to be? And obviously, if you've got one vehicle waiting to get in, in that entrance off the highway, and it's gated, and then you've got another, because you've got minibuses and cars, you can't, that road will not take a vehicle actually stopping on the main road. It's, it's just, there would be an accident. And also, it's, it's very, very near. I would like to know where the, perhaps the applicant, the crossing, the zebra crossing, very close, that's going to be moved. Do we know any more about that? So I think it's just also worth bearing in mind the previous use of the site as well. This site has less parking than the previous use. It's only for 30 students, and my understanding is the majority of them will be brought in by minibus. So there shouldn't be a lot of cars kind of queuing to get in and out of the site. Yes, but the only thing is that they're also, and I know they won't all be there together, but I think there are going to be up to 45 workers, care workers there for these young adults. And, you know, if they have cars, but also I've read where I think that there's space for 10 car club cars as well. It's just 10, 10 spaces. Is it just 10? Yeah. So that 10 car club. But yeah, I mean, I just would like reassurance, really, about the, perhaps if I ask the applicant. I mean, I can say that our highways team have reviewed this, and they haven't raised any concerns about the access into the site. And as I say, it is a significant improvement upon the existing situation. Beth, do you want to go back to the illustration that shows the brick posts on the road? And then you can see what's there already. And then, so that's what it looks like at the moment. Yeah. And that's going to be widened. That's going to be widened by another six meters. So that'll be- No, I think that's the proposed one. Is it? Yeah. So that is with it widened. Sorry. It's very close to the crossing. It's just, if for any reason a vehicle had to stop on that main road at half per state in the morning, there could be easily be an accident. That's, I would like more information about the plan. I'll ask the applicant if it's going to be gated. Because if it's going to be gated, there is going to be a problem. If it's not gated, then that's okay. Okay. And sort of, is there also the actual waste services have said that they're concerned about the sweep, whether or not they can do a complete turn? Because they've got, they will have to come out forward. Yeah. They can't reverse out onto that road. There's a turning circle in the grounds, isn't there? But I think that it concerns the waste services that the sweep wasn't large enough for them to turn. This is the swept path for a refuse vehicle. So, obviously, it's significantly larger than a car. When the refuse vehicle is coming in, nothing else can come out. So, the entrance is only wide enough for a single entrance or exit if the refuse vehicle is going in. But the tracking shows that it will go in through the site, up here, up to this corner, and then it will have to reverse around here and then back down here and then back out. So, obviously, the refuse vehicle will be timed to not turn up at the same time as the students are coming in. In the morning, it will drop off and pick up, and it will likely be once a week. Where it's going to reverse, is that sort of anywhere near any of the buildings? Well, the entrance to the building is here. Yeah. So, no. Essentially, it's right up at the top end of the site. Any further questions for the officer? David? You know, thank you very much. I take a different view, actually, from Pat, from Councillor Greenwell, in terms of I would rather there was not such a wide entrance, but if that's necessary, that's necessary. But my question is, the biodiversity net gain is only 7 point something percent, whereas, obviously, the statutory minimum is 10 percent. Can we get to that 10 percent by reducing the amount of hard standing and planting out the hard standing? Because that's why it's a special character, because of the biodiversity there. And it would be nice to get to that 10 percent gain. My second point, then, is around the... So, there did seem to be a lot of tarmac, so I wonder whether we could take some out or green some of the tarmac. My second point, in terms of public transport accessibility, there's actually only a quarter of an hour walk from Falconwood Station. But I wondered, is there an entrance from Gravel Pit Lane, that track, which leads directly to Falconwood Station, to the back? Or do you have to walk all the way around? Or could there be an entrance put in? So, it's easy, particularly for staff. I appreciate that the adults with disabilities might find that difficult, particularly for staff and visitors and so forth. They can just walk direct from Falconwood Station in the most direct route, rather than go all the way around to the main road and then back up again. On the second point, I'm not actually sure whether you can... I don't believe you can get in through the top end of that site, but hopefully the applicant's team can advise a little bit further on that. In terms of the biodiversity net gain, it's been a challenging site. Because of the existing ecology on the site, the existing trees, there has been a necessary loss of some of the trees, 100 trees, essentially. They are going to be replaced, but they won't be replaced at the same biodiversity value because of the value that they go in at. And if you look at... It's a slightly strange way the metric works. So, there's a 5.3% gain in habitat in... I think that's only in trees. But there's a 900... Sorry, 9,000% gain in hedgerow units. It's all very complicated. But they will... The developer does have to get to 10%. That is an absolute minimum requirement. And that will be submitted through something called the Biodiversity Gain Plan once Planning Commission is granted. Now, it seems unlikely that they will be able to achieve that on site. I think they have done everything they can to date to get it on site. And, obviously, they need certain hard-standing areas for turning and the provision of the minibus spaces and the car parking. The way that the developer will get to the 10% will either be through off-site delivery or through purchasing of statutory credits. Any further questions? No. Thank you very much. I now wish to call on the team. Matthew Hoffman, Daniel Stainsbury, Dean Bresnahan, Jane Lawley, Davinda Gander. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Firstly, I'd like to address Councillor Pat Greenwood's questions. To the first one, is it going to be gated? Yes, there is a gate proposed on the site. However, it has been calculated and analysed to be inset to an appropriate amount to allow even large refuse trucks to, while there's traffic, wait in there for the gate to be operated by someone inside the site. And the parking for the 45 workers, which is your second question, is that they will be encouraged to cycle in with the provision of cycle stores, as well as an accessibility from the Bexley Road itself, not via car. And the students will be encouraged and advised to use minibuses to access the site. And if they do park there, their parking will be temporary and their drivers will most likely leave. To address your other point of the width of the entrance, it is being increased by six metres, or to six metres, whichever will accommodate the double flow of traffic to allow ingress and egress at the same time. And for your waste collection questions, there are the turning circles, firstly at the top and secondly at the bottom, which is where the waste collection is. There's the store of bins down there, which is available to see on the plans. So they will be able to enter the site forwards and leave out the gate without having to reverse at any point outside of the site. And the impact on the traffic should be relatively minimal, as there will be provisions to service the students getting to the site without them taking their independent vehicles, unless, of course, they have special requirements to do so. If I can just, what my concern is, that yes, you're saying that it's gated and there'll be some kind of intercom system. But what if, for any reason, because that road, this is, it's just safety. I'm thinking safety here. That is a very, very busy road. Very busy. Very busy. Very near a crossing, simple crossing. And also, you have got poles all the way down both sides of the road, so nobody can stop. And I suppose what I'm thinking is, say there's a minibus waiting to get in, and another minibus arrives early, so you've got two minibuses. Is there going to be sufficient room for, say, the second minibus to pull off the main road? Does that make sense? Am I making sense? I think, Matthew, are they automated gates? It's not like someone's got to come and open the gate, someone drives in. It's going to be an automated system. So there's a school management plan that will dictate when they're allowed to arrive. And there will be a degree of automation to the gates. But for primary control of it, there will be a person within the school centre itself controlling. There will be an intercom system. So if there is someone waiting at the gate, they will be allowed in if they have the relevant requirements to get in, be it ferrying students in or outside educators or whatever they may need for access to the site. So, I don't know, I think this is for you, Sue. Obviously, we've got that it's an 8.30 start, which is when that road is busiest. And with Crown Woods, and because of all the bollards and everything, the parents, unfortunately, from Crown Woods just drop the children anywhere and make it dangerous. So I don't know whether there's a possibility that the times could be changed or there could be at various intervals. Do you think that would be a possibility? I was just going to... A staggered sort of morning start? So I was going to add to what Matthew has said in that he's right, it will be a school management plan. And ultimately, in the peak periods of drop off and collection, they'll probably end up leaving the gates open. And then have staff managing the gates, managing the entrance. So vehicles will come straight off the road, straight onto the site, out of the way immediately. Yeah. And as we said, the number of pupils at the school will be very low compared to Crown Woods. And we'll be coming in by minibus, so there'll be minimal vehicle movements. So what you're saying is that although it's gated, there's a strong possibility that that may be open? So most special schools at the points of drop off and pick up have the gates open and let the vehicles come and go and then keep the children away from the vehicles at that time. Brilliant. Yeah, I don't think they'll have them closed during those peak periods. They're really to be closed during the day for safeguarding purposes. And one other question that I've got, and I think back to consultations that you had previously. There was some talk of contaminated soil on site. Has that now been dealt with? Please. We know where it is. It's all been analysed and it will be dealt with during the construction process and the land will be remediated. We know where it is. It's been surveyed. We understand what the ground makeup is and it will be dealt with during the construction process. So as the buildings are demolished, that piece of land will be removed, the contamination will be removed and dealt with during the construction phase. So it hasn't been dealt with yet. It will be dealt with during construction. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The same question as to the officer. The gravel pit lane, if you could cut through the back, it would be a much shorter walk to Falconwood Station, which is much closer than Eltham Station. That would be a very good, it's a way I get to the crematorium and so forth. But that would be a much quicker way to get to the site, particularly for staff, but also on transport and modal splits and so forth. Most adults with disabilities that have had transport training and so forth, so those that were physically able presumably could come by by bus if they had the capacity to do so and they've had that training and things. They wouldn't all come by minibus, I assume. So yes, there is provision for them to arrive by bus or any other means of transportation. However, there is no current provision for access through gravel pit lane. The only entrances are the main vehicle entrance on the Bexley Road and the pedestrian slash cycle access further down from the entrance. And just to add the question that Councillor Gardner raised about the young adults. Yes, some of them will have had independent travel training and they would be encouraged to arrive independently if they're able. But there are some young people that will have attended Charlton Park Academy and Willowdean School that would have significant complex learning and physical needs that would rely on send transport. And just to follow through, Chair, is it possible for you to look at an access point from gravel pit lane? Because it comes, it's right next to the site, isn't it? I don't believe that that area is within our scope of services. I believe it falls under the highways permission. So if they want to propose anything there, I think it would be within their scope to provide that. We'll take that question away, Councillor Gardner, and look at it. I think there's some challenges around levels from my understanding of the site. But we'll certainly take it away and have a look at it and see if there's a possibility to do that. Also, the other slight concern we have is that sort of western boundary of the site is where the vehicles will be coming and going. So we just need to think about kind of safeguarding. But if it's possible, we'll take a look at it and see if it's doable. Any further questions? Can I just say that you will sort of, in future, once it opens, will you check the, you know, what I've just referred to because of the safety issues, the viability of having a staggered start and, you know, make sure that the gate is open that there is not going to be any chance of any traffic actually stopping on that main Bexley Road. Yes, that is part of the traffic management plan and will be included within that. Thank you. Just a quick one. When would you expect this project to be completed? So we haven't gone out to tender yet. So as we all know, that's got the opportunity for change. But we're targeting in a moment of the academic year beginning in September 2026. I've been on site a number of occasions. I was part of the working group that went back in, what, 2019, 2020. I met the groundsman on site and there were quite a large amount of exotic plants and trees. Have any of those been salvaged and will they be part of the landscaping that is being put before us? I believe at this point we've went through the landscape plan a number of times and the retained trees and the removed trees and I believe they are part of the removed scheme. So because they're not native planting, they don't offer as great addition to biodiversity net gain as natural planting does, as well as the concerns around contamination. I think some of those trees have been there like 30 odd years and actually did make a good contribution to the overall site. Following up my next question, has that site been subdivided now because the site that I visited was twice as big and the boundary went right up to Crownwood School? Looking at the red outline of this proposal, it looks like the site has been split in two now? Yeah, that's right. So the demise for the SEND facility is in the location of the former White Horizons building. The site will be split. The balance of the site to the east between the new building and Crownwood School, still owned by the Council, and we're actively dealing with that through a separate process. It's not part of this application. Okay, thanks. Any further questions from anyone? Just one question. Can I just ask you, going back, what will the view be from Bexley Road? Please. I think the officer had an image, which looks like you're skipping to. In essence, from Bexley Road, there's quite a lot of hedgerows, which will remain. So you won't actually see, there's the image on the screen there. You won't see much of it from Bexley Road. Thank you. Okay. No further questions? Jane, Daniel, Matthew, thank you very much. Members, open for deliberation. Pat. Thank you, Chair. I am more than happy with what I've heard. My only concerns were about safety, and I'm happy and I'm sure that, yes, sort of if there are any issues that hopefully they will be dealt with. We need to bring our children. I could get quite emotional about this. We need to bring our children that are out of Borough, back into Borough. Our secondary education, you know, sort of our children, special needs children need, they need to know this is going to provide an area where they can be readjusted. Children from 16, so I think it's 25, young adults, where they can be adjusted into living sort of as independently as they can and where they will learn all kinds of different skills. And it's an ideal setting off the main road, surrounded by trees, lovely building, and I'm quite happy with it. We need to bring our SEND children back. And I know that from previous consultations that have been held in the Eltham Centre, from the amount of people who came along with concerns, children who had, sorry, adults who had children with special educational needs, there is a massive demand for SEND facilities. Thank you. And I will be supporting this. Thank you. Thanks, Pat. Any further comments? No? Okay. All those, I'm going to put this to the vote now. All those in favour of the officer's recommendation, please raise your hand. Item six is approved. Do you want to check for a quick five-minute break before we go into item seven? Okay. We'll adjourn for ten minutes. Are we all good? Yep. We're okay over here. Jonathan is okay. Yeah. Clear. Clear. We now move on to item seven. Land at Numbers 6, 61 and 81, Cooper's Yard, Eastmore Street, and Numbers 6 and 10, Westmore Street, Cholton, London SE7, 8LX, reference 241709MA. Jonathan. Thank you, Chair. The application before Members tonight was submitted under Section 73 of the Town and Country Planning Act. However, the Council did not determine the scheme within the required time period, and the applicant has now lodged an appeal for non-determination. Members are advised that due to the appeal, the Planning Board is unable to make a formal decision on the application. Nevertheless, the Board is required to indicate the decision it would have made had Council determined the application prior to the appeal. The recommendation itself would be submitted to the Planning Inspectorate for their consideration. The site itself, as indicated in red on screen, is a rectangular plot bordered by Murfield Street to the north, Eastmore Street to the east, and Westmore Street to the west. As detailed in the Planning Board report, the original scheme was refused by Members in 2021, but was subsequently appealed by the applicant and allowed following a public inquiry. A subsequent Section 73 application was submitted to amend the appeal scheme to modify the internal arrangement by adding a second stair core to align with future fire regulations. These changes resulted in a total of 182 residential units, resulting in a total of 182 residential units. Affordable housing was retained under that scheme. The application was resolved to grant by this Planning Board on 5 December 23, and granted planning permission on 30 April 24, following the completion of the Section 106 agreement. In terms of the proposals under this application, the primary amendment relates to the residential tenure. The approved scheme included 56 affordable homes, which equates to 36% by habitable room. The remaining 126 units were designated as open market sale. The applicant details that changes in economic conditions since that appeal scheme necessitates the removal of the affordable housing component. However, it's important to note that both previous applications were already in deficit, even with the inclusion of affordable housing. In reality, neither scheme was technically viable from the outset. While economic conditions may have deteriorated further, the overall viability position and conclusion have not significantly changed. Whilst no physical changes are proposed to the scheme, the applicant has also submitted additional reports which update those which were approved in the approved scheme. These include a circular economy statement, life cycle carbon assessment and preliminary ecological appraisal. In terms of the principle development, this was established through the approved appeal scheme, which highlighted the borough's significant housing supply shortfall, which is at now 2.46 years. The shortfall supports the proposal, even though affordable housing is not included due to the viability constraints. Greenwich has underperformed in housing delivery, meeting only 74% of its housing target over the past three years, further supporting the need for market housing. Under MPPF paragraph 11D, the presumption in favour of sustainable development applies due to the housing supply deficit. The proposal will deliver 182 market sale units, directly addressing the borough's housing shortfall. While the scheme does not currently provide affordable housing, it remains compliant with viability and future contributions are possible if market conditions improve. The applicant's financial viability assessment demonstrates that the proposed scheme cannot support any affordable housing due to financial deficit, with a negative residual value of $11.3 million as confirmed by Council's independent reviewers. While disappointing, the Council acknowledges that this aligns with London Plan Policy H5 and in policy terms is considered to be policy compliant. It is relevant to note that the previous schemes also face viability deficits, and the updated economic conditions have exacerbated these challenges. Key points to note is that the proposal removes the 56 affordable units, citing increased construction costs and reduced interest from registered providers. Despite this, the applicant has retained all other secured contributions. External reviews by Council's experts and GLA confirm the scheme is unviable for affordable housing, while minor disagreements on inputs remain, for example, land value and finance rates, all parties agree that the scheme faces significant deficits. The Council considered an alternative build-to-rent scheme, as well as suggesting to the applicant that they consider other intermediate tenures, like discount market rent and London living rent, to deliver affordable housing. However, these were not pursued by the applicant, citing site-specific constraints and viability challenges. However, these adjusted schemes were considered by the GLA and our external viability consultants, and these still showed losses, even though slightly less severe. Early and late stage reviews will still be secured through a deed of variation. If viability improves over the development lifecycle, contributions towards affordable housing may be reintroduced either on sidewall as a cash-in-lieu payment. The Section 73 application proposes amendments to the energy, sustainability and ecological strategies, as well as a deed of variation to reduce affordable housing provision. No concern is raised with the amendments to the technical strategies. In considering the planning balance, it's relevant to note that the Inspector previously gave significant weight to both affordable housing and market housing delivery. Since that appeal, as previously mentioned, the Council's deliverable housing supply has deteriorated further from 3.15 years at the appeal to 2.46 years, making the need for new housing even more pressing. Although the absence of affordable housing falls below the appeal scheme and policy requirements, it is accepted that the scheme, in its current form, cannot viably include affordable housing. Given the borough's critical housing needs, officers have given significant weight to the delivery of market housing, even while recognising the shortcomings of this proposal. It is relevant to note that the non-provision of affordable housing does not weigh against the scheme in the balance, as it's simply policy compliant. And all other benefits that were considered in the appeal scheme remain unaltered. Turning to the scheme harms, as noted in the appeal scheme, the Inspector identified that the proposal would have no more than limited adverse effect on the character and appearance of the surrounding area, less than substantial harm to the significance of the conservation area, and very limited harm to the setting of the non-designated heritage asset, which is known as the former lands of the village public house. Nevertheless, given the acute shortfall in housing delivery, it's considered that the benefits of increased housing supply continue to outweigh the specific harms identified in relation to townscape character and other matters raised by the Inspector. It's also recognised with a housing supply of only 2.46 years, it's considered that the policies regarding housing delivery are out of date, tricking the tilted balance. This balance requires that planning permission should be granted unless adverse impacts significantly and demonstrably outweigh the benefits. Based on this assessment, detailed in the Planning Board report, it's recommended that planning permission would have been granted had Council determined the application prior to the submission of the appeal against non-determination being lodged for this application, subject to a data variation under Section 106 and 106A of the Town and Country Planning Act. Thank you. Thanks, Jonathan. David. Thank you, Jonathan. I was looking at the Chartan Riverside Master Plan 2017. Page 84 sets out the terrain for the proposed Chartan Riverside Park, and just before that, the barrier across the Woolwich Road. So, it just strikes me, looking at the diagram around, and I know this area fairly well, between Eastmore and Westmore Street, that this development actually infringes on some of the 8-4 proposed park in our SPD, and I wondered how that had been discussed or resolved. Is it compensated for somewhere else? Because, obviously, the Riverside Park is central to the whole concept of an urban eco-village that's an integral part of Chartan. So, I wonder if you ask that strategic question first, and then I've got some questions in relation to the GLA comments on Section 73. Shall I ask that now or ask it later? I would ask if you could ask it now. I'm just slightly opening up the Chartan Riverside SPD at the moment. Oh, I'm sure I thought you'd have it at hand. You can borrow mine, if you like. I've only got the draft, but I've got the final one online. The GLA, in their comment, say, and I just quote parts from 2-4, the Section 73 application should not be used as a mechanism to reduce affordable housing or other planning obligations. Further, in 2-6 of their representation, they say the extent Section 106 agreement binds the planning obligations secured in that agreement to subsequent planning commissions granted under Section 73. As such, it is not clear how the planning obligation relating to affordable provision can be reduced unless voluntarily accepted by the Council under Section 106A of the Act. Clearly, we would never voluntarily agree to compromise our policy on affordable housing. So, do you disagree with the GLA assertion there with what Jane Seymour from the GLA has said? I mean, I'll come back to further sections on this later, but it seems pretty definitive that this is using the wrong vehicle in order to get rid of affordable housing. The GLA are as frustrated with developers using this as a vehicle to reduce affordable housing. They have tried to present this line quite robustly. As time has gone on, appeal decisions have come out which have proved that wrong. I've also seen Council's opinions that, legal opinions that other councils have obtained which are very reliable, which their opinion is that this is completely clear-cut, that we don't have grounds to refuse and that this is the correct vehicle for reducing affordable housing. I also happen to know that the GLA have also obtained a legal opinion which they have decided not to share. So, we read into that what we will. But in terms of the actual vehicle, we do believe that Section 73 is appropriate in terms of considering changes to affordable housing. The application itself through 73 is actually changing some conditions related to the aforementioned technical components such as the circular economy, preliminary ecological appraisal and part of that is allowing for the affordable housing change. So, we would disagree with that approach or that view from the GLA and I think it's also found in recent appeals that it is an appropriate vehicle to make the change and there's been similar cases only recently of a similar nature to what the applicant is proposing here today. Regarding the Charlton Riverside, the map at page 84, it's the sketch, isn't it? The sketch view. There's a narrative also in 8.4. Yeah. I mean, it... It does show... I mean, it's hard to tell because it doesn't have development plots on it. It's an image. But there is... I mean, you can see Westmore Street to the left, can't you? So, it's hard to exactly pinpoint where this plot is but I think it is showing a building on it. But we need to be mindful, I guess, of a couple of things. Firstly, the appeal decision and it has planning permission for a building on that site. And secondly, the SPD, when it was designed, didn't take into account land ownership, development plots, etc. So, I think it's... As we've struggled on other plots to say that someone who owns a site in Charlton for redevelopment, that they should turn that into a park, it's been a bit unrealistic in some respects. But I think we have had to place weight on the existing planning commission that is there. But presumably, when it went to appeal, we would have made those arguments in terms of... Did we? In terms of this... Well, it was recommended... This was an integral part of the master plan for Charlton Riverside, that part of that area, or it's part of that area, should be part of the enlarged Charlton Riverside Park. Or if not, we've made provision for it elsewhere because we need that green space. My understanding was the application was refused at planning committee broadly on the height of the development, not on the fact that it was eating into potential park space. Yes, I mean, the overall master plan is looking to deliver open space throughout the plots that are coming forward, and each site has to deliver certainly some public open space and private space. But it's hard to say that there's an exact offset from this site. Dave? Oh. Oh, sorry, I'm making the discussion, but I'm just puzzled by this expression because I thought I knew a bit about... Well, I thought I knew a bit about development, but I don't really think I fully understand this notion of the landlord premium. What is that? Who could unpack that for me, please? So the PPG sets out ways to calculate the benchmark land value, which is to be taken as a proxy for site value. So the preferred option that they present is to use an existing use value plus a landowner premium, where appropriate. So the landowner premium is supposed to act as an incentive for the landowner to give up the utility of their land for development, if you like. And in this case, we disagree with the applicants. And the applicants are proposing a 10% landowner premium. But PPG is clear that where there's no affordable housing proposed, there shouldn't be a landowner premium, because there's nothing left in the scheme to go to the site owner. So that's why we've not put a landowner premium in there. So does that mean the land is actually overpriced? I don't know off the top of my head what they paid for it, but we're not supposed to consider the price paid. When we're looking at the viability, we're supposed to look at the benchmark land value, which is that particular measure of land value. David, did you want to come back? Oh, right. Yeah, I was just looking at the BPS document, actually. So in terms of the BPS assessment, if I might, Chair, of the viability statement, as well as the disagreement Dave pointed out on the landowner premium and a slight disagreement on the benchmark land value, there's also here the Section 106 of 1.57 million, which is clearly quite significant. The seal we can't do much about. But Section 106 normally would be to enable affordable housing and social housing, as well as maybe for other legal, you know, other aspects of a legal agreement. But normally affordable housing would be covered in Section 106. So what is that 1.57 million for? Those figures for the planning obligations are provided by the applicant and then in turn they are to be confirmed by council. So I'm not sure if you've got a break, Daniel. So the contributions that are mentioned and secured under this application are the same Section 106 financial contributions that were secured under the appeal scheme, no change. So the numbers that should be corresponding there, and I'll double-check them now, should be exactly the same numbers that were, as I just said, were previously secured by the council on the appeal scheme. So they're just, yeah, and as you rightly said, the seal is what the seal is when it's calculated, but none of those figures, they should all be as was approved. And could I also, the row in the viability statement on finance, where there's a slight disagreement, but is that the rate of borrowing? Because presumably, or that the return that they're giving back to their investors, return on investment, we're looking, 7% is quite on the high side, normally you'd get 5%? No, that's their rate of borrowing, so that's... The rate they're actually borrowing to... Yeah, so it's... But you can borrow at 5%, so why is it down as 7%? Not for development finance, it's usually quite a bit higher than that. It's a fairly hypothetical measure of finance, because in order to keep viability assessments consistent, we assume 100% debt financing, which obviously is not particularly realistic in the real world. You know, maybe 30%, 50% of whatever of that financing might come from equity from the developer themselves. So that's a measure of how much the finance is going to cost them. And we really, we reach that by sort of comparing with other viability assessments that we've done and other things that have been agreed. You mentioned in your introduction, Jonathan, that the applicant, and obviously we will ask the applicant this, had not considered other forms of intermediate, such as, or affordable, such as London living rent or discounted market rent. Have we looked at the viability of those schemes, and is that a relevant consideration for us this evening? They might have been able, as the GLA are saying, actually, to come up with a different mix using different forms of affordable housing that might have been more viable. So we have, or BPS on behalf of the Council, have looked at one option on paper, which was a bill to rent, and it was found to still be in deficit regardless of change. It would, on paper, reduce the deficit by approximately 50% off the top of my head. I'll check in the numbers. I'm sure my colleague could discuss that as well. But it would still be in deficit schemes. So it's a difficult position where the alternatives aren't generating an actual surplus to be able to obtain the affordable housing, because hypothetically, if the schemes, the alternative push put forward by the GLA officers as well as ones that we tested, if they result in a surplus, then it would justify potentially an alternative scheme that could deliver affordable housing. But all the alternatives or the alternatives both that GLA have looked at and that we have looked at ourselves do not take the scheme out of deficit. So the bill to rent scheme that we looked at did provide a reduced deficit, but it was still 6.5 million. So any sort of open market sale, private sale scheme, or bill to rent scheme, or schemes with affordable housing, and they're all in deficit. But 6.5 million over, what, 88 million, or 92 if you include commercial, would still mean they're making a profit, just not their 20% profit. Is that right? Yes, I should think so. Yeah, they're still making a profit. It's just, they're not making a deficit. They're just not meeting the 20% assumed profit. Yes, that's right. Very important. Thank you. Dave. There's provision, as I understand it, in the report for an early appraisal, a validation, viability appraisal, and also a late one. How often does that actually lead to a significant change? How long, is it three years? Are we talking about once this was consented? You might not be doing a new early appraisal for, say, two years, or are we talking about something? I'm not really sure how that process works and whether it's actually a real factor, where it's something that we could be hopeful or positive about. Is it just lip service? I think it partly depends on what stage in the cycle you're at. I think at the moment, we are not seeing many, early stage reviews or late stage reviews, whatever, we're not seeing many of them produce more affordable housing. But I think that's because schemes that are coming up for review now were agreed when bill costs were lower, basically. So, looking forward, if development comes out of that cycle, then, in theory, we should be better placed to gain some more reviews. Claire, could you tell us the interest rate on the developer finance? You mentioned it just a minute ago. Yeah, so this has been a point of disagreement. The applicant has said it's going to cost them 7.5%. We have used 7%, and the GLA think it's 6.5%. So, we're in the middle, basically. But we've looked at it under various scenarios. We've sensitivity tested it, basically, and it's still well in deficit. So, when we're crunching the numbers, obviously, 30% affordable is not free. It's discounted. Obviously, the RP will come in, and they will pay the price, and then it's discounted down. So, I mean, I'm looking at the figures on this, 7.5% for developer finance, which seems to me to be on the extremely high level. I think there's finance around about 5, 5.25% at the moment. My point is, is, even by clawing back the affordable, does this still not make the project, as presented, unviable? Sorry, so you're saying even if there's no affordable in the scheme, is it? Yes, so, so the, so what we've analysed here is the scheme as put forward. So, that's the scheme with no affordable, and it is still in substantial deficit, 11 million deficit. Thanks, Claire. David. I always Google things, and I can see much cheaper rates. The mainstream banks, it says, is 4.5% to 6%, but there are rates around of under 5%, and, but, you know, you're the expert, not me, and, and Google isn't the expert, but, you know, and that assumes 100%, you know, borrowing. Hopefully, investors, insurance companies, and so forth, would have capital to put in, and obviously, they'd want to return on their investment. But, I think, I would want to come to the point of the timing, because according to the GLA report, and indeed, our report, it was only on the 30th of April, 2024, that we, which was granted following the site, but for further consent, dated the 30th of April, 2024, which wasn't challenged, because that included 36% by habitable room, 36% affordable housing, so it'd be compliant. Now, that was eight months ago, seven or eight months ago. What has changed so dramatically in the last seven or eight months? Building costs have stabilised, if not gone down slightly. Sell values in London are going up by about three, four, five percent a year. What has changed so remarkably in that time to mean that suddenly we're in a major deficit situation, we can't have any affordable housing and having been signed off at 36% in April? The answer is that very little has changed. When the scheme was presented previously with the affordable housing, it was an even bigger deficit. when it was presented to you by the applicant, the applicant basically said that they wanted to provide the affordable housing because they appreciated that the borough needed affordable housing and so on. However, they've now changed their minds it seems. Dave. Just for my information perhaps it's just advice to the lawyer to what extent are we obligated to grant approval to a scheme that we don't think is viable? So just just to touch on it really briefly and I'll let the legal advisor come in as well but obviously the scheme or sorry the applicant is relying on change in market conditions to potentially make the scheme more viable and obviously achieve potentially a better profit than what they're demonstrating in their financial viability assessment obviously that's where our late stage review comes in because we will review it at a later stage potentially to see if there is any change in circumstances that may allow the council well if it's late stage of view to obtain a financial contribution to affordable housing. I don't know if our legal advisor has anything else you'd like to add? not specifically other than I suppose what's in the report which is that the same type of proposal was put to you previously and was approved i.e. the proposal was put to you at the planning board and it wasn't refused on the ground that the scheme wasn't viable so it's difficult now to take an inconsistent approach and say well we now have a problem with it obviously that's what the GLA is inviting you to do but the GLA you know inviting the council to do that but they aren't offering to front up a whole lot of witnesses and so on at an inquiry so they can invite councils to do that but are they then going to back it up I don't think they've indicated that so I think that's the difficulty with that point I take the point you might say what's the point in proving something that you know doesn't on paper look like someone can build but I suppose the point there is that someone's entitled to apply for planning commission even if they don't build it you have to consider whether it's acceptable in planning terms or not whether the proposal in front of you is acceptable in planning terms I suppose not so much whether someone can actually build it but I understand the concern you're making though yes but we actually if we granted approval on a site that's not viable then to some extent we're compromising that site for future development if certain people don't believe that their site is viable then maybe they have to part with the site to somebody who might find another way of making it work but I I mean my only experience I have to me it seems a similar thing I mean if a local authority actually put a contract out to tender safer refuse and it came in and we got a bid for it and it was completely unachievable we wouldn't have to let it if we didn't think it was viable because we know service would be compromised further down the road and you could argue the same thing here that this site if it doesn't work it's not going to happen it'd be better if they sold it to somebody who could make it work I think following up from what David and David said viability wasn't brought into the equation because it wasn't relevant on the first application and it's only now that the viability has been brought in so it's only now that we're going to consider it or even talk about it because beforehand there was the full quota of affordable units within the development so the previous refusal didn't need to bring in viability because it wasn't a card that was played and there was affordable on the table and even when the inspector gave his decision again there was affordable on the table had there not been then the inspector might have had a different way of balancing things up because there was no without the affordable there is no benefit to the local community and not to the 28,000 people we've got on our list so we're talking about it now because it is on the table now it hasn't been previously and it hasn't been there for any of us to consider so I think my point is now it is on the table is it something that as David said that we can give some serious weight and consideration to I mean I wait for the applicant I've got some questions for the applicant but I'll wait for them to come up any further questions for the officers no I now wish to call upon Tim Gaskell Phoebe Juggins and Barbara Nemeth Good evening members good evening officers I don't have a speech prepared but there have clearly been a number of items that we should discuss tonight would you like to set any new questions or would you like to recap some of the areas that have been previously discussed and we can take those responses in turn let us know what you prefer I can I can recap so basically can you convince us to not just playing the system looking to bag yet more favorable plan application to sell the site on to someone else while it remains empty for years that really is a big fear so why on the end of April you have permission for a scheme you get consent for a scheme with 36% affordable housing which obviously you intend to proceed with and then suddenly within seven or eight months you come back and say oh dear that's not viable we can't have any affordable housing anymore and we've got this huge deficit or your viability consultants say you've got this huge deficit so why such a sudden change when you know as I mentioned before building costs have now stabilised if not gone down slightly and sales values continue to slightly increase then secondly what attempts have you made to get a registered provider or talk to Greenwich Build and to access grants from the GLA towards the social housing element who have you talked to and thirdly David I can see they're going to struggle dealing let's deal with these one at a time because you're going to have a few come in I think that will be easier that's absolutely fine so the section 73 application that was approved in April 2024 was primarily undertaken as a result of fire regulation changes so it was to add additional cause to the taller blocks and provide ventilated segregation between lobbies that had an effect of removing some of the units so the unit numbers reduced by six units at that point in time those changes were driven by clearly the external fire regulations but were also motivated by our discussions with Southern Housing who were a joint applicant on that section 73 application we were in discussions with Southern Housing for the best part of 12 months with their design team and engineering team fully engaged in looking at the proposals and us working together on section 73 but owing to clearly much wider changes and systemic issues in the RP world that I think Councillor Sullivan alluded to earlier this evening Southern were not able to progress with that so we were in a position where we had the design changes that we needed in the section 73 approved which was critical for being able to take the site forward as a deliverable site so it was buildable but we then had this issue that it was even more unviable than it had previously been owing to the loss of some market housing the significant changes in build cost during that time and the originally when this application was first conceived and submitted to the borough Charlton Riverside was at the start of its journey and there were going to be placemaking benefits associated with the wider regeneration in terms of additional residential neighbourhoods being created new economic regeneration uses so there was a degree of optimism when the original planning application was made and that optimism has somewhat waned in the preceding years as unfortunately for various reasons that Riverside master plan has not yet been able to be delivered so whilst we are optimistic as is stated in the officer report that where conditions improve this scheme can be made viable and we'll be able to give back through the late stage review mechanism that will be secured in any deed of variation at this moment in time we are it's regrettable that we feel we do not have an alternative way of making this site deliverable we have looked at alternative uses internally we've looked at a lot of different options but what we have here before you is what we believe to be the best way of making this site deliverable and really kick-starting as the only residential site that is really oven ready in terms of fire regulation and planning approval we want someone to be able to deliver this in terms of conversations with RPs obviously we were discussing with RPs at the time we were discussing with southern housing and we have spoken to a colleague at Borough Greenwich New Housing New Homes team and those conversations weren't able to progress to allow for Greenwich to be delivering these units either unfortunately obviously should all these positions change we can absolutely consider all of that and we do hope that in the future some affordable housing could be delivered here and a surplus could be generated and financial return can go to the borough to deliver their own homes but as of today we have to look at the circumstances that we're in the viability position today because we want somebody to be able to deliver this site Point two David thank you very much for your answer the yeah I'm trying to reverse I think now the you said you'd been talking to registered providers there are other forms of affordable housing there's discounted market rent there's London living rent which is not seen as equivalent to social housing have you looked at those other schemes to variations in order to try to make the numbers add up have you looked at those and obviously the GLA has come up with a scheme itself what's been your wider consideration of those options so we have looked at whether different types of tenure and a rental product might work in this location and unfortunately and actually BPS note it in their report the scheme as designed is designed as a private market housing scheme because a bill to rent scheme so the other types you've talked about are effectively within a subcategory of bill to rent so discounted market rent and London living rent are all rental products so rental products of this size will generally include communal shared amenity gyms concierge service of a scheme of this scale to be able to attract any investment and to be able to rely on the rent levels that were assumed in the BPS assessment so the scheme does not have within it the space to offer up those kinds of amenities that rental residents would want in this kind of location without the loss of either residential units that would have a further impact on viability or commercial units that would have an impact on viability and the commercial floor space kind of doesn't really provide sufficient offsetting to be offered up as amenity space in a scheme so the scheme as designed is not a really designed in it as a build to rent scheme and therefore we're not asking the council to look at a different planning permission we're looking at a variation on an existing planning permission so we're looking at what we can do without redrawing up a new scheme that would almost certainly have a loss of residential units and to be honest this isn't really a build to rent location build to rent locations tend to be in very accessible locations with good transport networks they tend to have leisure amenities convenience stores because it's for a rental market who tends to be more transient and likely possibly commuting into London they're not looking necessarily to make it their base so our analysis from the wider market has been that this isn't really a suitable build to rent location and if it were to be delivered as a build to rent location there would need to be a loss in residential units and we believe that the rental levels would be lower than perhaps have been assumed in any of the alternative appraisals my final point on this is that should somebody come forward and want to deliver this as a rental scheme their financials will be assessed in exactly the same way as they would be at the late stage review mechanism so if somebody did come forward with a rental scheme and deliver a rental scheme there is nothing in the section 106 currently that would stop them doing that as we've proposed as a variation and when it came round to the review mechanism were that scheme significantly more valuable then clearly significantly more would be paid to the borough so the borough would be protected in any case depending on what type of residential product was delivered sorry I'm a bit surprised by your comment there because knowing the area I'm actually ward councillor for this area you are less than five minutes walk from Marion Wilson Park you are you are under ten minutes walk from Asda Sainsbury's Mark Suspenses and Cholton train station and literally two minutes away from numerous buses so I was surprised where you're saying it's not a suitable area for the rental market when it's quite clear it's quite appropriate because you've got amazing facilities within touching distance which actually don't need travel so I was a bit surprised there when you said it's not suitable because of certain elements but knowing the area really well it's surrounded by everything it's surrounded by convenience so I'm not sure why you made that comment about not suitable for the rental market so I think it's probably more what I mean is as a rental product so if somebody was going to build this rental product and build to rent as defined by the London plan is operated as a single unit that is most likely at this scale going to be held by an investor effectively and investors need to have a long term view and certainty of their rental income and the rent levels and therefore they tend to only invest in the areas where there are already a lot of other residential uses lots of amenities so not necessarily just convenience stores but also restaurants and places and night time economy because that's what their target market which might be younger renters in locations like this would be looking for so that's not a kind of I appreciate that's a qualitative assessment but we have looked at whether a rental scheme would work here we've talked to a build to rent developer and their reception is that the area is not quite ready for that kind of institutional product yet I can't speak for that whole sector because that's not what our expertise is in but we have looked at that and furthermore the point really is that if somebody did come and deliver this as a build to rent product and it was financially more successful that would still be captured in the section 106 so in a way the rental option and actually we've not necessarily discussed this but we'd be more than willing to have a separate review mechanism with a rental version in it so that if somebody did deliver a rental scheme you would flip to appendix X that has the rental late stage review mechanism in so we could consider having that where if somebody different did come along and want to deliver that any uplift would be able to be captured because the GLA has a separate formula for assessing build to rent schemes Dave I don't know what the chair mentioned at the beginning of the meeting and I don't know how to ask this without sounding disrespectful but who are you I mean I don't know how relevant that is but are you planning consultants are you architects are you you know is this something you're preparing and is there a client somewhere you're not the developer because you're talking about different people might develop this sorry I should have I should have no that's fine I should have introduced myself and my team at the start so my name is Phoebe Juggins I work for a company called H Group H Group is a property developer and also undertakes you know planning application work and works with partners to deliver those schemes in joint ventures so we have a number of different schemes across London residential and kind of mixed use commercial led residential schemes that have been delivered over the years so I do say this with a understanding of the economics of construction as well that on certain in certain areas in certain different locations with certain different types of schemes that might be quite large we would look to work with a joint venture partner on the actual delivery so that's when I talk about someone and other people delivering it I'm referring to kind of joint venture partners and RPs as well and then in terms of the other team I have with me Tim Gaskell who is our planning consultant and Barbara Namath who is our viability consultant from Redloft who's been working with BPS to resolve the issues on the viability just follow up just quickly my colleague earlier suggested that you know is this just basically just trying to ramp up the value of the site before you pass it on or do you actually have a plan to actually try and make this project happen we would like to make this project happen but the scale of this development puts it into the next tier of contractor so it's something where we would really need a partner to help us deliver this because of the scale of it and the kind of the financial size effectively so this is about making the scheme deliverable to anyone and the kind of the planning viability system is designed so that it is applicant neutral so the position is right whether it's me or whether it's Barclay homes from earlier or whether it's kind of anyone so we're not doing this as a kind of exercise to maximise profit we're doing this to try and get somebody to build it with us any proper comments from anyone David just just the one I should have asked this of the officers as well the GLA in their submission query the 12% professional fees and they say they should allow an allowance of no more than 10% have you looked through how you could shave some of these fees and percentages and we talked earlier about finance with the officers as well you know the percentage for that have you played around to try to really drill down to you know reduce the overall costs and without compromise equality but sort of additional costs so for the kind of typical professional fees input that has been agreed with BPS ultimately in this day and age with the introduction of the building safety act you actually need to spend more on professional fees not less because there are significant additional professionals that now form part of your professional team from REBA stage 3 so whilst we would love to not have to factor all of that in in this day and age everybody is factoring in even more on professional fees just because so much more of that work has to happen up front in your design and it's more challenging yeah please do yeah yeah I would say I mean professional fees for a new build like that normally are somewhere between 8 and 12% but obviously it's scheme specific so those professional fees for BPS have been reviewed by our QS so it's based on based on his evidence and his experience big difference between 8 and 12 when we're looking sorry for butting in there so looking at the figures that have been quoted tonight so the scheme with the affordable had a deficit of 17 million is that correct yeah forgive me I'd have to go back and have a look because that's historic I mean the notes I've written so if I'm out slightly I'm out but so what I'm looking at here I'm looking at a deficit with the affordable at 17 million but with the removal that deficit only drops down to 11 so there's 11 million deficit still without the affordable element we're looking at paying you're looking at paying 7.5% on the build cost or on the development and you're looking at an overall spend of around between 60 to 70 million on building out so we've met other developers and other people that are in construction and they're all worried they're all worried because the market the property market is not that buoyant you know the help to buy scheme has been finished by the government so you talk about investment investors being on board and I'm actually looking and thinking well how viable is this to anybody even with your scheme with no affordable there is no end game because at the moment we don't know how affordable these are going to be to normal people on the market considering there are no special incentives to first time buyers and property buyers and I think therein lies the challenge really but we are of the view that in reducing the you know removing the affordable component you de-risk that element of the proposal and with a growth in sales values so once we start to see some growth and sales values in the area and once we see costs further stabilise and come down because we are still feeling the aftershock of a number of large contractors having financial difficulty this year so a lot of estimators are cautious with build costs a lot of contractors are cautious with build costs at the moment but what we are hoping is that over the next 12 months that starts to ease off and people start to gain more confidence in this they want to deliver their you know they want to feed their pipelines and we can see some positive growth in residential sales which ultimately helps somebody think I can you know I can build these flats and somebody will want to buy them and we'll see some confidence from the contractor in the construction market in being able to take on this kind of job there is also a lot of other you know elements around fire safety that a lot of contractors are still dealing with a lot of contractors are finding their way through some of these taller developments so anything over seven stories having to go through an entirely new process that is all going to take time to bed in which is why we're here at this point hoping that and it's not an unreasonable assumption that once we've got used to some of these systemic market changes and to some of the legislative changes that somebody can make this work so there's no other questions is there so some so the other question is then would it not be better to come back with a revised scheme that is actually more of which is which is more viable because because we've just seen we've seen an applicant tonight who hasn't broken ground yet they're looking to deliver between 35 40 percent affordable and not once did they mention any problems with viability and nor of some of the other schemes that have come come before us over over the last five or six months so architects and other companies are able to come forward with viable schemes that also provide a certain amount of affordable properties so my question is looking at the figures and looking at how glum they are for investors with or without affordable wouldn't a revised scheme be of more interest to you and to investors rather than second guessing on a scheme which is not viable with or without affordable so we have looked at the scheme design we've looked at the buildability we've looked at you know any aspect we can to make it a more efficient building but ultimately in order to maintain the quality of the design in terms of maximising dual aspect units and other kind of key considerations we feel that the current scheme probably does represent the best use of that site in terms of delivering what the local planning authority wanted to and we believe still want to deliver there should the SPD dramatically change and lots of other new development be proposed in the surrounding area that dramatically changes the context that might be a different consideration but at this point in time we are trying to make a development that already has been granted planning permission more viable and more attractive and we can't really comment on the circumstances associated with other developers projects because they'll be in completely different areas with different sales values they'll have different arrangements with regard to affordable housing and grant and we just can't compare ourselves against other schemes which is why the planning viability is a helpful tool because it is comparing effectively anybody delivering that scheme with us David yeah I mean I just wanted to come back to the geography if I might because you talked about it more attractive more viable this is a scheme where people are facing a park they're very close to the Thames barrier and the Thames path I mean surely it is there's a new development which is social housing which has just been completed and no doubt there will be other developments coming on you know once the land ownership sort of challenges have been but you know is it that you want it isn't attractive I mean there are obviously industrial I mean Charlton Riverside will have industrial and you've got commercial uses there but but isn't is it that you're trying to make this I mean I can see that we need to get on and deliver things but on the other hand are you trying to improve the quality here how you know you're getting rid of the affordable but are you trying to improve the quality of the build and the materials and so forth to make it more attractive as a sort of an iconic landmark a place maker for the future of Charlton Riverside as it's right in the centre by by the Charlton Riverside Park you know is there a big change since the since the the inspector opined in terms of the build quality and so forth is there a quid pro quo that we're getting so often people will come along and they say we've got this heritage building here it's really really difficult and therefore we can't do any affordable we'd listen obviously we look at the viability and so forth but is there a quid pro quo here is there something that you're offering which means that this is a real place maker that will help speed through Charlton Riverside and make it a great community so the the design of the scheme has not changed but things like detailing materials all of that is secured by planning conditions so your planning and design offices will have control over that which when it comes down to the overall quality of a build it's often in those material samples that offices approved that that's kind of won or lost ultimately any further comments no phoebe tim barbara thank you very much members dave forget about this okay so um i'm just speaking for myself you might not you might not agree with me there might be no agreement within the room but i'll start the discussion i'm uh i've said uh previous planning board i've said it i got very impressed by developers who can actually conform to the schemes that actually work you know with the amount of uh hassle they have to go through in order to get you know a consented scheme um you know the the the the challenge that that we put up as local authorities in in the in the planning process and so on are huge and it's a major task so i do have respect for developers that um manage to come forward with schemes which uh and get them off the ground and make them happen um i also think that maybe you think we're giving you a bit of a tough time because it's not a proposition that we'd like to see in front of us but i do appreciate how well you responded and and how um straight you were with your your answers and so on i thought you performed really well uh but looking at the question that were being asked which would we resolve this i can't help thinking that uh my personal view would be it's soberly difficult to get a consent for anything particularly a challenging scheme like this the housing market is in a right state it's completely and utterly broken um everybody i speak to says it's you know it's amazing to see anything coming out of the ground currently and then we have a government that's talking about one and a half million homes uh but you know within the next sort of four or five years and in effect this experience is confirming to me what i'm rapidly appreciating is that no matter how much we desire it one and a half million homes we're going to really struggle to get anything like that um at the end of the day i think there is so much wrong with the market it is quite amazing um that anybody can actually make anything work so it's disappointing but i'm inclined to say that uh if you know if this if we were in this situation which he poses there i think i would have said let's go for it i think we i would have um inclined to say yes grant it and see i mean i think some of my colleagues have made points around um you know the market might improve costs might change there might be further negotiations with the landowner you know if if all those things work out well you know if the rsls actually come back into the market and get more competition from between rsls and so on it then then surely we would benefit from it at that point uh but if if if our skepticism is is um if if that holds that this thing isn't inviable uh it's not going to happen then then we've probably not lost anything so so i would be inclined to think i would support uh granting this if i was in that position tonight so i'm quite happy to be persuaded differently i'm like no i i am genuinely i'm just but i thought well i need to start the discussion because um i'm willing to be persuaded but that's my position at the moment i'd be glad to support this thanks david thank you uh thanks very much and i understand where uh councillor sullivan's coming from um but i i can't support this i think i may abstain um i can't support this uh particularly in the light of the gla evidence and submission uh they uh because very little weight should be given to uh red lofts fva if they've not demonstrated the scheme is deliverable in line with the requirements set out in the mayor's affordable housing and viability spg and they also as i've referred to before have several queries about the methodology used and the lack of looking at alternatives so on the one hand absolutely we do need to build out but on the other i do feel we're having a gun placed to our head you know only seven months ago they were happy to proceed all right southern may have they're not the best registered provider southern they may have pulled out but there are many other registered providers and and you know there was a conversation to be had and a few months is not really time enough to do that um and i do think another attempt could be made and i do think there are there's scope as a gla say for uh pruning uh some of the added costs and maybe for maximizing the um more more sales or looking at a mix of sales and rent um so i don't think i can support something with no affordable housing um and uh therefore i'm going to abstain thanks david maizey um thank you chair and thank you um officers for the work on this for coming um i think regardless of any other aspects of the scheme the decision to pull the affordable housing is um kind of gross i think it doesn't i think oh i certainly don't like being put in that position um i think our hands are kind of tied however and i'm mindful of this applications uh long history and i'm mindful that as a borough we can't meet our housing land supply and this scheme does increase housing stock um general generally uh so with that i will i will likely reluctantly support it um i think i'm going to abstain um yes i i just feel that our hands yes are tied and um i can't get over the fact that we you know that we need affordable houses um whether we are going to reach that 1.5 million was it that um councillor sullivan talked about the government um but i can't support it um it's difficult but i'm going to abstain thanks pat okay i'm going to put this to the vote all the all those in favor of the recommendation to grant please raise your hand all those against abstentions um i'm not i think um no it goes through on the two exactly exactly i think the council's constitution says that um that that if people abstain then it and the vote is taken on the people who vote so so it's carried although it's on the abstained so it's carried two the the two vote the two votes carry it yes the two votes then become the decision of the committee other others not voting so item seven is approved but i still think personally a new scheme would probably work out better for the investors and for the developers thank you all for coming thanks for your patience thanks thanks yes you you you you
Transcript
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. The applicants and their teams ten. On items four and five I have Dr. Michael Doe, Paul Pritchard, Bob McCurry, Carolina Ferrando. Item six, Daniel Stainsbury, Dean Bresnahan, Jane Lawley, Davinda Gander. On item seven, Tim Gaskell, Phoebe Juggins and Barbara Nameth. Item one, apologies for absence. Apologies for absence. I have received apologies from Councillor Sandra Bauer and Clare Burke McDonald for absence. I have received apologies from Lade Hepzibam Albami for lateness. Item two, urgent business. Members and public are asked to note that there have been addendums issued for items four, five and six. In regards to item four there were two addendums. These were published online yesterday and today and paper copies are available. Applicant submission was circulated to members in advance of the meeting in respect to item four and five. And members' attention are drawn to the items four and five are to be considered in the reverse order. They've been presented on the agenda in the wrong order. But the chair will go through that at the debate. Item three, declarations of interest. Can I just at this point state that I am on the scrutiny of children and young people. This is regarding item six. A scrutiny of member of children and young people. It's to do with the SEND facility. No. They haven't discussed it. Items four and five are going to be considered together because they are the same site. So item five will be considered before item four, as the clerk has said. So we are now moving on to item five and four, the Rope Yard, Royal Arsenal, Riverside, plots D and K, reference 240848R and reference number 240887NM. Andy. Thank you chair members, those in attendance in the gallery. As discussed, we'll be presenting the two applications shown on screen. And the planning board will be asked to approve the non-material amendment and then approve the reserve matters under application 240848R. And accordingly in line with the chair's advice, the non-material amendment associated with 240887NM will be presented first. This site is shown on screen. It is bounded to the west and south by the A206 or Beresford Street. The waterfront master plan plots A and B of the Royal Arsenal boardroom and the academy are located to the north and northeast. And the Royal Arsenal Riverside phase three, including the laboratory, buildings, brass foundry, and the guardhouse are located to the east. The site falls within the Warren Royal Arsenal Master Plan strategic development area and within the Woolwich Town Center overlay, within the Royal Borough of Greenwich's local development framework. The nearest water course to the site, of course, is the Thames River, which is designated a site of nature conservation. It is located 95 meters to the north of the application site. And the northern extent of the site falls within the Thames policy area. And the site is located in near proximity to heritage assets, including two grade two heritage assets located to the north and northeast of the site, which are the listed laboratory pavilions and the Royal Military Academy. The AITU is a distributed road and is considered a classified road. The site is highly accessible. It benefits from a PTAL of 6A, which is the highest rating of accessibility. This is a view of the site. In terms of public responses that were received in relation to the non-material amendment application, 30 public objections were received and are summarized in full in the officer's report and are addressed in full in that report. In terms of the planning history, the principle of the development and the general parameters for the proposed buildings were established by the outline planning permission, which was granted in 2013. And then a subsequent application amended that original outline planning permission. So the current planning permission is the more recent of those two. And the blocks that are the subject of this application are highlighted in blue in the lower image. And so these parameters were established through the outline planning permission, as is the layout of the linear park, which runs through the site. There's currently planning, temporary planning permission for Maribor Park, which you can see shown in the top image. And while there's temporary planning permission for that layout of the park, the permanent park or that linear park that I showed previously, that's the site that has the long-term outline planning permission. And the constraint I mentioned earlier was across rail tunnels. And you can see those in the bottom image running through the middle of the site. So shown on screen, the application relates to two groups of buildings, which are the D blocks to the north and the K blocks to the south. In summary, non-material amendments seek to increase the heights of buildings D1 to 4 by 3 meters, increase the heights of buildings K5 by 3.5 meters, to bring buildings K3 and K4 to a consistent height, and to remove links between the buildings D1 and 2 and D4 and 5, and to add a further separation distance between buildings D1 and D5, some minor modifications to the footprint of plot D and K3, and to remove building K1 from the master plan, to update the non-residential use classes within this scheme, to bring them in line with the use classes that have been revised under the current use class order, and to amend some of the access routes within the site. And I will touch on these changes in detail as we go through the report. So the massing changes are shown in an illustrative plan on screen. And as I said, the majority of the buildings are being increased by 3 meters, with building K5 being increased by 3.5 meters, and there were some setbacks along some of the streets, and those are being removed or reduced to bring the buildings more or less into a consistent height. And I mentioned earlier about some of the linking blocks, or linking buildings between the blocks being removed. So as can be shown on the illustrative image to the left, is the approved scheme, and on the right is the proposed development. And you can see those linking buildings are removed, so it's freeing up space along the park, reducing some of the bulk and massing of that podium level. And as I said, there's also a further cut-through that's added between buildings D1 and D5, and that creates more visual permeability towards the adjacent grade 2 listed building. And this is the approved outline planning permission layout for the park, and that's the proposed layout. It's generally, it's consistent. There's not much change. And this is just the details of those heights, just confirming that they're all generally going up by a single story. As I indicated, there's some changes to the basement level. Under the outline planning permission, the building had permission to accommodate 253 car parking spaces. The submission outlines the construction of these car parks would create a significant amount of concrete in the form of frame, slab, and ramps. And the applicant proposes to reduce the car parking and consequently reduce the amount of cement and concrete, which they advise will have a positive impact in terms of lowering embodied carbon. Therefore, the associated reserve matters application only proposes parking at a small extent of the area underneath the block and doesn't go as deep as the previous approval. And highways and TFO raise no objection in terms of the loss of car parking, though they have advised that there could be a potential increase in demand on accessible modes of transportation and to offset any negative impacts on that. The applicant has agreed to a financial contribution of 120,000 pounds towards local cycle improvements to support a scheme which TFO is in the process of designing to upgrade cycle infrastructure on Beresford Street adjacent to the site. The proposed access under the approved scheme ran adjacent to Beresford Street and then adjacent to block K is shown in the image here and then went back onto Beresford Street. The revised proposal sees it link through the park. And then you can see there was also previously there was a link through the park that went straight to these blocks. And that's now removed with traffic filtering around on New Warren Lane. It's confirmed in the reserve matters submission that this portion linking through the park, it'll only be for residents using blue badge spaces and for delivery and services. It won't be open for general public to drive through the park only for residents accessing those blue badge spaces. That's been accepted subject to relevant signage being in place through the reserve matters application. And just quickly to link back to the overall purpose of the changes. When the application was approved in 2013, it was a different context. With the emerging fire safety guidance, there's now a need for an additional stair core and lift shafts in each buildings which have resulted in the need to revise the buildings. And that's where that need to increase the heights is coming from. That's the primary driver of that change. And in the context of the changing emerging fire safety guidance, they need to facilitate the delivery of homes on the site. The changes have been assessed as non-material. And we've received advice in terms of sunlight and daylight impacts, environmental impacts from our EIA consultant in design and heritage advice, and are content that overall the changes are non-material. As I said, the commercial changes are largely to bring the use classes in line with the current use classes under the use class order. And the only change being that the new use classes now provide for gyms. And we've included a further condition to ensure there's no adverse amenity impacts on future occupiers, so there's a further sound and vibration test that the developer will need to comply with. So based on the recommended heads of terms and the conditions which are attached to this non-material amendment, officers are satisfied that the changes are non-material in the context of this regeneration. So that's the first application. And I'll move on to the reserve matters approval. So subject to the satisfactory completion of a section 106 agreement and the further conditions recommended in appendix two of the officer's report, members are requested to grant reserve matters approval for application 240848R. In terms of public responses and objections, the officer's report and addendum contains a summary of 114 consultation responses comprising 112 objections and two comments of support and a comment of partial support. And these are addressed in full in the officer's report and addendums. And additionally, ward councillors were consulted and have not raised objection to the scheme. I won't go over the planning history and site context again. The key design intentions and considerations are shown on screen, including creating two focal point buildings to the north, which are buildings D3 of the D blocks and building K5 of the K blocks, and also responding to the surrounding adjacent context, including Beresford Street to the south, the portions of the building which front the park, and the historic context to the north and northeast as we touched on earlier. A key feature of the design is the linear park between the D and K blocks, which as I touched on earlier is a feature that's carried on from the outline planning permission. The D blocks comprise a perimeter block raised on a podium garden above basement car parking. Blocks K5 to K3 form a linear composition which fronts Beresford Street to the south and a linear park to the north. And as can be seen on screen, while the building has changed somewhat at the northern extent, it's more slim line than the original outline planning permission blocks. The D blocks K5 and D3, as I touched on earlier, form a key gateway to the scheme with heights above those of the other buildings. In terms of the layout, the urban design officer hasn't raised any overall concerns. There were some minor concerns raised by both the urban design officer and the highways officer just on the extent of hard standing and loading bays here. And they transport dominated design of this portion to the north. We've secured for these specific parts of the scheme to be reviewed in more details through the submission detail stage. So overall, the layout's been found to be acceptable. The scheme has been designed to align with the revised layout and parameter plans, which were submitted under the section 96A or non-material amendment application, which has resulted in further additional floors being added to the buildings at the upper extents. But the D blocks have been further slimmed down, as I explained in the presentation, so this is just showing where those linking blocks have been removed to reduce the scale where it fronts the park and that further cut through added between buildings D5 and D1. And that softens the transition between the podium block and the park and also reduces impacts on the adjacent heritage building. Officers concur with the urban design officer's overall finding that changes to masking are acceptable. They raised some minor issues in regard to the height increases to blocks K3 and K4, which officers have found acceptable overall. And that assessment's set out in full in the officer's report. The details of the proposed materials and architecture have been found acceptable by the council's urban design officer and conservation officer and are supported by a robust materials condition considering the surrounding context, including the adjacent heritage features. And on screen is shown the different materials treatments that apply to the different blocks within the scheme. So the blocks adjacent to the heritage features have a sympathetic materials finish, which is commensurate with that environment. And the key blocks both have a sort of linked shared identity, which adds to their presence on the site. And the K3 and K4 blocks have their own identity. And a key feature of the design, which is agreed through the pre-out process, is these lobbies, which you can see from the street through to the parks. It creates a clear visual link there opening up the site. And really the intention was to celebrate those entrances to the building and make them legible on Beresford Street. And just quickly on screen, again, overall the design's been found acceptable and this is just to give an overall view of the facades as viewed from different angles across the site. There were some amendments which were in the addendum report published today. So there was a concern raised in the officer's report initially in regard to balconies overselling on Beresford Street. The design has now been resolved to avoid any overselling on Beresford Street. So this was the original design. You can see three rows of balconies here. So these two southern balconies were overselling the public highway. And as can be seen in that last image, the design's now been resolved to feature an inset balcony here, which avoids the overselling issue. And then that southern balcony has been moved off Beresford Street. And there's only a minor amount of overselling of New Warren Lane, which the highways department have advised they're happy to proceed with undertakings to agree an overselling license. And that's secured through the heads of terms. So that issue is now considered resolved. In terms of affordable housing, the section 106 requires 306 affordable housing units to be provided within the application red line. 281 of those would be provided on site, including 90, which would be affordable rent. The overall affordable housing, which is shown on screen, has been reviewed by the council's housing new supply department, and has been found to be accessible as set out in detail in the officer's report. The proposal relies on the provision of 25 offsite three bedroom socially rented units. And an agreement is being reached with the council's housing new supply team to acquire the offsite units and the 90 onsite affordably rented units in place of another registered provider to ensure the units come forward as affordable rent, which is the council's preferred tenure. The housing mix shown on screen in the same... Oh, yeah. So moving on to the housing mix. The housing mix is shown on screen. The same details have been lodged under a separate submission of details under the outline planning permission if found acceptable by the council's housing new supply team and are also recommended for approvals as part of this application. And that includes 34 onsite private three bedroom five person units and 35 onsite affordably rented three bedroom units. And then there's the additional offsite three bedroom units that I touched on earlier. In terms of the commercial provision set out in the section 96 or non-material amendment application, the proposed use classes are considered appropriate within the outline planning permissions context. The position of the units is considered beneficial to the scheme design in terms of appropriately activating the ground floor spaces and no objection has been raised to the layout by the urban design officer. And the final details of the appropriate operation of the commercial units would be controlled through the conditions on the associated 96 A application or non-material amendment and the conditions on the existing outline planning permission. So overall, the proposed non-residential units are considered acceptable. I won't go over the same assessment I said earlier, but the reduction in car parking has been found acceptable by the council's highways officer and TFL on the basis of the secured 127,000 pound contribution towards cycle improvements. And this diagram is just to show you where that reduction in basements coming. So on this lower portion shown as green is the really, that's the only extent that will be truly basement level. So it's only a partial basement and this portion of the floor is actually at ground floor level. So there's a significant reduction in basement level as previously under the outline planning permission. They would have needed to deliver almost three floors of basement car parking. And now it's only that sliver that's really within the basement level. And that's just to show that that's the extent of over sailing. So it's been significantly reduced and highways are happy to agree that through an over sailing license. And just to move on to the landscaping, the submission explains that play space is integrated throughout the park and includes a variety of experiences in terms of flat mounds and other playable features making the most of the park's topography. And there's a whole lot of the history has been woven into the design, which the applicant can touch on later. The described concept creates accessible and an accessible and playable landscape, which encourages interaction and engagement with the natural world. As shown on screen, the majority of the play space will fall within the publicly accessible sections of the park with some private provision for the D blocks provided at the podium level, which is consistent with the outline planning permission. The application red line partially falls over an existing reserve matters application, which would be partially superseded. The proposal will achieve a 62% biodiversity net gain and urban greening factor score of 0.4, which is compliant with the London plan requirements. And the tree officers found the proposed tree replacement strategy acceptable. The council's parks, estates and open spaces department have raised no objection to the proposed layout. And ask some clarifying questions about sports facilities and about protections being put in place around swales, which officers consider can be resolved through the submission to detail stage as final details of the landscaping will be required for submission under the existing conditions. And further, the application has been reviewed by the lead local flood authority in terms of the flood risk assessment that was submitted and has been found acceptable. And that's the tree replacement strategy. And in terms of the play space, overall 2,059 square meters of play space are proposed in serving a variety of age groups. And these are compliant with the London plan's minimum requirements. So overall, in conclusion, members are recommended to grant approval for the reserve matters. Subject to the completion of a deed of variation of the Section 106 agreement to address the heads of terms laid out in the officer's report. And subject to the conditions in Appendix 2 of the officer's report. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, members. Thanks, Andy. Questions for the officer. David. Thanks very much, Andy. That was very detailed, comprehensive. I just wanted to be clear that in terms of the alterations, broadly, it's just allowing for the new fire guidance and so forth with two staircases and so forth. And there's no substantial change either in terms of the proportion of affordable housing or in the mix of housing sizes compared to the extent approval. The second question is, there seems to be a huge missed opportunity not to do something about Beresford Road, Beresford Street, and the horrible 806 dual carriageway, which presents a real barrier. There doesn't seem to be any nod to ensure much better permeability with Woodwich Town Centre from that part of the Arsenal. Narrowing the eastbound side would be possible because that's not our best bus route. The westbound is a bus route. The westbound is a bus route. It clearly needs a bus lane and bus standing and so forth, but the eastbound could be narrowed, providing more. One of your slides showed new trees suddenly appearing on that section of Beresford Street, which would be lovely, but another slide didn't show them there. So I want some clarification as to whether there is tree planting on Beresford Street as part of this, which would be brilliant. And also how it fits in with the, what at the moment are quite vague proposals for the extension of the C4 cycle lane from Woolwich to Thamesmeet. Would that deal with the issue about permeability and the barrier that the road presents? So I wouldn't be very keen on having a balcony which sort of overlooked that dual carriageway. So it just strikes me, I don't know what discussions have been had with transport and TFL and so forth about making that improvement, because a big challenge we have is to improve that permeability and to reduce the barrier of that road. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Councillor Gardner. So in terms of changes, whether there's changes to the housing mix and whether there's changes to the affordable housing provision. So the main change in that regard is there's a reduction of block K1, but those units are dealt with within the increases in height. So overall, there's 25 units which are being delivered offsite, but overall the mix, say for I think two private units, the mix of onsite housing is remaining as approved. And then in terms of opportunities to improve the permeability of Beresford Street. So I understand that part of the outline planning permission was upgrading the intersection of New Warren Lane and Beresford Street. And my understanding is those upgrades have already been completed as part of this process. And then in terms of opportunities that have arisen through this current scheme, what's been secured in light of the reduction in car parking to improve access to the site and to improve active travel opportunities within the site is to contribute towards cycle improvements. And that's going to go towards that scheme that's being designed by TFO. So I think it would potentially be going beyond the remit of this scheme to try and design that section of the road, given that's a comprehensive network that's being designed by TFO. I think just to add a bit more in terms of the wider context, I think obviously the outline parameters for the, particularly for the K blocks, were always quite linear buildings along Beresford Street. But I think probably in the next few months you'll see applications for the other side of the road, where permeability will start to improve as well between Riverside House, we've got McBean Street, future developments where access from the Arsenal through into Woolwich Town Centre should be improved as well. Answer your questions, David? Yeah, it answers my question, thank you. I still would like us to see tackle that barrier of Beresford Street and the A206 generally at that point, right through between the Arsenal and the Town Centre. But this was, you know, now this is car-free, this was an opportunity to do that. So it's how we tackle that in a holistic way, I suppose. I have a word with the applicant when they come up. Pat. Thank you, Chair. Yes, thank you for your very detailed report. Can I just ask you, one of the concerns that residents have is the lack of disabled parking. And obviously, you know, sort of looking at this in front of me and the layout, that is desperately going to be needed. So what provisions, I mean, I know, I will ask the applicant, but what provisions have been made for disabled parking, please? And also, can, just to get a picture, what height of these proposed, is the highest proposed building? I'm looking at K3 and D3. What's the original height before the additional three metres? Thanks for your questions, Councillor Greenwell. So the application provides two different areas where disabled car parking bays are located. Some of them will be located in close proximity in serving the K blocks. So they'll be located on that shared surface immediately adjacent to the K blocks. So they'll be located in this area, and I think some also on the street. And that was a, there's a condition on the outline planning permission that ensures that they're provided in close walking distance. And the other ones are provided in the basement car parking area. So there's sufficient provision to meet the London plan requirements. And TFO and highways and the council's occupational therapists have reviewed that, and they're comfortable with that, and they're comfortable with that the provision is acceptable. And then the other point was in relation to the maximum heights. So just to, sorry, let me quickly. Sorry, is it K3 and D3 that look? Yes, that's right. K5 and... K5, sorry. K5 and D3. It's probably a little difficult to see on the screen there. But it's, they're both going from 17 meters each to eight, or 17 floors each to 18 floors each. So it's gone up to a floor, 17 to 18 floors. Yeah. All right. Can I just ask, because I'm looking at the surrounding buildings. What about, have we, you know, sort of daylights, loss of light and shading? Because, I mean, sort of 17 to 18 floors is going to be a lot. I mean, is, I will probably ask the applicant, but how, what has been carried out so far? What measures for the shading and the loss of light? Yeah. So that's, that's a great question. So that was, um, a key concern of officers. And we've, uh, assessed this in the non-material amendment application. It's not just based on officers assessment. It was also based on, uh, the council's expert consultants, uh, have reviewed the proposal, both in terms of our EIA consultant, and we had an independent, uh, sunlight and daylight expert, uh, review the application. Um, and we're content that, that the, uh, the, the level of change is, is minimal. You know, I'm looking at, well, I know you can't really tell, but looking at D3, that seems to be very, very close. Although the buildings behind are that height, aren't they? Um, I, okay. The rest of the questions I'll ask the applicant. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Pat. Any further questions for the officer? Maisie. Thank you very much. Um, I have two questions. Uh, one, could you, could you give a sort of comparison, um, on the green space in terms of the temporary park to the approved, um, a plan here, and then the proposed development just sort of, sort of, sort of, percentage-wise, are we seeing an increase and decrease between green, of green space between, um, yeah, the temporary park, the approved, and then the proposed. And the, the second question is about, um, the commercial units, um, with gym spaces. And you sort of said there was going to be various conditions about that for noise and vibrations traveling up the building, which is, um, welcome. Um, are those conditions that the, the developer is going to fulfill during construction of the buildings, or is those conditions that it will be on the tenant, like the gym, to fulfill if they move into the space? Um, because we've seen lots of various developments around the borough where they've got gyms under flats, so they're having to retrospectively put in insulation in, but, um, interested in about that as well. Thank you. So, in, in terms of, um, uh, comparison between, uh, the, the existing, the existing green space and, uh, the, the linear park, uh, so currently the, the linear park, uh, the, the current temporary planning permission occupies this, this area, uh, while currently this, this area to the southern extent of the site, uh, this is, has temporary approval as a car park, and this has, um, temporary approval as, as, uh, a site office for the developer, uh, so, I mean, in terms of, I, I don't know the precise square meterage, uh, the applicant may know, uh, but I would say that that, the layout of that space is, is just changing as, as a result of this scheme, and I think my, my, my key point of assessing the application is, is a consistency, uh, of the proposed layout to what was approved at the outline planning permission stages and, and noting that, that, um, existing layout is, is, is provided a benefit in terms of that area of the site not being behind hoarding or, or something of that nature while, while the scheme was coming forward. Uh, so, I mean, it is a benefit that temporary planning, uh, approval was, was granted, uh, but it was always the case that this, this, um, this layout was, was the, the permanent solution. Yeah. Any further questions for the officer? Oh, yeah, and the question about, um, whether, uh, the obligation falls on, on the developer or on, uh, on the, uh, future occupier, uh, my understanding is, is, uh, and please correct me if I'm, if I'm wrong, uh, but that it could be submitted by either. Just to come back, um, on the comparison, it, I think it is in the report and it looks like it's an exact like-for-like replacement figures are correct. So. No further questions for the officer? Andy, thank you very much. Um, I now wish to call on Dr. Michael Doe. Hi, Michael. You have two minutes. Thank you. Thank you. My name is, uh, is Michael Doe. Uh, I've lived on the Arsenal for 14 years and I'm secretary of the Residents' Association. I object in principle to this application because Barclay Homes already exercises far too much unaccountable power over the Royal Arsenal. This is a private company which ignores existing residents and delivers services and utilities in ways which prevent, deliberately, residents having any say. And as we await, hopefully, the abolition of leasehold, this exercise of a, a medieval Lord of the Manor authority surely has no place in a modern democratic society. Looking more particularly at this application, I object on three grounds which are criteria for planning applications. Firstly, the lack of community engagement. There has been no general, genuine consultation over this proposal. But instead, Barclay employed a fig leaf marketing company which set up a misleading exhibition, undertook a community survey but refused to publish the results, and organised an online consultation in which we residents were forbidden to speak, and questions that we had submitted beforehand were largely ignored. Secondly, the guidelines speak of loss of green space and the effect on the availability of essential amenities, such as parks or recreational spaces. Planning guidelines make clear that new housing must take into consideration the wider environment and the need for open spaces and recreation. Barclay built over the Riverside Park. And even before you've decided on this application, they have destroyed Marable Park. Michael, you're over your, you're over your two minutes. Do you want to get to point three? Okay. Okay. But I do want to say on that point, that this narrow strip of land, at some point in the future, is a pitiful compensation for what we have lost in terms of green space. And thirdly, thank you, sir, the increased strain on infrastructure such as schools, healthcare facilities or public services. There has been no impact assessment on what this latest influx of population, let alone what will come with the new student blocks, which you will consider in the future, will have on public services and particularly primary healthcare. This application, I submit, is simply about making profit out of housing. And the residents of the Royal Arsenal deserve better. Michael, you're in. Hold on. Stay there. Stay there. You had four minutes there, because you mentioned that you were representing the residents. So I gave you the same time as the immunity groups. Thank you. Any questions for the speaker? David. Well, thank you very much, Dr. Doe, for coming along this evening to express the views of the Residence Association. And obviously, you've raised some points that we might ask the applicants in terms of the consultation and engagement. But I just wanted to put to you, obviously, our predecessors. I don't think any of us were on the council then, approved this in 2013. And we can only, tonight, look at the changes that have been made. So we can't look at the substantial application. We're going to look at the changes made since that original approval. And that's really where, that's our scope for this evening. So are there any of the changes made in this amended application, which you particularly would highlight or object to? Notwithstanding the fact that you would object to the original application, you know, 11 years ago. But that ship has sailed, if you like. Thank you. I think my point about consultation is there have been changes, but there hasn't been any consultation about them. But my second point, responding to what you've said, is about the loss of green space. The open spaces strategy, I say this in my written objection, the open spaces strategy contained in the 2013 application, included spaces which are not here. Along the riverside, to the west of Imperial Building. It's impossible for me to give you figures because they have not been supplied to us. Only artists' impressions. Even these planning, or plans, mislead us, I think, because they show private areas of green space. Not only, not just those open to the general public. If you look at the plans we've seen tonight, this strip of land replacing Marable Park in places is hardly wider than the entrance road. Pat. Thank you, Doctor, for sort of your words that you've said this evening. Can I just ask you, first of all, the residence association, is it a very large residence association? Do you have many people in it? We are a relatively new organisation. We are growing. We hoped to be recognised by the borough, but they say that's not possible because they only recognise council tenant associations. And the latest list of subscribers this morning was 519 people. And so, obviously, a lot of those people are of the same opinion. Am I right in thinking as you are? There are serious concerns, particularly about the loss of green space. And can I just ask you, I don't know whereabouts you actually live, but do you, and I know that loss of view is not a planning sort of criteria, but do you feel that even with this extra story that's going on, that you are going to feel almost hemmed in residents who live locally, existing residents? And lose, I mean, we've been told that light surveys have been carried out. But how do you feel personally about, do you think that you will lose light and get a sort of feeling of almost being hemmed in? I certainly hear a lot of concern about the height of the buildings. I recognise that the provision of light, the criteria by which that is judged have been met. But as with the previous application between East Carriage House and Windsor Square, meeting the criteria doesn't actually fully meet the needs of people and their concerns. Michael, thank you very much. Thank you, sir. I now wish to call on the Barclay Homes team, Paul Pritchard, Bob McCurry and Carolina Ferrando. Thank you, Chair, members. If I may, I will respond or further clarify to some of the questions raised by members and then Mr. Doe and hopefully within our ten minutes summarize just as a statement overall. Councillor Gardner, as your officer reported, the reason for the increase in height was substantially as a result of meeting highest design requirements in terms of fire safety standards. And that is the reason for the additional increase in floor height, single floor height across the majority of the buildings in the scheme. Permeability. Permeability. I think the East-West permeability is more of a strategic highway matter, which we acknowledge. I understand that the proposed cycle lane out of consultation is going to come up McBean Street to touch Beresford Street and then go east. So that's as we understand the strategic position at the moment. We have made the financial contribution towards improvements to the cycle network locally, anyway, historically, and we've volunteered a further contribution. Tree planting in Beresford Street, you, I think, perceptibly did pick up that actually there is some additional tree planting within the landscape proposal for the scheme. And this is actually a product of creating greater permeability between the town centre, Woolwich town centre, and the river and the Thames path. And your officer set out earlier the linear nature of the new park, and I'll come back to qualifying the areas on that shortly. But actually, we, in omitting building K1 from the original master plan, which was a market homes building on Beresford Street, that has allowed us to bring additional areas, something like 337 square metres of linear park, to touch Beresford Street. And indeed, it's directly opposite where the council are undertaking their amenity works to Beresford Square. Councillor Greenwell, lack of disabled parking spaces, your officer has hopefully clarified the position there. Ten percent provision for blue badge spaces located in basements and dedicated on street bays in proximity to the buildings. Maximum heights, we talked about, we won't go through that. Sunlight and daylight, supported by an EIA addendum, independently verified by the council's own independent EIA consultant. And set out in detail in the report, but in terms of sunlight and daylight and the updated parameter plans, which the 96A talks to, and the single storey increase in height. In summary, those amendments to an outline permission of 2,032 homes or 17 buildings. The overall consideration is that there are three elements to consider. Vertical sky component, sky limit, no skyline, and annual probable sunlight hours. Broadly, without going through all the minutiae, in summary, both our EIA consultant, sunlight and daylight consultant, and the independent one commissioned by the council, were demonstrating improvements in those three areas or passes of 99.6%, 94.70%, and 94.5%. So, whilst the perception of the increase, you know, could be considerable, they're relatively minor in nature. We have actually reduced the massing of some of the buildings and created a greater separation distance between the proposed buildings and the existing buildings. Just moving on to Councillor Richard Cottrell's area of green space. The outline consent for the linear park established many years ago, we have, by virtue of what I was just explaining by the omission of the building, added a net 337 square metres. Doesn't sound a great deal, but we are reinforcing the quality of that park. The biodiversity gain is at 62%. The urban greening factor is 0.4%. Importantly, trees are 181 trees being replaced, or being, sorry, are to replace the existing. Those that were in the temporary park and have now been removed have either been reapplanted throughout the estate or have been gifted to a local children's hospice for their use. The gym noise attenuation, we're acutely aware of that, given pure gym and issues with residents on the OSD scheme, the overstation development scheme. Actually, this gymnasium is in direct response to residence consultation and will be a residence only gym, not a commercial gym in this instance, but it will still be strictly in accordance with noise attenuation. And then turning to Dr Doe's comments, if I may. Three areas, lack of community engagement, loss of green space, immunity, the increasing impact on social infrastructure. I would like to point out that, actually, there's no formally recognised Residence Association at Royal Arts at the moment. It's been something we've been trying to encourage and support. Individual groups of people do convene. They do represent different areas. But at this moment, it's not a formally recognised Residence Association, although we do embrace that and hear the voice of residents. Mr Doe also attended two of the consultation events. We explicitly responded on three occasions to 16 separate questions, both before those events and post those events. So we have been genuinely trying to communicate the proposals. I've touched upon the loss of green space. Actually, the linear park running over the railway tunnels was almost a direct swap for the former strategic land that sat on the riverside. So that was a separate transaction many, many years ago. And we are improving both the extent, only slightly in terms of the area, but the quality of the space being delivered and making it more connectable to the town centre. And then in terms of increasing social infrastructure, finally, Barclays contributed some £13 million in Section 1-6 payments towards the impact of this scheme. Six million of which was paid last year. So that's the balance. But in partnership, we funded and constructed the Crossrail station box to deliver the station. We've provided listed buildings for which works. We've delivered 12 acres of open space, including refurbishing the one kilometre of the river path. We've brought back 23 listed buildings, originally funded the Thames Clipper, started the National Cycle Route 1 through the site. And we're currently working to find a nursery provider on site because we recognise there's a deficiency of day nursery provision. And we have been in discussion with the existing medical centre on Royal Arsenal, and potentially have an ability to expand that through relocating the pharmacy to another part of the site in the future. So I hope that addresses those questions. And if I may, Chair, I will finish off by saying your case officer, thank you. We have very clearly presented these application proposals for the final phase at Royal Arsenal. We hope these continue to reinforce the placemaking, the social and the economic benefits that the regeneration of the former munitions work has delivered for Woolwich. We have importantly sought to clarify or address the concerns raised through public consultation. And then in summary, we are therefore proposing 688 high quality sustainable homes, including the 306 affordable homes with a high percentage of a family accommodation. Landmark buildings of high architectural quality sympathetic to adjacent conservation areas. Delivery of four new flexible and sustainable commercial premises. The overall reduction in car parking provision. We actually have omitted a basement from the outline scheme, a whole basement. That's a reduction of 144 parking spaces. In favour of more sustainable travel in a location extremely well served by public transport. And then the reprovision of an enhanced linear park, as we've been discussing. Improving the connectivity from the town centre to the river. And if, Chair, your board is minded to approve these applications proposals this evening, your decision will enable us to deliver the affordable rent homes in buildings K3 and 4 first. And deliver this final phase at Royal Arsenal over the coming years. Thank you. Thanks, Paul. Questions? Pat. Thank you, Chair. Can I just ask you, I'm looking at the diagram. I'm looking at D3, which seems very, very, I mean, I know that you can't tell on diagrams, but it's very close to the other buildings. What actually is the distance? Between D3 and Judd House, which is the most immediate, they're both 18 storeys. Yeah. And the distance is 18.8 metres. Right metres. So, that is 20 centimetres less than the consented scheme. So, it's marginally closer. Okay. In all other instances, Council Greenwell, we have increased the separation distance between the buildings, the proposed buildings and the existing buildings, by up to two metres in some instances. And the other question, can I just ask you, what, you've removed the links between D3 and D4. What were, what were they before, when you say links, what do you actually mean by links? And links? They've been removed now, haven't they? They have indeed. Yes. So, you had a podium, which accommodated parking, which sat above a basement. The podium sat in grade. Above the podium, there were gardens. And then you had the three lines of buildings vertically. They were each linked by either north or south, either apartments or houses. And we felt that that wasn't an appropriate solution in design terms, basically because they would be seriously overlooked. And they created a significant barrier to the Duke of Wellington Avenue to the north and to the park to the south. So, beneficial in terms of creating more dual aspect homes, because you get the corners of each of the D blocks, opening up the podium environment, improve sunlight and daylight, and general amenity, including slightly additional amenity podium space. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Dave Salomon. Dave Godwin. Just on one of your latter points about the affordable housing element. I mean, the quantum and the mix is quite impressive. Are you confident that you can deliver, or do you have partnerships in place with the social landlords or not? I mean, I've been at various things in the last few weeks. And the atmosphere is very negative vis-à-vis. The Senate is actually 106. You've got affordable housing elements, and most of the RSLs seem to be down tools. What's your status? Indeed. You're attuned to the market, I would say. We do still have registered providers that are interested in our portfolio of projects across the site. We do remain extremely confident that, given the mix of accommodation here and the ten-year split, and importantly, these 115 affordable rent homes we will have interest in. Indeed, we have heads of terms agreed to enable the council to acquire these properties both here and at Kidbrook as necessary, which we hope we can bring forward. David? Thank you. David? Thank you. That's good news. But obviously not a planning consideration this evening. It's not. So, I just wanted to come back, sorry about this, come back to the trees. Because you said in your response that, yes, there would be trees in Beresford Street, which would be great. And just wanted you to confirm that that is part of the application, putting trees in the central carriageway in Beresford Street, which would be tremendous, I think, to do that. And just another question, if I might, you were a bit, and this reminds me a bit of Night Dragon in my ward and their sort of general attitude to residence groups. Sorry, I shouldn't say that really, but you were a bit dismissive of the Residence Association, saying it hadn't been 500 people and so forth. It sounds a reasonable group. I mean, why hasn't there been any dialogue with that group? And wouldn't it, you know, in terms of future plans and development, doesn't it make sense to have that sort of relationship? Have you looked at, you know, obviously under the Commonwealth and Leaseholder Reform Act, resident management companies and so forth? Obviously, it's a large area, so there might be more than one RMC. But you do need that sort of, if to be a sustainable community, you need that civic capacity. And actually, a bit of challenge, a bit of criticism is not necessarily a bad thing. Understood. Thank you. Addressing the trees, I don't think I was explicit in saying there were trees in the central reservation. I said, I believe I said, that the trees would be on Beresford Street, where we bring the park to touch Beresford Street. So, unfortunately, yes, that's not something we can deliver on the highway network. And apologies if it came across as being dismissive, certainly to Mr Doe here. We are certainly not dismissive of residence associations. I think I was simply pointing out that it's not a formally recognised resident association currently. We do have a Wormsley residence group and other groups. And I think they are trying to coalesce to create, you know, a single voice. And we very much embrace and welcome a recognised group, which we do consult with and our managing agents consult with regularly. When you say recognised group, recognised by whom? Because obviously an RMC is very different, but recognised by whom for what purpose? Yes. I believe there's a formal process of registering. Under the Commonwealth Leasehold Reform Act, but this is a residence association. Yes. So, on the Greenwich Menelenium Village, for example, we have a resident management company. But at the same time, there's a residence association, which they're very different. The residence association brings communities together, represents a community. The RMC manages the estate and the buildings and so forth. Yes. Very different purposes. And the GMVRA doesn't need any recognition. It just obviously liaises with the developer and others as relevant. Whereas the RMC just, you know, has a statutory role, as it were. Yes. So, I think the issue is, as Mr. Doe points out, that it is a growing body of people. That are trying to acknowledge, you know, their presence amongst different areas of the group. I mean, they have been consulted. Not just by the residence management company and our managing agents. But in the consultation, I think some order of 3,600 letters were issued during the consultation events. So, yes. So, yes. So, don't intend to be dismissive there and embrace the residence groups going forward, certainly. Any further questions? I've got one. So, picking up on a comment made by Mr. Doe and on some other residents on previous applications. I just have a cheeky question here. Is there a gagging order within your occupancy agreements that prohibits residents from commenting or objecting to applications? Okay. Residents' voices can be heard and made at consultation. There are controls within the residential leases that do ask that residents don't make formal objections to our planning applications. Thanks, Paul. Would you, I mean, I've never heard of that before. That's remarkable. That actually is an attack on democracy. Would you consider in this new application not making that, you know, if we give approval this evening, you know, not putting that stipulation into any future leases? We certainly could, and it's something we don't enforce ever. A tap on free speech is basically a right, surely? No, we don't ever enforce that. It has been in our leases for a number of years. But we would never enforce that, and we believe in the right to free speech. So, as Councillor Gardner said, is that something that could possibly be removed from future leases? I'd have to take that Barclay Group legal, yes, but potentially. Absolutely. Thanks, Paul. Any further questions? No? Paul? Thank you very much. Members, we're going to go into deliberation now. Remember, we are voting on Item 5 first, and then Item 4 second. David? Well, thank you, Chair, and thank the applicant and Dr Doe and the officer for the work that's been done on this. Clearly, we have the extant approval, and we're just looking at the changes, which strike me as necessary due to the change in building regulations after Grenfell and so forth. And I'm very pleased about the move towards a car-free development. Previously, the times were a bit different, but they agreed far too many car parking spaces. I'm pleased about the support for the cycle scheme, and I'm very pleased that we've got the level of affordable housing that we have. And I would thank you very much for maintaining that despite the financial pressures that all developers are under. I think there are things at the edges. I would like to see some changes and improvements, but that's not a factor of the new, the amended application. So I'm very happy to support this. I'd also like to say, Chair, that I like the design. I don't like the, and these things are always subjective, I don't like the blocks next to it in Birdcage Walk that have a rather metallic look to it. I don't like those, but these, I thought some real thought had been put into the design and the brickwork and so forth, and the colouring, and that to me looked good and I think will be an enhancement actually to the Arsenal and Woolwich as a whole. Thank you. Thanks, David. Any further comments? Pat? Yes, I'm quite happy with this. I think that the removal of the link is an advantage. It's far better. I know that originally, you know, we have passed for this 18 storeys, is it building, 18 storeys, and we can't do anything about that. But it is obviously necessary, like Councillor Gardner has said, that you have that extra storage, storage, sorry, for fire precautions, and we do need housing. So, yes, I will be supporting this application. Well, yes. Thanks, Pat. Any further comments? Okay. So, we are now voting on item 5, which is reference 240887. All those in favour of the officer's recommendation, please raise your hand. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. And we now vote on item 4, reference 240848R. All those in favour of the officer's recommendation, please raise your hand. Both items are approved. We now move on to item 6, the Environmental Curriculum Service, 77 Bexley Road, Eltham, London, SE92PE, reference 242296F. Beth, standing in for Joe. Okay. Thank you, Chair. Yes. So, the board has requested full planning permission be granted for the demolition of the existing structures on site, construction of a building comprising Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Transition Learning Centre, use class F1A, together with outbuildings, covered structures, covered structures, hard and soft landscaping, and including a new minibus drop-off bay, and that's subject to completion of a director's agreement and conditions. The application site is council-owned and comprised in a regular shaped plot located on the north side of Bexley Road, to the east of Eltham, town centre, and to the west of Avery Hill. Vehicle and pedestrian access to the site is provided by private access from Bexley Road, which runs along the southern boundary of the site, and gravel pit lane skirts the northern boundary. In terms of land use designations, the site is in metropolitan open land, a site of importance for nature conservation, an area of special character, and is part of the south-east London green chain. The site has a PTAL of 2, indicating a low level of accessibility by public transport, and it is accessible by bus routes along Bexley Road. The site was formally known as the Eltham Environment Centre, which provided outdoor learning and sensory educational and therapy services for children and adults with learning disabilities, as well as autism spectrum disorders, which formed part of the borough's special educational needs and disability provision. The site ceased operation in 2018. This is just another view of the site looking eastwards. So here's some photos of the buildings. I believe these were taken probably a couple of years ago, so the state of the buildings has deteriorated since then. And it's understood that they aren't suitable for refurbishment. Here's just some more photos around the site. So the application was subject to statutory consultation. Two letters of support were received, one of those from Children's Services and the other from the South Greenwich Forum. No objections have been received from any local residents. And comments raising no objections were also received from the GLA, the Council's Planning Policy Team, and the Council's Independent Ecology Consultant. So the site is currently occupied by one large building and approximately nine smaller outbuildings. These equate to a total gross area of 984 square metres. The proposal seeks to demolish all of these buildings and consolidate them in one larger building. However, it would only represent a 23% increase in building coverage across the site. So the proposed Transition Learning Centre seeks to provide teaching and learning facilities for young SEND adults. The facility would provide some services similar to the original Environment Centre on the site, including outdoor sensory learning experiences, horticulture, and other skills-based training to support positive mental health outcomes. As well as learning objectives to achieve the wider aim of supporting young adults in developing their independent learning and living skills. The nature of this use would be educational and therefore falls within the existing use of the site. The new facility would serve 30 students and up to a total of 45 support staff and visitors. Within the site, there are 10 car parking spaces proposed, which includes two accessible parking bays, six minibus drop-off and pick-up bays, as well as 16 covered cycle spaces. This is just a tracking diagram which shows the entrance is going to be widened on Bexley Road to allow two-way traffic in and out. So you can see there, cars going in, cars going out, can both access that. The proposal comprises a single-storey building with a total floor space of 1,200 square metres. It would be 58 metres in length, 23 metres in width and 4 metres in height, and which would not exceed the height of the existing structures on site. The external façade would be wrapped with timber frame glass curtain wall system and insulated panels with vertical timber battens. Set within the curtain walling would be aluminium framed windows and doors, and colour-matched louvers above the curtain walling would be white. Sorry, there would be a white-coloured parapet with a continuous canopy. The flat roof would support a green roof and photovoltaic panels. The proposed facility would contain an octagonal internal courtyard, and the interior layout would comprise classrooms, workshop spaces, sensory learning rooms, as well as a kitchen and dining hall. There's no on-site sleeping accommodation, and it's a non-residential institution. However, there is a mock residential flat to be provided in the north-east corner to facilitate life-skill coaching. So, as I've already touched on, the existing access onto the site via Bexley Road is to be widened by 6 metres to allow for two-way traffic, and the new entrance gates and stone pillars here are shown in this drawing, this photo. The proposed building would remain well-screened from views from Bexley Road, as well as from the wider MOL, due to retention of the existing trees along the boundary of the site. And this is just another image. You can see it, the building, just there. In terms of sustainability measures, the new building would be BREAM excellent, be carbon neutral through the use of air source heat pumps and PV panels. It would also include a green roof, replacement tree planting for the trees lost through the construction of the building, and the associated hard and soft landscaping. So, in summary, the proposed redevelopment of the site to provide a new transitional learning centre is considered to be acceptable, and would make a significant positive contribution to the Royal Borough of Granite special educational needs and disabilities facilities for young people, addressing the existing shortfall of this provision within the borough. The site is previously developed land, and the proposal would not have a greater impact on the openness of the MOL. The proposal would therefore meet the exception to inappropriate development, which is the test outlined in the MPPF. Furthermore, the borough lacks adequate facilities for the provision of education for young people aged 19 plus, necessitating young people with special educational needs and disabilities to currently be referred out of borough. The new facility at Bexley Road would enable the borough to meet its statutory obligations to provide this facility for students within the borough, thereby reducing unnecessary travel time for students and the financial burden to the Council in providing this transport. It is recommended that the development be approved, subject to conditions and the director's agreement. Thanks, Beth. Questions? Thank you very much for your presentation. My concerns are basically to do with traffic management, my only concerns. We're told that this will open at 8.30 in the morning. I know this well. It's my ward, and I know the road extremely well. And Bexley Road at 8.30 in the morning is an absolute nightmare. And you've got Cranwood School, you have, there are bollards all along the road. People, there is sort of lit time, CPZ parking, but there's no where people can park. It is an issue, a big issue. So I would like to know the entrance. You say that it is going to be, did you say it's going to be widened by six metres? Or how, or widened to, how wide is that entrance going to be, the new entrance, when you say widened by six metres? I don't have the details of how wide it is currently, but I believe it's been widened by six metres. But as you can see here on this diagram, this is the tracking for two, for a large car, essentially. So the large car can come in, and one can go out at the same time. Right, but am I right also in thinking that there is a, it's going to be gated? The entrance, I've read that it's going to be gated. Save that for the applicant. Yeah, I'm not sure it is. Right, okay, because if it is going to be gated, I'm concerned about how far off the highway is the gate going to be? And obviously, if you've got one vehicle waiting to get in, in that entrance off the highway, and it's gated, and then you've got another, because you've got minibuses and cars, you can't, that road will not take a vehicle actually stopping on the main road. It's, it's just, there would be an accident. And also, it's, it's very, very near. I would like to know where the, perhaps the applicant, the crossing, the zebra crossing, very close, that's going to be moved. Do we know any more about that? So I think it's just also worth bearing in mind the previous use of the site as well. This site has less parking than the previous use. It's only for 30 students, and my understanding is the majority of them will be brought in by minibus. So there shouldn't be a lot of cars kind of queuing to get in and out of the site. Yes, but the only thing is that there also, and I know they won't all be there together, but I think there are going to be up to 45 workers, care workers there for these young adults. And, you know, if they have cars, but also I've read where I think that there's space for 10 car club cars as well. It's just 10, 10 spaces. Is it just 10? Yeah. So that 10 car club. But yeah, I mean, I just would like reassurance, really, about the, perhaps if I ask the applicant. I mean, I can say that our highways team have reviewed this, and they haven't raised any concerns about the access into the site. And as I say, it is a significant improvement upon the existing situation. Beth, do you want to go back to the illustration that shows the brick posts on the road? And then you can see what's there already. And then, so that's what it looks like at the moment. Yeah. And that's going to be widened. That's going to be widened by another six meters. So that'll be- No, I think that's the proposed one. Is it? Yeah. So that is with it widened. Sorry. It's very close to the crossing. It's just, if for any reason a vehicle had to stop on that main road at half per state in the morning, there could be easily be an accident. That's, I would like more information about the plan. I'll ask the applicant if it's going to be gated. Because if it's going to be gated, there is going to be a problem. If it's not gated, then that's okay. Okay. And sort of, is there also the actual waste services have said that they're concerned about the sweep, whether or not they can do a complete turn? Because they've got, they will have to come out forward. Yeah. They can't reverse out onto that road. There's a turning circle in the grounds, isn't there? But I think that it concerns the waste services that the sweep wasn't large enough for them to turn. This is the swept path for a refuse vehicle. So, obviously, it's significantly larger than a car. When the refuse vehicle is coming in, nothing else can come out. So, the entrance is only wide enough for a single entrance or exit if the refuse vehicle is going in. But the tracking shows that it will go in through the site, up here, up to this corner, and then it will have to reverse around here and then back down here and then back out. So, obviously, the refuse vehicle will be timed to not turn up at the same time as the students are coming in. In the morning, it will drop off and pick up, and it will likely be once a week. Where it's going to reverse, is that sort of anywhere near any of the buildings? Well, the entrance to the building is here. Yeah. So, no. Essentially, it's right up at the top end of the site. Any further questions for the officer? David? You know, thank you very much. I take a different view, actually, from Pat, from Councillor Greenwell, in terms of I would rather there was not such a wide entrance, but if that's necessary, that's necessary. But my question is, the biodiversity net gain is only 7 point something percent, whereas, obviously, the statutory minimum is 10 percent. Can we get to that 10 percent by reducing the amount of hard standing and planting out the hard standing? Because that's why it's a special character, because of the biodiversity there. And it would be nice to get to that 10 percent gain. My second point, then, is around the... So, there did seem to be a lot of tarmac, so I wonder whether we could take some out or green some of the tarmac. My second point, in terms of public transport accessibility, there's actually only a quarter of an hour walk from Falconwood Station. But I wondered, is there an entrance from Gravel Pit Lane, that track, which leads directly to Falconwood Station, to the back? Or do you have to walk all the way around? Or could there be an entrance put in? So, it's easy, particularly for staff. I appreciate that the adults with disabilities might find that difficult, particularly for staff and visitors and so forth. They can just walk direct from Falconwood Station in the most direct route, rather than go all the way around to the main road and then back up again. On the second point, I'm not actually sure whether you can... I don't believe you can get in through the top end of that site, but hopefully the applicant's team can advise a little bit further on that. In terms of the biodiversity net gain, it's been a challenging site. Because of the existing ecology on the site, the existing trees, there has been a necessary loss of some of the trees, 100 trees, essentially. They are going to be replaced, but they won't be replaced at the same biodiversity value because of the value that they go in at. And if you look at... It's a slightly strange way the metric works. So, there's a 5.3% gain in habitat in... I think that's only in trees. But there's a 900... Sorry, 9,000% gain in hedgerow units. It's all very complicated. But they will... The developer does have to get to 10%. That is an absolute minimum requirement. And that will be submitted through something called the Biodiversity Gain Plan once Planning Commission is granted. Now, it seems unlikely that they will be able to achieve that on site. I think they have done everything they can to date to get it on site. And, obviously, they need certain hard-standing areas for turning and the provision of the minibus spaces and the car parking. The way that the developer will get to the 10% will either be through off-site delivery or through purchasing of statutory credits. Any further questions? No. Thank you very much. I now wish to call on the team. Matthew Hoffman, Daniel Stainsbury, Dean Bresnahan, Jane Lawley, Davinda Gander. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Firstly, I'd like to address Councillor Pat Greenwood's questions. To the first one, is it going to be gated? Yes, there is a gate proposed on the site. However, it has been calculated and analysed to be inset to an appropriate amount to allow even large refuse trucks to, while there's traffic, wait in there for the gate to be operated by someone inside the site. And the parking for the 45 workers, which is your second question, is that they will be encouraged to cycle in with the provision of cycle stores, as well as an accessibility from the Bexley Road itself, not via car. And the students will be encouraged and advised to use minibuses to access the site. And if they do park there, their parking will be temporary and their drivers will most likely leave. To address your other point of the width of the entrance, it is being increased by six metres, or to six metres, whichever will accommodate the double flow of traffic to allow ingress and egress at the same time. And for your waste collection questions, there are the turning circles, firstly at the top and secondly at the bottom, which is where the waste collection is. There's the store of bins down there, which is available to see on the plans. So they will be able to enter the site forwards and leave out the gate without having to reverse at any point outside of the site. And the impact on the traffic should be relatively minimal, as there will be provisions to service the students getting to the site without them taking their independent vehicles, unless, of course, they have special requirements to do so. If I can just, what my concern is, that yes, you're saying that it's gated and there'll be some kind of intercom system. But what if, for any reason, because that road, this is, it's just safety. I'm thinking safety here. That is a very, very busy road. Very busy. Very busy. Very near a crossing, simple crossing. And also, you have got poles all the way down both sides of the road, so nobody can stop. And I suppose what I'm thinking is, say there's a minibus waiting to get in, and another minibus arrives early, so you've got two minibuses. Is there going to be sufficient room for, say, the second minibus to pull off the main road? Does that make sense? Am I making sense? I think, Matthew, are they automated gates? It's not like someone's got to come and open the gate, someone drives in. It's going to be an automated system. So there's a school management plan that will dictate when they're allowed to arrive. And there will be a degree of automation to the gates. But for primary control of it, there will be a person within the school centre itself controlling. There will be an intercom system. So if there is someone waiting at the gate, they will be allowed in if they have the relevant requirements to get in, be it ferrying students in or outside educators or whatever they may need for access to the site. So, I don't know, I think this is for you, Sue. Obviously, we've got that it's an 8.30 start, which is when that road is busiest. And with Crown Woods, and because of all the bollards and everything, the parents, unfortunately, from Crown Woods just drop the children anywhere and make it dangerous. So I don't know whether there's a possibility that the times could be changed or there could be at various intervals. Do you think that would be a possibility? I was just going to... A staggered sort of morning start? So I was going to add to what Matthew has said in that he's right, it will be a school management plan. And ultimately, in the peak periods of drop off and collection, they'll probably end up leaving the gates open. And then have staff managing the gates, managing the entrance. So vehicles will come straight off the road, straight onto the site, out of the way immediately. Yeah. And as we said, the number of pupils at the school will be very low compared to Crown Woods. And we'll be coming in by minibus, so there'll be minimal vehicle movements. So what you're saying is that although it's gated, there's a strong possibility that that may be open? So most special schools at the points of drop off and pick up have the gates open and let the vehicles come and go and then keep the children away from the vehicles at that time. Brilliant. Yeah, I don't think they'll have them closed during those peak periods. They're really to be closed during the day for safeguarding purposes. And one other question that I've got, and I think back to consultations that you had previously. There was some talk of contaminated soil on site. Has that now been dealt with? Please. We know where it is. It's all been analysed and it will be dealt with during the construction process and the land will be remediated. We know where it is. It's been surveyed. We understand what the ground makeup is and it will be dealt with during the construction process. So as the buildings are demolished, that piece of land will be removed, the contamination will be removed and dealt with during the construction phase. So it hasn't been dealt with yet. It will be dealt with during construction. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The same question as to the officer. The gravel pit lane, if you could cut through the back, it would be a much shorter walk to Falconwood Station, which is much closer than Eltham Station. That would be a very good, it's a way I get to the crematorium and so forth. But that would be a much quicker way to get to the site, particularly for staff, but also on transport and modal splits and so forth. Most adults with disabilities that have had transport training and so forth, so those that were physically able presumably could come by by bus if they had the capacity to do so and they've had that training and things. They wouldn't all come by minibus, I assume. So yes, there is provision for them to arrive by bus or any other means of transportation. However, there is no current provision for access through gravel pit lane. The only entrances are the main vehicle entrance on the Bexley Road and the pedestrian slash cycle access further down from the entrance. And just to add the question that Councillor Gardner raised about the young adults. Yes, some of them will have had independent travel training and they would be encouraged to arrive independently if they're able. But there are some young people that will have attended Charlton Park Academy and Willowdean School that would have significant complex learning and physical needs that would rely on send transport. And just to follow through, Chair, is it possible for you to look at an access point from gravel pit lane? Because it comes, it's right next to the site, isn't it? I don't believe that that area is within our scope of services. I believe it falls under the highways permission. So if they want to propose anything there, I think it would be within their scope to provide that. We'll take that question away, Councillor Gardner, and look at it. I think there's some challenges around levels from my understanding of the site. But we'll certainly take it away and have a look at it and see if there's a possibility to do that. Also, the other slight concern we have is that sort of western boundary of the site is where the vehicles will be coming and going. So we just need to think about kind of safeguarding. But if it's possible, we'll take a look at it and see if it's doable. Any further questions? Can I just say that you will sort of, in future, once it opens, will you check the, you know, what I've just referred to because of the safety issues, the viability of having a staggered start and, you know, make sure that the gate is open that there is not going to be any chance of any traffic actually stopping on that main Bexley Road. Yes, that is part of the traffic management plan and will be included within that. Thank you. Just a quick one. When would you expect this project to be completed? So we haven't gone out to tender yet. So as we all know, that's got the opportunity for change. But we're targeting in a moment of the academic year beginning in September 2026. I've been on site a number of occasions. I was part of the working group that went back in, what, 2019, 2020. I met the groundsman on site and there were quite a large amount of exotic plants and trees. Have any of those been salvaged and will they be part of the landscaping that is being put before us? I believe at this point we've went through the landscape plan a number of times and the retained trees and the removed trees and I believe they are part of the removed scheme. So because they're not native planting, they don't offer as great addition to biodiversity net gain as natural planting does, as well as the concerns around contamination. I think some of those trees have been there like 30 odd years and actually did make a good contribution to the overall site. Following up my next question, has that site been subdivided now because the site that I visited was twice as big and the boundary went right up to Crownwood School? Looking at the red outline of this proposal, it looks like the site has been split in two now? Yeah, that's right. So the demise for the SEND facility is in the location of the former White Horizons building. The site will be split. The balance of the site to the east between the new building and Crownwood School, still owned by the Council, and we're actively dealing with that through a separate process. It's not part of this application. Okay, thanks. Any further questions from anyone? Just one question. Can I just ask you, going back, what will the view be from Bexley Road? Please. I think the officer had an image, which looks like you're skipping to. In essence, from Bexley Road, there's quite a lot of hedgerows, which will remain. So you won't actually see, there's the image on the screen there. You won't see much of it from Bexley Road. Thank you. Okay. No further questions? Jane, Daniel, Matthew, thank you very much. Members, open for deliberation. Pat. Thank you, Chair. I am more than happy with what I've heard. My only concerns were about safety, and I'm happy and I'm sure that, yes, sort of if there are any issues that hopefully they will be dealt with. We need to bring our children. I could get quite emotional about this. We need to bring our children that are out of Borough, back into Borough. Our secondary education, you know, sort of our children, special needs children need, they need to know this is going to provide an area where they can be readjusted. Children from 16, so I think it's 25, young adults, where they can be adjusted into living sort of as independently as they can and where they will learn all kinds of different skills. And it's an ideal setting off the main road, surrounded by trees, lovely building, and I'm quite happy with it. We need to bring our SEND children back. And I know that from previous consultations that have been held in the Eltham Centre, from the amount of people who came along with concerns, children who had, sorry, adults who had children with special educational needs, there is a massive demand for SEND facilities. Thank you. And I will be supporting this. Thank you. Thanks, Pat. Any further comments? No? Okay. All those, I'm going to put this to the vote now. All those in favour of the officer's recommendation, please raise your hand. Item six is approved. Do you want to check for a quick five-minute break before we go into item seven? Okay. We'll adjourn for ten minutes. We all good? Yep. We are okay over here. Jonathan, we're okay? Yeah. Clear. We now move on to item seven, land at numbers six, 61 and 81, and two. Item 7, land at numbers 6, 61 and 81, Cooper's Yard, Eastmore Street, and numbers 6 and 10, Westmore Street, Charlton, London SE 7, 8LX, reference 241709MA. Jonathan. Thank you, Chair. The application before members tonight was submitted under Section 73 of the Town and Country Planning Act. However, the Council did not determine the scheme within the required time period, and the applicant has now lodged an appeal for non-determination. Members are advised that due to the appeal, the Planning Board is unable to make a formal decision on the application. Nevertheless, the Board is required to indicate the decision it would have made had Council determined the application prior to the appeal. The recommendation itself would be submitted to the Planning Inspectorate for their consideration. The site itself, as indicated in red on screen, is a rectangular plot bordered by Murfield Street to the north, Eastmore Street to the east, and Westmore Street to the west. As detailed in the Planning Board report, the original scheme was refused by members in 2021, but was subsequently appealed by the applicant and allowed following a public inquiry. A subsequent Section 73 application was submitted to amend the appeal scheme to modify the internal arrangement by adding a second stair core to align with future fire regulations. These changes resulted in a total of 182 residential units, resulting in a total of 182 residential units. Affordable housing was retained under that scheme. The application was resolved to grant by this Planning Board on 5 December 23, and granted planning permission on 30 April 24, following the completion of the Section 106 agreement. In terms of the proposals under this application, the primary amendment relates to the residential tenure. The approved scheme included 56 affordable homes, which equates to 36% by habitable room. The remaining 126 units were designated as open market sale. The applicant details that changes in economic conditions since that appeal scheme necessitates the removal of the affordable housing component. However, it's important to note that both previous applications were already in deficit, even with the inclusion of affordable housing. In reality, neither scheme was technically viable from the outset. While economic conditions may have deteriorated further, the overall viability position and conclusion have not significantly changed. Whilst no physical changes are proposed to the scheme, the applicant has also submitted additional reports which update those which were approved in the approved scheme. These include a circular economy statement, life cycle carbon assessment and preliminary ecological appraisal. In terms of the principle development, this was established through the approved appeal scheme, which highlighted the borough's significant housing supply shortfall, which is at now 2.46 years. The shortfall supports the proposal, even though affordable housing is not included due to the viability constraints. Greenwich has underperformed in housing delivery, meeting only 74% of its housing target over the past three years, further supporting the need for market housing. Under MPPF paragraph 11D, the presumption in favour of sustainable development applies due to the housing supply deficit. The proposal will deliver 182 market sale units, directly addressing the borough's housing shortfall. While the scheme does not currently provide affordable housing, it remains compliant with viability and future contributions are possible if market conditions improve. The applicant's financial viability assessment demonstrates that the proposed scheme cannot support any affordable housing due to financial deficit, with a negative residual value of $11.3 million as confirmed by Council's independent reviewers. While disappointing, the Council acknowledges that this aligns with London Plan Policy H5 and in policy terms is considered to be policy compliant. It is relevant to note that the previous schemes also face viability deficits, and the updated economic conditions have exacerbated these challenges. Key points to note is that the proposal removes the 56 affordable units, citing increased construction costs and reduced interest from registered providers. Despite this, the applicant has retained all other secured contributions. External reviews by Council's experts and GLA confirm the scheme is unviable for affordable housing, while minor disagreements on inputs remain, for example, land value and finance rates, all parties agree that the scheme faces significant deficits. The Council considered an alternative build-to-rent scheme, as well as suggesting to the applicant that they consider other intermediate tenures, like discount market rent and London living rent, to deliver affordable housing. However, these were not pursued by the applicant, citing site-specific constraints and viability challenges. However, these adjusted schemes were considered by the GLA and our external viability consultants, and these still showed losses, even though slightly less severe. Early and late stage reviews will still be secured through a deed of variation. If viability improves over the development lifecycle, contributions towards affordable housing may be reintroduced either on sidewall as a cash-in-lieu payment. The Section 73 application proposes amendments to the energy, sustainability and ecological strategies, as well as a deed of variation to reduce affordable housing provision. No concern is raised with the amendments to the technical strategies. In considering the planning balance, it's relevant to note that the Inspector previously gave significant weight to both affordable housing and market housing delivery. Since that appeal, as previously mentioned, the Council's deliverable housing supply has deteriorated further from 3.15 years at the appeal to 2.46 years, making the need for new housing even more pressing. Although the absence of affordable housing falls below the appeal scheme and policy requirements, it is accepted that the scheme, in its current form, cannot viably include affordable housing. Given the borough's critical housing needs, officers have given significant weight to the delivery of market housing, even while recognising the shortcomings of this proposal. It is relevant to note that the non-provision of affordable housing does not weigh against the scheme in the balance, as it's simply policy compliant. And all other benefits that were considered in the appeal scheme remain unaltered. Turning to the scheme harms, as noted in the appeal scheme, the Inspector identified that the proposal would have no more than limited adverse effect on the character and appearance of the surrounding area, less than substantial harm to the significance of the conservation area, and very limited harm to the setting of the non-designated heritage asset, which is known as the former lands of the village public house. Nevertheless, given the acute shortfall in housing delivery, it's considered that the benefits of increased housing supply continue to outweigh the specific harms identified in relation to townscape character and other matters raised by the Inspector. It's also recognised with a housing supply of only 2.46 years, it's considered that the policies regarding housing delivery are out of date, tricking the tilted balance. This balance requires that planning permission should be granted unless adverse impacts significantly and demonstrably outweigh the benefits. Based on this assessment, detailed in the Planning Board report, it's recommended that planning permission would have been granted had Council determined the application prior to the submission of the appeal against non-determination being lodged for this application, subject to a data variation under Section 106 and 106A of the Town and Country Planning Act. Thank you. Thanks, Jonathan. David. Thank you, Jonathan. I was looking at the Chartan Riverside Master Plan 2017. Page 84 sets out the terrain for the proposed Chartan Riverside Park, and just before that, the barrier across the Woolwich Road. So, it just strikes me, looking at the diagram around, and I know this area fairly well, between Eastmore and Westmore Street, that this development actually infringes on some of the 8-4 proposed park in our SPD, and I wondered how that had been discussed or resolved. Is it compensated for somewhere else? Because, obviously, the Riverside Park is central to the whole concept of an urban eco-village that's an integral part of Chartan. So, I wonder if you ask that strategic question first, and then I've got some questions in relation to the GLA comments on Section 73. Shall I ask that now or ask it later? I would ask if you could ask it now. I'm just slightly opening up the Chartan Riverside SPD at the moment. Oh, I'm sure I thought you'd have it at hand. You can borrow mine, if you like. I've only got the draft, but I've got the final one online. The GLA, in their comment, say, and I just quote parts from 2-4, the Section 73 application should not be used as a mechanism to reduce affordable housing or other planning obligations. Further, in 2-6 of their representation, they say the extent Section 106 agreement binds the planning obligations secured in that agreement to subsequent planning commissions granted under Section 73. As such, it is not clear how the planning obligation relating to affordable provision can be reduced unless voluntarily accepted by the Council under Section 106A of the Act. Clearly, we would never voluntarily agree to compromise our policy on affordable housing. So, do you disagree with the GLA assertion there with what Jane Seymour from the GLA has said? I mean, I'll come back to further sections on this later, but it seems pretty definitive that this is using the wrong vehicle in order to get rid of affordable housing. The GLA are as frustrated with developers using this as a vehicle to reduce affordable housing. They have tried to present this line quite robustly. As time has gone on, appeal decisions have come out which have proved that wrong. I've also seen Council's opinions that, legal opinions that other councils have obtained which are very reliable, which their opinion is that this is completely clear-cut, that we don't have grounds to refuse and that this is the correct vehicle for reducing affordable housing. I also happen to know that the GLA have also obtained a legal opinion which they have decided not to share. So, we read into that what we will. But in terms of the actual vehicle, we do believe that Section 73 is appropriate in terms of considering changes to affordable housing. The application itself through 73 is actually changing some conditions related to the aforementioned technical components such as the circular economy, preliminary ecological appraisal and part of that is allowing for the affordable housing change. So, we would disagree with that approach or that view from the GLA and I think it's also found in recent appeals that it is an appropriate vehicle to make the change and there's been similar cases only recently of a similar nature to what the applicant is proposing here today. Regarding the Charlton Riverside, the map at page 84, it's the sketch, isn't it? The sketch view. There's a narrative also in 8.4. Yeah. I mean, it... It does show... I mean, it's hard to tell because it doesn't have development plots on it. It's an image. But there is... I mean, you can see Westmore Street to the left, can't you? So, it's hard to exactly pinpoint where this plot is but I think it is showing a building on it. But we need to be mindful, I guess, of a couple of things. Firstly, the appeal decision and it has planning permission for a building on that site. And secondly, the SPD, when it was designed, didn't take into account land ownership, development plots, etc. So, I think it's... As we've struggled on other plots to say that someone who owns a site in Charlton for redevelopment, that they should turn that into a park, it's been a bit unrealistic in some respects. But I think we have had to place weight on the existing planning commission that is there. But presumably, when it went to appeal, we would have made those arguments in terms of... Did we? In terms of this... Well, it was recommended... This was an integral part of the master plan for Charlton Riverside, that part of that area, or it's part of that area, should be part of the enlarged Charlton Riverside Park. Or if not, we've made provision for it elsewhere because we need that green space. My understanding was the application was refused at planning committee broadly on the height of the development, not on the fact that it was eating into potential park space. Yes, I mean, the overall master plan is looking to deliver open space throughout the plots that are coming forward, and each site has to deliver certainly some public open space and private space. But it's hard to say that there's an exact offset from this site. Dave? Oh. Oh, sorry, I'm making the discussion, but I'm just puzzled by this expression because I thought I knew a bit about... Well, I thought I knew a bit about development, but I don't really think I fully understand this notion of the landlord premium. What is that? Who could unpack that for me, please? So the PPG sets out ways to calculate the benchmark land value, which is to be taken as a proxy for site value. So the preferred option that they present is to use an existing use value plus a landowner premium, where appropriate. So the landowner premium is supposed to act as an incentive for the landowner to give up the utility of their land for development, if you like. And in this case, we disagree with the applicants. And the applicants are proposing a 10% landowner premium. But PPG is clear that where there's no affordable housing proposed, there shouldn't be a landowner premium, because there's nothing left in the scheme to go to the site owner. So that's why we've not put a landowner premium in there. So does that mean the land is actually overpriced? I don't know off the top of my head what they paid for it, but we're not supposed to consider the price paid. When we're looking at the viability, we're supposed to look at the benchmark land value, which is that particular measure of land value. David, did you want to come back? Oh, right. Yeah, I was just looking at the BPS document, actually. So in terms of the BPS assessment, if I might, Chair, of the viability statement, as well as the disagreement Dave pointed out on the landowner premium and a slight disagreement on the benchmark land value, there's also here the Section 106 of 1.57 million, which is clearly quite significant. The seal we can't do much about. But Section 106 normally would be to enable affordable housing and social housing, as well as maybe for other legal, you know, other aspects of a legal agreement. But normally affordable housing would be covered in Section 106. So what is that 1.57 million for? Those figures for the planning obligations are provided by the applicant and then in turn they are to be confirmed by council. So I'm not sure if you've got a break, Daniel. So the contributions that are mentioned and secured under this application are the same Section 106 financial contributions that were secured under the appeal scheme, no change. So the numbers that should be corresponding there, and I'll double-check them now, should be exactly the same numbers that were, as I just said, were previously secured by the council on the appeal scheme. So they're just, yeah, and as you rightly said, the seal is what the seal is when it's calculated, but none of those figures, they should all be as was approved. And could I also, the row in the viability statement on finance, where there's a slight disagreement, but is that the rate of borrowing? Because presumably, or that the return that they're giving back to their investors, return on investment, we're looking, 7% is quite on the high side, normally you'd get 5%? No, that's their rate of borrowing, so that's... The rate they're actually borrowing to... Yeah, so it's... But you can borrow at 5%, so why is it down as 7%? Not for development finance, it's usually quite a bit higher than that. It's a fairly hypothetical measure of finance, because in order to keep viability assessments consistent, we assume 100% debt financing, which obviously is not particularly realistic in the real world. You know, maybe 30%, 50% of whatever of that financing might come from equity from the developer themselves. So that's a measure of how much the finance is going to cost them. And we really, we reach that by sort of comparing with other viability assessments that we've done and other things that have been agreed. You mentioned in your introduction, Jonathan, that the applicant, and obviously we will ask the applicant this, had not considered other forms of intermediate, such as, or affordable, such as London living rent or discounted market rent. Have we looked at the viability of those schemes, and is that a relevant consideration for us this evening? They might have been able, as the GLA are saying, actually, to come up with a different mix using different forms of affordable housing that might have been more viable. So we have, or BPS on behalf of the Council, have looked at one option on paper, which was a bill to rent, and it was found to still be in deficit regardless of change. It would, on paper, reduce the deficit by approximately 50% off the top of my head. I'll check in the numbers. I'm sure my colleague could discuss that as well. But it would still be in deficit schemes. So it's a difficult position where the alternatives aren't generating an actual surplus to be able to obtain the affordable housing, because hypothetically, if the schemes, the alternative push put forward by the GLA officers as well as ones that we tested, if they result in a surplus, then it would justify potentially an alternative scheme that could deliver affordable housing. But all the alternatives or the alternatives both that GLA have looked at and that we have looked at ourselves do not take the scheme out of deficit. So the bill to rent scheme that we looked at did provide a reduced deficit, but it was still 6.5 million. So any sort of open market sale, private sale scheme, or bill to rent scheme, or schemes with affordable housing, and they're all in deficit. But 6.5 million over, what, 88 million, or 92 if you include commercial, would still mean they're making a profit, just not their 20% profit. Is that right? Yes, I should think so. Yeah, they're still making a profit. It's just, they're not making a deficit. They're just not meeting the 20% assumed profit. Yes, that's right. Very important. Thank you. Dave. There's provision, as I understand it, in the report for an early appraisal, a validation, viability appraisal, and also a late one. How often does that actually lead to a significant change? How long, is it three years? Are we talking about once this was consented? You might not be doing a new early appraisal for, say, two years, or are we talking about something? I'm not really sure how that process works and whether it's actually a real factor, where it's something that we could be hopeful or positive about. Is it just lip service? I think it partly depends on what stage in the cycle you're at. I think at the moment, we are not seeing many, early stage reviews or late stage reviews, whatever, we're not seeing many of them produce more affordable housing. But I think that's because schemes that are coming up for review now were agreed when bill costs were lower, basically. So, looking forward, if development comes out of that cycle, then, in theory, we should be better placed to gain some more reviews. Claire, could you tell us the interest rate on the developer finance? You mentioned it just a minute ago. Yeah, so this has been a point of disagreement. The applicant has said it's going to cost them 7.5%. We have used 7%, and the GLA think it's 6.5%. So, we're in the middle, basically. But we've looked at it under various scenarios. We've sensitivity tested it, basically, and it's still well in deficit. So, when we're crunching the numbers, obviously, 30% affordable is not free. It's discounted. Obviously, the RP will come in, and they will pay the price, and then it's discounted down. So, I mean, I'm looking at the figures on this, 7.5% for developer finance, which seems to me to be on the extremely high level. I think there's finance around about 5, 5.25% at the moment. My point is, is, even by clawing back the affordable, does this still not make the project, as presented, unviable? Sorry, so you're saying even if there's no affordable in the scheme, is it? Yes, so, so the, so what we've analysed here is the scheme as put forward. So, that's the scheme with no affordable, and it is still in substantial deficit, 11 million deficit. Thanks, Claire. David. I always Google things, and I can see much cheaper rates. The mainstream banks, it says, is 4.5% to 6%, but there are rates around of under 5%, and, but, you know, you're the expert, not me, and, and Google isn't the expert, but, you know, and that assumes 100%, you know, borrowing. Hopefully, investors, insurance companies, and so forth, would have capital to put in, and obviously, they'd want to return on their investment. But, I think, I would want to come to the point of the timing, because according to the GLA report, and indeed, our report, it was only on the 30th of April, 2024, that we, which was granted following the site, but for further consent, dated the 30th of April, 2024, which wasn't challenged, because that included 36% by habitable room, 36% affordable housing, so it'd be compliant. Now, that was eight months ago, seven or eight months ago. What has changed so dramatically in the last seven or eight months? Building costs have stabilised, if not gone down slightly. Sell values in London are going up by about three, four, five percent a year. What has changed so remarkably in that time to mean that suddenly we're in a major deficit situation, we can't have any affordable housing and having been signed off at 36% in April? The answer is that very little has changed. When the scheme was presented previously with the affordable housing, it was an even bigger deficit. when it was presented to you by the applicant, the applicant basically said that they wanted to provide the affordable housing because they appreciated that the borough needed affordable housing and so on. However, they've now changed their minds it seems. Dave. Just for my information perhaps it's just advice to the lawyer to what extent are we obligated to grant approval to a scheme that we don't think is viable? So just just to touch on it really briefly and I'll let the legal advisor come in as well but obviously the scheme or sorry the applicant is relying on change in market conditions to potentially make the scheme more viable and obviously achieve potentially a better profit than what they're demonstrating in their financial viability assessment obviously that's where our late stage review comes in because we will review it at a later stage potentially to see if there is any change in circumstances that may allow the council well if it's late stage of view to obtain a financial contribution to affordable housing. I don't know if our legal advisor has anything else you'd like to add? not specifically other than I suppose what's in the report which is that the same type of proposal was put to you previously and was approved i.e. the proposal was put to you at the planning board and it wasn't refused on the ground that the scheme wasn't viable so it's difficult now to take an inconsistent approach and say well we now have a problem with it obviously that's what the GLA is inviting you to do but the GLA you know inviting the council to do that but they aren't offering to front up a whole lot of witnesses and so on at an inquiry so they can invite councils to do that but are they then going to back it up I don't think they've indicated that so I think that's the difficulty with that point I take the point you might say what's the point in proving something that you know doesn't on paper look like someone can build but I suppose the point there is that someone's entitled to apply for planning commission even if they don't build it you have to consider whether it's acceptable in planning terms or not whether the proposal in front of you is acceptable in planning terms I suppose not so much whether someone can actually build it but I understand the concern you're making though yes but we actually if we granted approval on a site that's not viable then to some extent we're compromising that site for future development if certain people don't believe that their site is viable then maybe they have to part with the site to somebody who might find another way of making it work but I I mean my only experience I have to me it seems a similar thing I mean if a local authority actually put a contract out to tender safer refuse and it came in and we got a bid for it and it was completely unachievable we wouldn't have to let it if we didn't think it was viable because we know service would be compromised further down the road and you could argue the same thing here that this site if it doesn't work it's not going to happen it'd be better if they sold it to somebody who could make it work I think following up from what David and David said viability wasn't brought into the equation because it wasn't relevant on the first application and it's only now that the viability has been brought in so it's only now that we're going to consider it or even talk about it because beforehand there was the full quota of affordable units within the development so the previous refusal didn't need to bring in viability because it wasn't a card that was played and there was affordable on the table and even when the inspector gave his decision again there was affordable on the table had there not been then the inspector might have had a different way of balancing things up because there was no without the affordable there is no benefit to the local community and not to the 28,000 people we've got on our list so we're talking about it now because it is on the table now it hasn't been previously and it hasn't been there for any of us to consider so I think my point is now it is on the table is it something that as David said that we can give some serious weight and consideration to I mean I wait for the applicant I've got some questions for the applicant but I'll wait for them to come up any further questions for the officers no I now wish to call upon Tim Gaskell Phoebe Juggins and Barbara Nemeth Good evening members good evening officers I don't have a speech prepared but there have clearly been a number of items that we should discuss tonight would you like to set any new questions or would you like to recap some of the areas that have been previously discussed and we can take those responses in turn let us know what you prefer I can I can recap so basically can you convince us to not just playing the system looking to bag yet more favorable plan application to sell the site on to someone else while it remains empty for years that really is a big fear so why on the end of April you have permission for a scheme you get consent for a scheme with 36% affordable housing which obviously you intend to proceed with and then suddenly within seven or eight months you come back and say oh dear that's not viable we can't have any affordable housing anymore and we've got this huge deficit or your viability consultants say you've got this huge deficit so why such a sudden change when you know as I mentioned before building costs have now stabilised if not gone down slightly and sales values continue to slightly increase then secondly what attempts have you made to get a registered provider or talk to Greenwich Build and to access grants from the GLA towards the social housing element who have you talked to and thirdly David I can see they're going to struggle dealing let's deal with these one at a time because you're going to have a few come in I think that will be easier that's absolutely fine so the section 73 application that was approved in April 2024 was primarily undertaken as a result of fire regulation changes so it was to add additional cause to the taller blocks and provide ventilated segregation between lobbies that had an effect of removing some of the units so the unit numbers reduced by six units at that point in time those changes were driven by clearly the external fire regulations but were also motivated by our discussions with Southern Housing who were a joint applicant on that section 73 application we were in discussions with Southern Housing for the best part of 12 months with their design team and engineering team fully engaged in looking at the proposals and us working together on section 73 but owing to clearly much wider changes and systemic issues in the RP world that I think Councillor Sullivan alluded to earlier this evening Southern were not able to progress with that so we were in a position where we had the design changes that we needed in the section 73 approved which was critical for being able to take the site forward as a deliverable site so it was buildable but we then had this issue that it was even more unviable than it had previously been owing to the loss of some market housing the significant changes in build cost during that time and the originally when this application was first conceived and submitted to the borough Charlton Riverside was at the start of its journey and there were going to be placemaking benefits associated with the wider regeneration in terms of additional residential neighbourhoods being created new economic regeneration uses so there was a degree of optimism when the original planning application was made and that optimism has somewhat waned in the preceding years as unfortunately for various reasons that Riverside master plan has not yet been able to be delivered so whilst we are optimistic as is stated in the officer report that where conditions improve this scheme can be made viable and we'll be able to give back through the late stage review mechanism that will be secured in any deed of variation at this moment in time we are it's regrettable that we feel we do not have an alternative way of making this site deliverable we have looked at alternative uses internally we've looked at a lot of different options but what we have here before you is what we believe to be the best way of making this site deliverable and really kick-starting as the only residential site that is really oven ready in terms of fire regulation and planning approval we want someone to be able to deliver this in terms of conversations with RPs obviously we were discussing with RPs at the time we were discussing with southern housing and we have spoken to a colleague at Borough Greenwich New Housing New Homes team and those conversations weren't able to progress to allow for Greenwich to be delivering these units either unfortunately obviously should all these positions change we can absolutely consider all of that and we do hope that in the future some affordable housing could be delivered here and a surplus could be generated and financial return can go to the borough to deliver their own homes but as of today we have to look at the circumstances that we're in the viability position today because we want somebody to be able to deliver this site Point two David thank you very much for your answer the yeah I'm trying to reverse I think now the you said you'd been talking to registered providers there are other forms of affordable housing there's discounted market rent there's London living rent which is not seen as equivalent to social housing have you looked at those other schemes to variations in order to try to make the numbers add up have you looked at those and obviously the GLA has come up with a scheme itself what's been your wider consideration of those options so we have looked at whether different types of tenure and a rental product might work in this location and unfortunately and actually BPS note it in their report the scheme as designed is designed as a private market housing scheme because a bill to rent scheme so the other types you've talked about are effectively within a subcategory of bill to rent so discounted market rent and London living rent are all rental products so rental products of this size will generally include communal shared amenity gyms concierge service of a scheme of this scale to be able to attract any investment and to be able to rely on the rent levels that were assumed in the BPS assessment so the scheme does not have within it the space to offer up those kinds of amenities that rental residents would want in this kind of location without the loss of either residential units that would have a further impact on viability or commercial units that would have an impact on viability and the commercial floor space kind of doesn't really provide sufficient offsetting to be offered up as amenity space in a scheme so the scheme as designed is not a really designed in it as a build to rent scheme and therefore we're not asking the council to look at a different planning permission we're looking at a variation on an existing planning permission so we're looking at what we can do without redrawing up a new scheme that would almost certainly have a loss of residential units and to be honest this isn't really a build to rent location build to rent locations tend to be in very accessible locations with good transport networks they tend to have leisure amenities convenience stores because it's for a rental market who tends to be more transient and likely possibly commuting into London they're not looking necessarily to make it their base so our analysis from the wider market has been that this isn't really a suitable build to rent location and if it were to be delivered as a build to rent location there would need to be a loss in residential units and we believe that the rental levels would be lower than perhaps have been assumed in any of the alternative appraisals my final point on this is that should somebody come forward and want to deliver this as a rental scheme their financials will be assessed in exactly the same way as they would be at the late stage review mechanism so if somebody did come forward with a rental scheme and deliver a rental scheme there is nothing in the section 106 currently that would stop them doing that as we've proposed as a variation and when it came round to the review mechanism were that scheme significantly more valuable then clearly significantly more would be paid to the borough so the borough would be protected in any case depending on what type of residential product was delivered sorry I'm a bit surprised by your comment there because knowing the area I'm actually ward councillor for this area you are less than five minutes walk from Marion Wilson Park you are you are under ten minutes walk from Asda Sainsbury's Mark Suspenses and Cholton train station and literally two minutes away from numerous buses so I was surprised where you're saying it's not a suitable area for the rental market when it's quite clear it's quite appropriate because you've got amazing facilities within touching distance which actually don't need travel so I was a bit surprised there when you said it's not suitable because of certain elements but knowing the area really well it's surrounded by everything it's surrounded by convenience so I'm not sure why you made that comment about not suitable for the rental market so I think it's probably more what I mean is as a rental product so if somebody was going to build this rental product and build to rent as defined by the London plan is operated as a single unit that is most likely at this scale going to be held by an investor effectively and investors need to have a long term view and certainty of their rental income and the rent levels and therefore they tend to only invest in the areas where there are already a lot of other residential uses lots of amenities so not necessarily just convenience stores but also restaurants and places and night time economy because that's what their target market which might be younger renters in locations like this would be looking for so that's not a kind of I appreciate that's a qualitative assessment but we have looked at whether a rental scheme would work here we've talked to a build to rent developer and their reception is that the area is not quite ready for that kind of institutional product yet I can't speak for that whole sector because that's not what our expertise is in but we have looked at that and furthermore the point really is that if somebody did come and deliver this as a build to rent product and it was financially more successful that would still be captured in the section 106 so in a way the rental option and actually we've not necessarily discussed this but we'd be more than willing to have a separate review mechanism with a rental version in it so that if somebody did deliver a rental scheme you would flip to appendix X that has the rental late stage review mechanism in so we could consider having that where if somebody different did come along and want to deliver that any uplift would be able to be captured because the GLA has a separate formula for assessing build to rent schemes Dave I don't know what the chair mentioned at the beginning of the meeting and I don't know how to ask this without sounding disrespectful but who are you I mean I don't know how relevant that is but are you planning consultants are you architects are you you know is this something you're preparing and is there a client somewhere you're not the developer because you're talking about different people might develop this sorry I should have I should have no that's fine I should have introduced myself and my team at the start so my name is Phoebe Juggins I work for a company called H Group H Group is a property developer and also undertakes you know planning application work and works with partners to deliver those schemes in joint ventures so we have a number of different schemes across London residential and kind of mixed use commercial led residential schemes that have been delivered over the years so I do say this with a understanding of the economics of construction as well that on certain in certain areas in certain different locations with certain different types of schemes that might be quite large we would look to work with a joint venture partner on the actual delivery so that's when I talk about someone and other people delivering it I'm referring to kind of joint venture partners and RPs as well and then in terms of the other team I have with me Tim Gaskell who is our planning consultant and Barbara Namath who is our viability consultant from Redloft who's been working with BPS to resolve the issues on the viability just follow up just quickly my colleague earlier suggested that you know is this just basically just trying to ramp up the value of the site before you pass it on or do you actually have a plan to actually try and make this project happen we would like to make this project happen but the scale of this development puts it into the next tier of contractor so it's something where we would really need a partner to help us deliver this because of the scale of it and the kind of the financial size effectively so this is about making the scheme deliverable to anyone and the kind of the planning viability system is designed so that it is applicant neutral so the position is right whether it's me or whether it's Barclay homes from earlier or whether it's kind of anyone so we're not doing this as a kind of exercise to maximise profit we're doing this to try and get somebody to build it with us any proper comments from anyone David just just the one I should have asked this of the officers as well the GLA in their submission query the 12% professional fees and they say they should allow an allowance of no more than 10% have you looked through how you could shave some of these fees and percentages and we talked earlier about finance with the officers as well you know the percentage for that have you played around to try to really drill down to you know reduce the overall costs and without compromise equality but sort of additional costs so for the kind of typical professional fees input that has been agreed with BPS ultimately in this day and age with the introduction of the building safety act you actually need to spend more on professional fees not less because there are significant additional professionals that now form part of your professional team from REBA stage 3 so whilst we would love to not have to factor all of that in in this day and age everybody is factoring in even more on professional fees just because so much more of that work has to happen up front in your design and it's more challenging yeah please do yeah yeah I would say I mean professional fees for a new build like that normally are somewhere between 8 and 12% but obviously it's scheme specific so those professional fees for BPS have been reviewed by our QS so it's based on based on his evidence and his experience big difference between 8 and 12 when we're looking sorry for butting in there so looking at the figures that have been quoted tonight so the scheme with the affordable had a deficit of 17 million is that correct yeah forgive me I'd have to go back and have a look because that's historic I mean the notes I've written so if I'm out slightly I'm out but so what I'm looking at here I'm looking at a deficit with the affordable at 17 million but with the removal that deficit only drops down to 11 so there's 11 million deficit still without the affordable element we're looking at paying you're looking at paying 7.5% on the build cost or on the development and you're looking at an overall spend of around between 60 to 70 million on building out so we've met other developers and other people that are in construction and they're all worried they're all worried because the market the property market is not that buoyant you know the help to buy scheme has been finished by the government so you talk about investment investors being on board and I'm actually looking and thinking well how viable is this to anybody even with your scheme with no affordable there is no end game because at the moment we don't know how affordable these are going to be to normal people on the market considering there are no special incentives to first time buyers and property buyers and I think therein lies the challenge really but we are of the view that in reducing the you know removing the affordable component you de-risk that element of the proposal and with a growth in sales values so once we start to see some growth and sales values in the area and once we see costs further stabilise and come down because we are still feeling the aftershock of a number of large contractors having financial difficulty this year so a lot of estimators are cautious with build costs a lot of contractors are cautious with build costs at the moment but what we are hoping is that over the next 12 months that starts to ease off and people start to gain more confidence in this they want to deliver their you know they want to feed their pipelines and we can see some positive growth in residential sales which ultimately helps somebody think I can you know I can build these flats and somebody will want to buy them and we'll see some confidence from the contractor in the construction market in being able to take on this kind of job there is also a lot of other you know elements around fire safety that a lot of contractors are still dealing with a lot of contractors are finding their way through some of these taller developments so anything over seven stories having to go through an entirely new process that is all going to take time to bed in which is why we're here at this point hoping that and it's not an unreasonable assumption that once we've got used to some of these systemic market changes and to some of the legislative changes that somebody can make this work so there's no other questions is there so some so the other question is then would it not be better to come back with a revised scheme that is actually more of which is which is more viable because because we've just seen we've seen an applicant tonight who hasn't broken ground yet they're looking to deliver between 35 40 percent affordable and not once did they mention any problems with viability and nor of some of the other schemes that have come come before us over over the last five or six months so architects and other companies are able to come forward with viable schemes that also provide a certain amount of affordable properties so my question is looking at the figures and looking at how glum they are for investors with or without affordable wouldn't a revised scheme be of more interest to you and to investors rather than second guessing on a scheme which is not viable with or without affordable so we have looked at the scheme design we've looked at the buildability we've looked at you know any aspect we can to make it a more efficient building but ultimately in order to maintain the quality of the design in terms of maximising dual aspect units and other kind of key considerations we feel that the current scheme probably does represent the best use of that site in terms of delivering what the local planning authority wanted to and we believe still want to deliver there should the SPD dramatically change and lots of other new development be proposed in the surrounding area that dramatically changes the context that might be a different consideration but at this point in time we are trying to make a development that already has been granted planning permission more viable and more attractive and we can't really comment on the circumstances associated with other developers projects because they'll be in completely different areas with different sales values they'll have different arrangements with regard to affordable housing and grant and we just can't compare ourselves against other schemes which is why the planning viability is a helpful tool because it is comparing effectively anybody delivering that scheme with us David yeah I mean I just wanted to come back to the geography if I might because you talked about it more attractive more viable this is a scheme where people are facing a park they're very close to the Thames barrier and the Thames path I mean surely it is there's a new development which is social housing which has just been completed and no doubt there will be other developments coming on you know once the land ownership sort of challenges have been but you know is it that you want it isn't attractive I mean there are obviously industrial I mean Charlton Riverside will have industrial and you've got commercial uses there but but isn't is it that you're trying to make this I mean I can see that we need to get on and deliver things but on the other hand are you trying to improve the quality here how you know you're getting rid of the affordable but are you trying to improve the quality of the build and the materials and so forth to make it more attractive as a sort of an iconic landmark a place maker for the future of Charlton Riverside as it's right in the centre by by the Charlton Riverside Park you know is there a big change since the since the the inspector opined in terms of the build quality and so forth is there a quid pro quo that we're getting so often people will come along and they say we've got this heritage building here it's really really difficult and therefore we can't do any affordable we'd listen obviously we look at the viability and so forth but is there a quid pro quo here is there something that you're offering which means that this is a real place maker that will help speed through Charlton Riverside and make it a great community so the the design of the scheme has not changed but things like detailing materials all of that is secured by planning conditions so your planning and design offices will have control over that which when it comes down to the overall quality of a build it's often in those material samples that offices approved that that's kind of won or lost ultimately any further comments no phoebe tim barbara thank you very much members dave forget about this okay so um i'm just speaking for myself you might not you might not agree with me there might be no agreement within the room but i'll start the discussion i'm uh i've said uh previous planning board i've said it i got very impressed by developers who can actually conform to the schemes that actually work you know with the amount of uh hassle they have to go through in order to get you know a consented scheme um you know the the the the challenge that that we put up as local authorities in in the in the planning process and so on are huge and it's a major task so i do have respect for developers that um manage to come forward with schemes which uh and get them off the ground and make them happen um i also think that maybe you think we're giving you a bit of a tough time because it's not a proposition that we'd like to see in front of us but i do appreciate how well you responded and and how um straight you were with your your answers and so on i thought you performed really well uh but looking at the question that were being asked which would we resolve this i can't help thinking that uh my personal view would be it's soberly difficult to get a consent for anything particularly a challenging scheme like this the housing market is in a right state it's completely and utterly broken um everybody i speak to says it's you know it's amazing to see anything coming out of the ground currently and then we have a government that's talking about one and a half million homes uh but you know within the next sort of four or five years and in effect this experience is confirming to me what i'm rapidly appreciating is that no matter how much we desire it one and a half million homes we're going to really struggle to get anything like that um at the end of the day i think there is so much wrong with the market it is quite amazing um that anybody can actually make anything work so it's disappointing but i'm inclined to say that uh if you know if this if we were in this situation which he poses there i think i would have said let's go for it i think we i would have um inclined to say yes grant it and see i mean i think some of my colleagues have made points around um you know the market might improve costs might change there might be further negotiations with the landowner you know if if all those things work out well you know if the rsls actually come back into the market and get more competition from between rsls and so on it then then surely we would benefit from it at that point uh but if if if our skepticism is is um if if that holds that this thing isn't inviable uh it's not going to happen then then we've probably not lost anything so so i would be inclined to think i would support uh granting this if i was in that position tonight so i'm quite happy to be persuaded differently i'm like no i i am genuinely i'm just but i thought well i need to start the discussion because um i'm willing to be persuaded but that's my position at the moment i'd be glad to support this thanks david thank you uh thanks very much and i understand where uh councillor sullivan's coming from um but i i can't support this i think i may abstain um i can't support this uh particularly in the light of the gla evidence and submission uh they uh because very little weight should be given to uh red lofts fva if they've not demonstrated the scheme is deliverable in line with the requirements set out in the mayor's affordable housing and viability spg and they also as i've referred to before have several queries about the methodology used and the lack of looking at alternatives so on the one hand absolutely we do need to build out but on the other i do feel we're having a gun placed to our head you know only seven months ago they were happy to proceed all right southern may have they're not the best registered provider southern they may have pulled out but there are many other registered providers and and you know there was a conversation to be had and a few months is not really time enough to do that um and i do think another attempt could be made and i do think there are there's scope as a gla say for uh pruning uh some of the added costs and maybe for maximizing the um more more sales or looking at a mix of sales and rent um so i don't think i can support something with no affordable housing um and uh therefore i'm going to abstain thanks david maizey um thank you chair and thank you um officers for the work on this for coming um i think regardless of any other aspects of the scheme the decision to pull the affordable housing is um kind of gross i think it doesn't i think oh i certainly don't like being put in that position um i think our hands are kind of tied however and i'm mindful of this applications uh long history and i'm mindful that as a borough we can't meet our housing land supply and this scheme does increase housing stock um general generally uh so with that i will i will likely reluctantly support it um i think i'm going to abstain um yes i i just feel that our hands yes are tied and um i can't get over the fact that we you know that we need affordable houses um whether we are going to reach that 1.5 million was it that um councillor sullivan talked about the government um but i can't support it um it's difficult but i'm going to abstain thanks pat okay i'm going to put this to the vote all the all those in favor of the recommendation to grant please raise your hand all those against abstentions um i'm not i think um no it goes through on the two exactly exactly i think the council's constitution says that um that that if people abstain then it and the vote is taken on the people who vote so so it's carried although it's on the abstained so it's carried two the the two vote the two votes carry it yes the two votes then become the decision of the committee other others not voting so item seven is approved but i still think personally a new scheme would probably work out better for the investors and for the developers thank you all for coming thanks for your patience thanks doubt go i donc ini i ont alguns muito ini i losласт fica enisam kosher e next i
Summary
The meeting discussed three planning applications, resulting in the approval of reserved matters for a development at the Royal Arsenal, a new SEND school in Eltham, and the removal of affordable housing from a development in Charlton.
The Ropeyard, Royal Arsenal, Riverside
Reserved matters were approved for the construction of seven buildings at Plots D and K of the Royal Arsenal Riverside development. These buildings would provide 663 homes and 959 square metres of non-residential floorspace, as well as a new public park, 'Maribor Park', cycle parking, car parking, and refuse and recycling facilities. The reserved matters application relied on a separate Non-Material Amendment application which had been submitted concurrently. This amendment sought to increase the height of the consented buildings by one storey to accommodate requirements for an additional stair core and lift shafts in each building in line with the emerging fire safety guidance issued following the Grenfell Tower fire. The amendment would also remove a previously consented link building between buildings D1 and D2 and buildings D4 and D5 to improve views and permeability through the site, and would remove building K1 to provide improved views of the Grade I listed Royal Brass Foundry.
The application was objected to by Dr. Michael Doe, the secretary of the Royal Arsenal Residents Association who argued that there had not been sufficient community engagement from Berkeley Homes (East Thames) Ltd, the developer of the site, about the changes being proposed. He also argued that the approved plans would lead to a loss of green space within the development, would place additional strain on local infrastructure, and that Berkeley Homes have been given too much unaccountable power over the area. He argued that This is a private company which ignores existing residents and delivers services and utilities in ways which prevent, deliberately, residents having any say
.1 In response, a representative of the developer, Paul Pritchard, argued that the residents had been consulted about the proposals. He pointed out that Dr Doe himself had attended two of their consultation events, at which they had addressed his questions. He also stated that Berkeley Homes were working to provide more social infrastructure, including a new nursery, and that they were in discussion with a local medical centre about its expansion.
Councillor David Gardner was concerned that the plans represented a missed opportunity
to improve permeability between the Royal Arsenal and Woolwich Town Centre. He argued that narrowing one side of the A206 dual carriageway, which runs along the southern boundary of the development, would improve pedestrian access. Councillor Gardner also questioned the overselling of balconies on Beresford Street. In response, the planning officer explained that the scheme had secured a financial contribution of £127,000 from the developers which would be used to upgrade the cycle infrastructure along Beresford Street and that the intersection between Beresford Street and New Warren Lane had already been upgraded as part of the outline permission. They also stated that plans for the area opposite the site would be coming forward in the near future and that these would help to improve pedestrian connectivity. Mr Pritchard confirmed that the scheme did include additional tree planting on Beresford Street, but that these would be within the park itself rather than in the central reservation as suggested by Councillor Gardner.
Councillor Pat Greenwell questioned the provision of accessible parking within the scheme. In response, the planning officer explained that the development would include blue badge spaces both on-street and within the basement car park. They stated that the provision of accessible spaces had been approved by highways officers, Transport for London, and the council’s occupational therapists. Councillor Greenwell also questioned the impact of the increased height on the amount of sunlight and daylight received by existing buildings. In response, the officer explained that the plans had been assessed both by council officers and third party experts who were content that the impacts were acceptable.
In the subsequent debate, Councillor Gardner said he was pleased with the level of affordable housing and that he supported the proposed car-free approach. Councillor Greenwell said she supported the removal of the link buildings but that she remained concerned about the heights of the proposed buildings.
The Planning Board voted unanimously to grant both the non-material amendment and the reserved matters.
Environmental Curriculum Service, 77 Bexley Road, Eltham
Full planning permission was granted for the construction of a new Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Transition Learning Centre (SEND TLC) to replace the existing Eltham Environment Centre which has been closed since 2018. The new facility would include a single-storey building with classrooms, workshops, sensory learning rooms, and a kitchen. The building would be carbon neutral and would achieve a BREEAM Excellent rating. The proposals would also include outbuildings, covered structures, and the replacement of an existing air quality monitoring station on the site.
Councillor Pat Greenwell, the local ward councillor, raised concerns about the impact the proposals would have on traffic at peak times. The school is due to open at 8:30 am which Councillor Greenwell stated is when Bexley Road is at its busiest. She was concerned that the 6m wide gated entrance would not be sufficient to prevent queuing on the highway and that this would represent a safety hazard. That is a very very busy road... If for any reason a vehicle had to stop on that main road at half past eight in the morning, there could easily be an accident.
In response, the planning officer explained that the site had previously been used as a similar educational facility and that the new proposals actually provide fewer parking spaces than before. They stated that most of the 30 students would be arriving by minibus and that staff would be encouraged to travel by public transport or bicycle, and that highways officers had reviewed the proposals and were satisfied that the proposed access was acceptable. In response to Councillor Greenwell’s concerns, a representative of the applicant, Matthew Hoffman, explained that while an intercom system would be provided at the entrance, the gates would be left open during the peak drop-off and pick-up times.
Councillor David Gardner questioned the proposed 7.42% biodiversity net gain which falls short of the statutory minimum 10%. He suggested that reducing the amount of hard-standing on the site might allow for the minimum biodiversity net gain to be achieved and asked if there was pedestrian access from the site onto Gravel Pit Lane, which runs along the northern boundary of the site. He stated that this would improve access to Falconwood Station, which he argued is closer to the site than Eltham Station. The planning officer explained that the submitted plans did not show pedestrian access to Gravel Pit Lane and that while some of the hardstanding might be replaced by planting, this was unlikely to be sufficient to achieve the 10% gain. In response to Councillor Gardner’s question, Mr Hoffman said that pedestrian access to Gravel Pit Lane was not included in the scheme and that there was no provision for students arriving by bus.
Councillor Greenwell asked about the contamination on site that had been noted in previous consultations. In response, Mr Hoffman confirmed that the contaminated land would be remediated during the construction process.
Councillor Sullivan asked about the landscaping for the scheme and if any of the exotic plants on the site had been salvaged, however, in response, Mr Hoffman confirmed that they would not be retained.
In the debate on the application, Councillor Greenwell said she was reassured by the applicant's response regarding the entrance gates and reiterated the need for SEND children to be provided with suitable facilities within the Borough.
The Planning Board voted unanimously to grant planning permission.
Land at 6, 61-81 and Coopers Yard, Eastmore Street and 6 & 10 Westmore Street, Charlton
The Planning Board were asked to confirm what their decision would have been on a section 73 application seeking to amend a previously approved scheme, as the applicant had lodged an appeal for non-determination. The principle of the development had already been established by an appeal decision in 2022. This appeal had granted planning permission for the demolition of existing buildings on the site and their replacement with buildings between 6 and 9 storeys in height comprising 188 residential units (including 56 affordable homes), flexible employment floorspace, flexible retail and community uses, and associated works. In December 2023, the Planning Board approved a Section 73 application seeking to add second stair cores to the taller blocks to ensure compliance with the latest fire regulations. These changes resulted in a loss of six residential units and an increase in the level of affordable housing to 36%. The current application sought to remove the affordable housing from the scheme entirely, citing viability constraints.
Councillor David Gardner questioned the impact of the development on the Charlton Riverside Park. The application site is within the Charlton Riverside Masterplan area and the Charlton Riverside Supplementary Planning Document. He stated that the development appeared to infringe on land designated as parkland in the SPD. He also highlighted comments made by the Greater London Authority (GLA) objecting to the use of a section 73 application to reduce affordable housing, stating: “The GLA, in their comment, say, and I just quote parts from 2-4, the Section 73 application should not be used as a mechanism to reduce affordable housing or other planning obligations... Clearly, we would never voluntarily agree to compromise our policy on affordable housing. So, do you disagree with the GLA assertion there with what Jane Seymour from the GLA has said?” The planning officer explained that whilst the proposed development is on land which is intended to form part of the park, the site already benefits from planning permission. In response to Councillor Gardner’s point about the GLA’s assertion, the officer said that they did not agree with the GLA’s position on this and that their view had been disproven by recent appeal decisions and that the GLA had sought a legal opinion which they had not shared. He confirmed that the application also proposed changes to some conditions to update the energy strategy, the sustainability strategy and the ecological strategy for the scheme.
Councillor Gardner asked about the inclusion of a 10% landowner premium in the viability assessment and questioned the high rate of finance costs (7%). In response, the planning officer explained that where no affordable housing is proposed, there should be no landowner premium as there is nothing left in the scheme for the landowner. They explained that the 7% figure related to the rate of borrowing assumed for the assessment. Councillor Gardner pointed out that lower interest rates were available.
Councillor Sullivan questioned what a landowner premium was and why it had been included. The planning officer explained that a landowner premium is intended to incentivise landowners to sell land for development and that where there is no affordable housing proposed, the Planning Practice Guidance (PPG) is clear that a landowner premium should not be included in the viability assessment.
Councillor Gardner questioned why the scheme had suddenly become unviable given that planning permission for the scheme with 36% affordable housing was granted only eight months ago. The planning officer explained that the scheme had always been unviable and that the applicant was now seeking to remove the affordable housing from the scheme.
Councillor Sullivan asked if the Council was obligated to grant approval for a scheme that was not viable, and the legal advisor explained that the Board had already resolved to grant permission for the scheme when it included the affordable housing. They said that it would be difficult to refuse the application now on the basis that it was not viable.
Councillor Sullivan stated that he did not believe that the viability issues had been considered when the original scheme was approved and said that now they were being asked to consider it, it should be given serious weight.
Councillor Gardner questioned if the Council had investigated the viability of providing alternative tenures such as London Living Rent or Discounted Market Rent, and the planning officer explained that they had looked at a Build to Rent scheme, but that this was also found to be unviable.
Councillor Sullivan asked how often the viability review process led to an increase in the provision of affordable housing. In response, the planning officer said that, recently, very few schemes had been reviewed in favour of the Council.
Councillor Sullivan asked about the interest rate on the development finance assumed in the viability assessment and the planning officer explained that the applicant had proposed 7.5%, the GLA 6.5%, and that the Council had used 7%.
Councillor Gardner pointed out that cheaper financing was available if you ‘Googled’ it and said that investors should be expected to provide some equity to reduce borrowing requirements.
Councillor Sullivan suggested that the Council might not be obligated to grant permission for a scheme that they did not consider to be viable, saying: “If we granted approval on a site that’s not viable then to some extent we’re compromising that site for future development… to me, it seems a similar thing… if a local authority put a contract out to tender… and it came in and we got a bid for it… and it was completely unachievable we wouldn’t have to let it if we didn’t think it was viable because we know service would be compromised further down the road and you could argue the same thing here”. The legal advisor said that someone is entitled to apply for planning permission even if they do not intend to build the scheme, and that the Board must consider whether the proposal before them is acceptable in planning terms.
Councillor Gardner questioned if the GLA’s comment that “The extent Section 106 agreement binds the planning obligations secured in that agreement to subsequent planning commissions granted under Section 73” meant that the Council could not vary the planning obligations. The legal advisor explained that the GLA were “inviting the Council” to take a particular approach, but that they were not going to support it at appeal.
Councillor Maisie Richards Cottell argued that the viability issue was being discussed now because it was only now relevant. She said that the previous applications had included affordable housing and had not required a discussion on viability.
Following the officer’s presentation, Councillor Gardner asked Phoebe Juggins, the applicant’s representative, to explain why the scheme had become unviable when only a few months ago, they had been willing to proceed with a scheme which included affordable housing. She responded that the previous approval had been granted following the inclusion of additional stair cores in the taller blocks to meet new fire regulations. These changes had been agreed following discussions with Southern Housing who were the proposed Registered Provider for the affordable housing. However, Southern Housing subsequently pulled out of the scheme due to the systemic issues in the RP world
.2 The changes in regulations had resulted in fewer market homes being provided, and that combined with the recent increases in building costs, meant that the scheme was now even more unviable than it had been previously. She stated that the area was at the start of its regeneration journey and that when the application was first submitted they had been optimistic that the Charlton Riverside Masterplan would soon be delivered, but that this had not happened and that optimism has somewhat waned
. She said that the current scheme was the best way of making this site deliverable
, but that should all these positions change we can absolutely consider all of that and we do hope that in the future some affordable housing could be delivered
.
Councillor Gardner asked if the applicant had considered using other types of affordable housing provision such as Discounted Market Rent or London Living Rent, and Ms Juggins replied that the scheme had been designed specifically for private market sale and that providing a build to rent product would require communal amenity spaces, gyms and a concierge service which were not included in the scheme. She said that there was not enough space to add these spaces without losing residential units and that the commercial units could not be used for amenity space. She also stated that the applicant had investigated providing a build to rent product and concluded that the area is not quite ready for that kind of institutional product
. She added that should somebody come forward and want to deliver this as a rental scheme their financials will be assessed in exactly the same way as they would be at the late stage review mechanism
.
Councillor Sullivan asked who the applicant was and what their role in the scheme was. In response, Ms Juggins explained that she was representing H Group, a property developer, and that they would need a partner to help them deliver this scheme due to its scale. She stated that they were not intending to maximise profit, and that they wanted to get someone to build it with us
.
Councillor Gardner questioned the applicant’s claim that professional fees had increased to 12%, as the GLA had suggested that 10% was acceptable, and Ms Juggins said that the recent introduction of the Building Safety Act had increased the cost of professional fees as additional expertise was required.
Councillor Sullivan pointed out that the removal of the affordable housing from the scheme only reduced the deficit by £6 million and questioned the viability of the scheme for any developer even without the affordable housing, given that the finance costs were estimated at 7.5% and that the construction cost was in the region of £60-70 million. He stated: “They’re all worried, they’re all worried because the market… the property market is not that buoyant… the Help to Buy scheme has been finished by the Government… you talk about investment, investors being on board… how viable is this to anybody even with your scheme with no affordable?” He suggested that the applicants would be better off coming back with a revised scheme rather than one that was not viable. In response, Ms Juggins said that they had investigated alternative design solutions and other uses but that they believed that the current scheme represented the “best use of that site” for delivering the Council's aspirations. She stated that the construction market had been affected by the recent collapse of a number of large contractors, and that “a lot of estimators are cautious with build costs”, but that she was optimistic that that would ease off over the next year and that confidence would return to the market.
Councillor Gardner challenged the applicant’s statement that the site was not suitable for build to rent, pointing out that the site is within easy walking distance of the Charlton Train Station, Maryon Wilson Park, and a range of shops and restaurants. Ms Juggins conceded that there were local amenities but reiterated that, having spoken to a Build to Rent developer, she had concluded that “the area is not quite ready” for a build to rent product.
Councillor Sullivan asked if there was a clause in the occupancy agreement preventing residents from commenting on or objecting to planning applications, and Ms Juggins responded that there was a clause that asks residents not to make formal objections to our planning applications
, but that they would never enforce this clause.
In the debate on the application, Councillor Sullivan said he believed the housing market was broken
and that no matter how much we desire it, 1.5 million homes[^6] we’re going to really struggle to get anything like that
. He said that he thought the scheme would be unlikely to be delivered even without the affordable housing and that he would support the officer’s recommendation to grant permission.
Councillor Gardner said that he could not support the scheme and that he would be abstaining from the vote. He argued that the developer had not demonstrated that they had explored all options to make the scheme viable and that the GLA had raised “several queries about the methodology used”.
Councillor Richards Cottell said she thought the decision to remove the affordable housing was “gross” and that she did not like being “put in that position”, but that she recognised that the Council was unable to meet its housing targets and that she would be “reluctantly” supporting the application.
Councillor Greenwell said that she would also abstain from the vote as “we need affordable houses”.
The Planning Board voted to grant planning permission. The two votes in favour carried the application, with the others abstaining.
Attendees
- Clare Burke-McDonald
- Dave Sullivan
- David Gardner
- Gary Dillon
- Maisie Richards Cottell
- Olu Babatola
- Patricia Greenwell
- Sandra Bauer
- ‘Lade Hephzibah Olugbemi
- Andy Sloane
- Beth Lancaster
- Clare Jones
- Joe Higgins
- Jonathan Hartnett
- Robert Bruce
- Victoria Geoghegan
Documents
- Agenda frontsheet 10th-Dec-2024 18.30 Planning Board agenda
- Public reports pack 10th-Dec-2024 18.30 Planning Board reports pack
- Declarations of Interests Report other
- Public Information Planning
- Outside Body Membership 2024-25 Plannign Board
- The Ropeyard Royal Arsenal Riverside Plots D K - 24.0848.R
- Appendices to the Ropeyard Royal Arsenal Riverside Plots D K - 24.0848.R
- The Ropeyard Royal Arsenal Riverside Plots D K - 24.0887.NM
- 6 61-81 Coopers Yard Eastmoor St and 6 10 Westmoor St - 24-1709-MA other
- Appendices to The Ropeyard Royal Arsenal Riverside Plots D K - 24.0887.NM
- 77 Bexley Road Transition Learning Centre - 24-2296-F other
- Appendices to 77 Bexley Road Transition Learning Centre - 24-2296-F other
- Appendices to 6 61-81 Coopers Yard Eastmoor St and 6 10 Westmoor St - 24-1709-MA other
- Addendums to Items 4 5 - The Ropeyard Royal Arsenal 10th-Dec-2024 18.30 Planning Board
- Item 4 - Addendum to The Ropeyard Royal Arsenal Riverside Plots D K - 24.0848.R
- Item 5 - Addendum to The Ropeyard Royal Arsenal Riverside Plots D K - 24.0887.NM
- Decisions 10th-Dec-2024 18.30 Planning Board
- Addendum to Item 6 - 77 Bexley Road 10th-Dec-2024 18.30 Planning Board other
- Addendum 2 to Item 4 - The Ropeyard - Ref 24.0848.R 10th-Dec-2024 18.30 Planning Board other
- Item 4 - Addendum 2 to The Ropeyard Royal Arsenal Riverside Plots D K - 24.0848.R