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Agenda and decisions
January 21, 2025 View on council website Watch video of meetingTranscript
Okay, good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and although I'm told I'm too late, I'd better for form's sake say happy new year to everyone, I hope they had good festivities, et cetera, et cetera, and welcome to the first planning applications committee meeting of 25, a small but important agenda. First of all, can I sign as a correct record of the minutes of the last meeting, Councillor Humphries? Fine, I've seen them agreed, that's agreed. Secondly, is there anyone here who wishes to declare an interest? And perhaps, Councillor... That's interesting, I thought Councillor Abs was going to declare an interest. Yes, just if you could, please. All right, so I'm Councillor Abs, I'm Shaftesbury and Queenstown Ward. I'm not participating in the first item because I've previously raised an objection, so I could be said to be predetermined. That's the peculiarity of changing the boundaries during the course of this process, so that's why that's happened. And so we move on to the first item, indeed, which is planning applications. Sorry, indeed, Mr Calder wants to make an introductory remark. I forgot. Sorry, Mr Calder. Yes, thank you, Chair. Nick Calder, Head of Development Management at Wandsworth Council. Well, just so, for reference, to my left is... Do you want to introduce? Good evening, I'm Duncan Moores. I'm the external legal advisor. And Laura Campbell, Democratic Services. So, what I just wanted to highlight was, in the late items, you'll see, in advance of any late items, there's a reference to the local plan update, and I thought I'd just take a few minutes just to highlight that, that, as of yesterday, the local plan was published for a six-week consultation period. This is called a Regulation 19 draft update to policies. There's six policies that are proposed to be updated as part of this local plan update. I won't go through all of them, but to highlight this includes the affordable housing policy, the policy on proposed bill for student accommodation, ones for housing for sheds, facilities, which are things like the co-living schemes that we've had at committee before, and also for bill to rent schemes. There's six in total. There's more information online. I just wanted to highlight that, as per the note in the late items, we refer to paragraph 49 of the MPPF, which talks about the weight that you can give these policies. Obviously, it's a very early stage. This is the first time these policies have been published so that anybody can actually see them. And they've got six weeks in which to make comments. So, at this stage, any application that's already in is very, very limited weight. For applications that come forward in the next couple of months, again, it'll be limited weight. And then, after that six-week period, we'll review the comments. If there's a lot of objections to a policy, again, it won't have that much weight until an inspector has reviewed it at the public inquiry that it'll come forward afterwards. So, at this stage, these policies have come forward. They're out of consultation. We'll review, or my colleagues in the local plans team will review the comments. For tonight and for the next couple of months, though, it's just to highlight that, though you can give these policies weight, it's limited at this stage, and we wouldn't advise refusing on these grounds. So, endeth my speech. Thank you, Mr. Calder. I think, for members' note, really, rather than other people, very technical, but I'm sure members understand. I should have said that myself at the beginning about introducing people. Other members of the committee will no doubt introduce themselves when they make contributions. But now to get on with the first application, which is the Booker application, Booker, Cash and Carry, application 2022, stroke 1835, and I'm going to ask Janet Ferguson to introduce Baber. Good evening. My name's Janet Ferguson. I'm the planning manager of the strategic development team. I'm just going to do a brief presentation. So, this first slide shows the site at 41 to 59 Battersea Park Road. There's, as existing, there's a vacant retail warehouse on the site, which is shaded red on the top image. Previously, there was a BMW service centre that was demolished in the spring of 2022. To the east of the site is, well, south-east of the site is the new Covent Garden Market. To the north is Battersea Power Station. To the west are, immediately to the west, is Viridian Apartments. And there's new Mansion Square, which is a new affordable block to the rear of the site. The application is a full application, and it's for three buildings. Plot one is to provide 55 affordable residential units. Plots two and three would deliver 762 student bedrooms. Within that, there's 237 studio rooms and 525 classrooms in the lounge and kitchen area. Of that total, 198 of them are affordable student rooms. In addition, there's 495 square metres of flexible floor space in Plots one and two. Disabled car parking in Sleaford Street and servicing areas. A new play park, a play area and park, and a pedestrian link through to the south-west corner to New Mansion Square and onto Thessaly Road is proposed. The next slide shows the front elevation, fronting onto Battersea. Plot one is the 12 storeys high, and that's where the affordable housing units are proposed. The student accommodation is in the green and red blocks. The green block is plot two, is 17 storeys, and there's a variation in height of plot three between 15 and 22 storeys. The buildings are to be constructed in precast concrete, which is to be manufactured off-site, and it makes the construction fast and efficient. During the processing of the application, revisions have been received to plot one to reduce its height and amend its footprint, which has been reconfigured to attain the trees on the frontage of Battersea Park Road. The bottom image shows the view from the park to the rear of the buildings, which includes 4,442 square metres of public realm, a total of 506 square metres of informal play. This final slide shows, in the top image, the impression of the commercial units that are provided in block two, and that's taken from within the park. The benefits of the scheme are listed within the slide, and you can see that a number of jobs are created with the construction related to the student accommodation and commercial unit, and there's a community and cultural use of one of the units that's to be provided at a peppercorn rent. The roof plan in the bottom corner of the slide shows the extent of the new park and the amenity areas serving the student accommodation in blocks two and three. The green credentials of the development are also listed and include solar panels at roof level, the urban green factor score of 0.4. The proposal exceeds the 35 reduction in CO2 emissions, 12 swift boxes and at least six bat boxes are to be integrated into the buildings. Also, green roofs and raid gardens are provided, and the development would achieve outstanding REAM outstanding rating for the student and retail elements of the scheme. The residential would achieve home quality mark four-star rating. I wanted to, as briefly has been mentioned already, that whilst the committee report at page 23 refers to representations from the Shaftesbury and Queenstown wards and councillors, this was correct at the time when the application was first consulted upon in 2022. The site is now within the Nine Elms ward, which is reflected on the front page of the committee report. I also wanted to highlight that whilst the application was made valid and consulted upon in May 22, design changes were sought and reported to a DRP meeting in 2023, and revised plans were later submitted to the LPA in May last year, with no advance notice or discussion with officers at that time. During the last six months, further consultations and negotiations have taken place to address outstanding issues around highways, servicing, disabled access, standards, sustainability, and the advancing of the Section 106 agreement. The applicant has lodged an appeal against non-determination, so the committee must consider whether they would have been minded to grant or refuse planning permission if they had been given the opportunity to resolve the application. This completes my brief presentation. Thank you, Chairman. Mr. Hunter, do you want to elaborate at all on that last point about what we're doing exactly tonight? Mr. Chair, Mark Hunter of Strategic Development. So the applicant have the right to appeal against non-determination if the Council haven't considered the application, and they've chosen to do that, so members need to consider what they would have done if an appeal hadn't been lodged and what they would have been minded to do, because then we take that forward in the appeal process to consider the Council's statement of common ground, so we have to agree with the applicant, if we can, on which parts of the application we're in agreement with and which we aren't. And, again, this would reduce any exposure to costs, if we can agree common ground, and, again, if you should be minded to, you would have approved this application, then we'll take that forward, and the applicant will then consider that, and the inspector will, and will probably hold a hearing still, but it will be low-key in terms of just agreeing the 106, and there may be other considerations you want to take forward, but, yeah, it depends what we are going to fight the appeal on. Mr. Moores might want to say anything extra on that. Mr. Moores? Chairman, I can answer that. Yeah, so with a non-determination appeal, particularly in these circumstances, you have the opportunity to give a view as to what your take on the application would have been in the absence of that appeal being made. So the recommendation before you is to grant that the officers would have granted consent. However, if members take a different view, then it would be very helpful to officers if you could put forward these putative reasons for refusal to enable officers to frame the council's response to the appeal. Just an additional point to what Mr. Hunter said about the low-key nature of a subsequent appeal. Irrespective of the council's take or approach to the appeal scheme, the inspector, he or she, will have her own or his own considerations that will need to be looked at. And also there may be interested parties, members of the public, who may wish to make representations. So there will be some planning issues that will be canvassed before the inspector, irrespective of what approach the council takes. But I would say that if the council doesn't take a view, wishes to remain silent, then it puts officers in a very difficult position. And also, as Mr. Hunter mentioned, there is a risk of costs being awarded against the council because the appellant will not know what case it needs to meet. Just briefly, I've made, Chairman, for costs in planning appeals, they're not the same as in civil proceedings. So the victor isn't entitled to their costs just by virtue of the fact that they were successful in the appeal. Costs are awarded either on application by a party or by the inspector. If a party's behaved unreasonably, then that unreasonable behaviour has put the other party to unnecessary or wasted costs. Both of those limbs have to be satisfied. Now, there can be full or partial odds of costs, and also unreasonable behaviour can be in relation to procedural steps, missing deadlines, not being particularly responsive, and also there can be substantive reasons for why costs are awarded against the party. For example, if a local authority fails to substantiate any grounds for refusal when it actually comes to an appeal, that is a substantive ground upon which an inspector can make an award of costs. So, Chairman, unless I can assist further, I'm happy to answer some questions if members have any. Right. On this specific point about exactly what we're doing tonight as opposed to the application itself. Any questions on that? I think it seems perfectly clear to me, but we've got Councillor Humphreys followed by Councillor Coakley. Excuse me. Thank you, Chair. Councillor Guy Humphreys, Councillor for Southfields in Putney and opposition speaker on this committee. Thank you, everybody, for that explanation of where we're at and what the procedure... Obviously, it's a very unusual situation that we're in tonight, and we're not often having to deal with things in this kind of situation. In fact, I'd quite like to know if we know of any other examples when the Council has been in this position. And I hear what everybody said about why we've ended up where we are, but we all received, I think, today a letter from the applicant putting out their point of view. And I'm just slightly disconcerted by the fact that we've ended up in this situation rather than being able to judge it normally with less stress from the implications of costs and penalties to the Council. It puts the Councillors in a very sensitive situation. So I just wondered if we could have a little bit more of an explanation as to how come we've ended up in this situation. because, yeah, the applicant seems to think one thing, and that's not necessarily exactly what we're hearing from officers. So perhaps we could get a little bit more detail as to why we've ended up where we're at. Mr Cordy, any comments? I can probably answer the first point about how many other ones. I think there's been about three in the last 10 years where there's been a minded to recommendation. Most of them have been minded to refuse, but there was one other minded to approve. But for the substantial answer, I'll hand over to the head of strategic developments. Do you want me to go back to 2022, Councillor? So originally when the application came in just for student accommodation, I discussed with members at that time, and it's fair to say that student accommodation isn't the most popular given the borough's C3 housing need. And student accommodation has to provide student affordable. And in this case, GLA agreed a fast track blended amount because of the different uses on the site of 39.8%, I think, affordable. And I went back, having discussed with councillors to the applicant and said, you might have some trouble getting through. Members aren't particularly receptive towards student housing. A really good idea, because what's in need in the borough is C3 affordable housing. And if you could see a way to providing a block of C3, they weren't particularly pleased about it, but after some months did come up with a block of C3, which you've seen there. And that came in, and then there were concerns from Viridian Apartments, amongst others, on the sunlight and daylight impact. So I again went back to the applicants and asked them to reduce the height of that block closest and rotate it so that the impacts were lessened and they did that. And then we had to look at sustainability again and we had three design review panels and the third design review panel to get the design absolutely spot on. So, you know, we've been very thorough on this one and really pushed the applicant. And then they got to a position a year and a half ago where they weren't sure the scheme was viable anymore. So they held it in a balance for a year and they came back in the early summer and started up the scheme again and we went out to consultation and we asked for some more changes and then wheelchair housing wasn't quite right so we went back and we got that. And, you know, maybe the applicants think that the officers have been a bit too thorough in getting a great scheme. However, we think we've done our job thoroughly. We may have taken a certain amount of time over that but I think it's better to get it right than get it quick. I don't know whether you'd agree with that. And so, therefore, you know, things may have been delayed a little bit just to finesse it to get it to comply with all the policies and standards. And maybe the applicants thought that we took a bit too long in doing that. So, you know, I feel as though I've done a thorough job here. Maybe they think I was a bit too thorough. I don't think that is the case and can be the case. I think you've done that very well, Count, Mr Hunter, and the improvements are certainly very notable. I'm sure we're going to be asked that. I don't know whether they keep Councillor Humphreys happy if I said, can you put all that in writing for me so it's a letter that I have explaining the reasons and it may be useful at an appeal stage as well. But there's quite a few bits and pieces there. Councillor Coakley. Thank you, Chair. Councillor Coakley for St Mary's World. I have a couple of questions. First one, going off of Mr Hunter's last answer, were the applicants given indications that they were going to lodge this appeal for non-determination or was it sort of did it come out of nowhere? And then secondly, as well, I also noted that we have a lot of planning obligations and conditions in this application and if the appeal is successful, will those obligations and conditions still be upheld on our side or do we lose them essentially? Chair, on the first point, they did say that they were considering appeal and didn't come out of the blue and I was aware of that and I still thought it was right to be very thorough and that was my choice and apologies to your councillors that that sits with me. but hopefully we've now got a report in front of us that does show that the scheme does tick every box, meets every standard, meets every policy. And their second point on the obligations, we will put forward our obligations and conditions to the inspector but he could change those if he was so minded. He, she, they can have got the power to do what they want with that but substantively because we're in agreement largely with the applicant we think that they would pretty much be unchanged. There is an assumption there that he or she will approve it. We don't know but if he or she does we hope they accept the conditions we put forward are the best we could manage. Okay, Councillor White. Yeah, I just wanted to make sure that I understand that planning permission was given for this site so what we're commenting on this evening is the changes from that planning permission. No? Certainly there was a planning application in 2016 is it? I can't remember. There's an extent permission on the site for a residential scheme which they've in effect technically commenced and so that's live. Is that the question Councillor White? I'm not caught there. There's 2019 there was a planning permission given for the site so that's on I think Councillor White if that's the point that I think page 19 yeah I think I picked that up as well and I think I've had a correction from perhaps Mrs Ferguson correct us yes I think in the late items on the second page there's reference to the planning application 2015 oblique 6813 it was reported to the meeting of the planning committee on the 19th of October 2016 not March 2019 so it's that permission has been implemented as Mr Hunter said it's extant some of the conditions have been discharged and the BMW garage building has been demolished there's an error in the paper which is in the late in the late papers the 2019 date that you picked on I did it too as well when I read it through it's actually 2016 and that's the confusion and that's the application that is as I say extant apologies councillor yes that's correct okay any other questions no councillor Gavindia thank you Mr Hunter mentioned time taken to negotiate with Viridian about impact of increased height on the light to that block but I note that the paper also has comments from Peabody about the blocks at the rear of I suppose block 3 leading on Dimension Square and so on could you expand on how you have been able to satisfy Peabody and the residents of that block about loss of light I'll pass that on to Mrs Ferguson who's the I'd like to point you to page 93 of the committee agenda where I think it gives a useful summary in paragraph 11.29 in the table which gives you a summary of all of the buildings that have been assessed in terms of their daylighting and compared with the consented scheme and I think there is some reduction in amenity to some of the rooms you can see it's really confirmed in paragraph 11.30 there would only be seven rooms in total that would have a greater impact when compared with the consented scheme but there would be 18 more rooms affected within phase 4a and one room in the various buildings A1.1 A1.5 but if you look at the table you can see that there's a change of seven rooms in total that would have a greater impact than the consented scheme so that summarises the position I suppose in respect to Viridian and phase 4a so roughly twice as many of benefits as have worsened if that's the opposite of benefits as a result of the change if I'm correct by reading of that table the phase 4a building A1.1 has a greater number of flats which will lose out am I not right that's correct but there's a reduction in Viridian and that's the Peabody owned block and that was my question wasn't about Viridian it was about Peabody and Peabody is a net loser as a result of the heights increased at block 3a am I not right yeah that's correct but I think it's also worth also having a look elsewhere in the report if I can just find the correct paragraph when the scheme for Peabody was granted it was always on the basis that it shouldn't prejudice the development of the adjoining site so I'll just find the correct paragraph I think it's planning approval is on the basis that you don't prejudice the adjoining site I mean that's a pretty clear principle of planning but I think if you look at paragraph 11.11 it talks about the potential for overlooking residential outlook and privacy talking about the windows that were repositioned and the angle of the windows were specifically designed to reduce the residential amenity impacts on those future residents and just to add to that Councillor Givindia the sunlight daylight guidance does specifically say that in regeneration areas in the city areas you're invariably going to get some sorry no we're not tough look but to get the kind of housing we need and to balance all the different ambitions of maximizing site potential and increasing housing as we need then there is going to be some impacts but it's not so severe as to be refusable in officers opinions and we've got an independent sunlight and daylight assessor to consider that on our behalf and he he's advised us that councillor justin it's your ward yes I mean I'm minded not to have an opinion in case because I do want to vote on this so I've no no you can certainly speak and vote as well I mean I spend a lot of time up at the new development probably three times a week because that's part of my constitutional run stroke walk to try and keep my weight down so I'm there a lot and I meet a lot of the residents what the residents are saying here is that they need a student apartment block here like a hole in the head and I think what's happening what's happening what's needed is to make some kind of family friendly residential because this is going to be an enormous development as more and more people move in and I don't see I mean when the report repeatedly uses the word student there's a there's a word missing in front of that and the word is foreign because it's only foreign students who are ever going to take up these spaces as the foreign include Yorkshire people and Lancashire people it's not of interest foreign from another country really yeah yeah I mean I don't I just don't see that you know there's no university or higher education in the immediate area and I'm always told that you know the nine elms development is empty I'll tell you what is empty two blocks that have been created and they're mentioned in the in the report you know we've we've got um just to the west of Battersea Park Road where the railway bridge is you've got a student that come accommodation there you've got a massive block of student accommodation on the Vauxhall side and I tell you they're the ones that are empty you know that there's no lights on there what what why on earth we would need a third block of student accommodation in an area look the scheme really isn't in keeping with the area we need to build a residential area in nine elms where people put down roots and that where more amenities can be but we need doctors and dentist surgeries we need supermarkets but what we're going to get is a load of transient living what we really need in a nutshell we need prams not bikes and once once you start to see more prams than bikes you you'll know that the nine elms development is has been a success and you know the want of um going on too long it really is a development that we need in nine elms like a hole in the head and that's all I really needs to say because that sums up what the residents who are there now think about it now that's um that's a very clear statement of your opinion would you care to speculate on in planning terms sorry to be boring but we are a planning committee so would you care to speculate planning the planning grounds um the officers need things to to be able to i mean this has come back into us with four more stories than the first application which we just agreed had been given permission so if if it's now four stories higher than it was before are are all of the calculations on the way overlooks the other viridian now invalidated and have to be done again because it's now four stories higher right yeah do you want to develop this i mean if you're developing this into a case to move against the application we i know it's primitive i know it's primitive and and i'm sure i'm openly i just people who speak against the application and there may be more than councillor justin but i'm just reminding councillor justin as though we needed it but i'm just doing it but we need planning grounds as well so think about it at least i'm not more than happy to move on to other people first but i was just pressing him to think about what the grounds are because i take your point but i mean the um explanation from our legal uh people here seem to be based more on the worry of the cost of the appeal yeah you know that's not fair either so i understand that yeah yeah councillor humphries i think had his hand coming up thank you just just for my benefit and maybe others as well uh on a more general point uh because of this again slightly strange nature of what we're uh deciding or proposing tonight and it goes back to what councillor colkey was saying earlier so in the course of this discussion that we're having now if we come up with any ideas as we would in a normal planning application where we might want to put an extra condition or an amendment on or something like that is that still part of the process that we can do now because it's an it's an important point because maybe things in a normal discussion we might come to a point where we want to modify something slightly is that still are we just judging it on what it is well can i say as chair and get advised that if i've got it wrong that from this point on having decided we're going we're deciding what we would have decided otherwise so yes we can put any condition we like on this is what we would have done yes yes just to add a little bit to that is we can't defer and go back for discussions quite clearly we need to consider what's in front of us but uh it will be in front of the inspector as well so we need to kind of look clearly at what is in the report and consider the facts of the case based on that if i could just come back on that chair yeah thank you mr hunter as you as you said in in your earlier remarks i think i was right uh in hearing that uh uh the parts that we like and the parts that we don't like in this application will be something that is put into the the mix to weigh up where we go as far as the appeal goes so that might include things that we suggest now that haven't been put in the report so far i might suggest well things that haven't been put in the report well we need to suggest what those are because i can't imagine there's anything that hasn't been put in the report councillor but um uh you need to consider the facts of the case that are in front of us we can't go back and just like bits of it would you agree with the recommendation or not and if not you'll need to clearly justify on planning grounds well with respect mr hunter and councillor and councillor comfries let's not argue about an abstract condition if someone comes up with a condition to be added we can decide then whether it's okay or not okay go on right okay uh any councillor ayres finna ayres i represent east putney um um i have nothing for or against students but i do have a lot against the number here i could happily live with three blocks with one of them having 300 students in and the two others having housing i know this is not the application before us but the the scale of this i think is almost unimaginable unimaginable and i'll tell you where it shows it shows in the size of the bicycle parking areas in these dark basements they are huge empty areas probably ill lit probably ill ventilated that are hostile they are not suitable for young people some of whom may be foreign but may be just confused um and vulnerable uh those bicycle spaces are dreadful my other quick objection to it is that it claims to be a sustainable development well i'm glad you've got back boxes i'm glad you've got the other things but you've got over 800 internal bathrooms on this site the student accommodation every single one all 762 of them have extract fans because the bathrooms are internal and this is not necessary half of them could easily be have natural lights and natural ventilation if the bathrooms were put in line rather than side to side i'm very very keen on this as the rest of you will know that the whole business of bathrooms being unnaturally lit unnaturally light lighted it's the recipe for all this mold that we're dealing with in other aspects of council work dealing with mold all the time because they're internal bathrooms mostly um my major point though about this scheme is that i would have voted against it had it come up in the normal process but i feel very strongly that a lot of work has been done um that it's come this far and for me i'm sorry the reasons for the delays are suspect i don't mean necessarily unprofessional or evil but something to do with um a lack of will um and this concerns me and i don't think it's honest and just to have brought a an application this far and then to turn it down so i'm very conflicted about this at the moment i'm thinking i might have stayed i still haven't decided whether i'm for or against it so i await further enlightenment for the rest of my colleagues thank you thank you councillor is councillor uh ah councillor govindia sorry thank you i think um councillor ayres has probably helped um crystallize some of the thinking in a way and one of the issues is about the quantum of student accommodation that she raises on this site and perhaps for the committee's benefit and there's a question that i had raised with mr calder in correspondence is what is the quantum of student accommodation in nine elms not just in wandsworth but wandsworth and lambeth within a kind of a mile mile and a half because i know that in the recent newspapers uh story the lambeth council's given permission for 800 units on albert embankment just about a mile away there are king's college blocks in wogsall bit of nine of lambeth um and there is obviously palmerston house in this borough so it'd be useful to have some idea about the quantum of student accommodation in the area and i've got some specific questions from arising from miss ferguson's introduction um so perhaps we'll deal with the quantum and then i can i can write raise questions about uh from from arising from miss ferguson's introduction can i ask council of india in genuine inquiry when one gets as far as the albert embankment um how much is one dealing with the central london conurbation in which case we've got hundreds of students thousands of students and and almost hundreds of colleges i mean it we often talk about how meaningless borough and more particularly ward boundaries are in all kinds of things like housing for instance but but really when you're getting on the albert embankment that's in range of all sorts of academic institutions what in a way what is what is it reasonable to ask can you refine the question a bit that's very broad you've you went from nine elms which is a single ward to being lambeth which is quite a lot more i mean what i think someone if we've got the policy people here can say what the student demand in wandsworth is likely to be but can i can i help you chair sorry answering that question because my question is about the nine elms opportunity area right and the albert embankment site that i mentioned is within the opportunity area oh it's that particular a bit and also the other sites that i mentioned around wogsall are also in the opportunity area okay chair i think i can answer councillor of india's sorry thank you councillor of india's question but i think i need to go back a bit and say about student accommodation that the policies that we have in our local plan are led by the greater london authority on this and what they do is specifically on student accommodation look at the need across london and the great role that the higher education institutes in london play in the economy of this country not just directly in keeping the um institutions going with the foreign students which are you know hugely important to their income but also the spin-offs and education and jobs that spin off from those so it's set centrally and it clearly identifies there is a significant demand and undersupply of such accommodation in london and particularly within um half an hour's commute of the main institutions imperial king's college london school of economics so on so forth and london school of economics have expressed a interest particularly in in this site and what we're also required to do in planning is to maximize development on sites and so obviously this kind of scale of development has been imagined in the past because it was in our local plan um and in the designated designation for this site uh a height of 75 75 meters is the maximum permissible height the height of these buildings are below that so it is something that is in accordance with um the design height guidelines um for this particular site um it did get higher throughout the course of the application um because they wanted yeah no no but there's a context here councillor it's not we've got to maximize numbers i'm sorry mr hunter my job is to ask questions okay and now my job is to get an answer and my question is about numbers okay not a lesson on the policy about the gla and us i read that in the report and i've digested it thank you okay and so what we need to look at for the policy is an 800 meter zone from the site we can't look at in policy terms the nine elms area as a whole we need to look in the policy terms that it specifically refers to within the neighborhood area the neighborhood is specified as 800 meters from the site so 800 meters from the site that walking distance there are three institutions if we get this one what we've got is uh the lambeth college belmore street just over the borough boundary which is 250 student beds um we've got uh the palmerston court which is 867 i think and we've got this one which is 765 so what we need to do for the gla figures and government figures for housing returns is we use because these rooms are particularly small as we use a divider of 2.5 to give the equivalent of uh equivalent of c3 homes and that uh it is what we get for our new homes bonus so you divide that by the 2.5 um and when we look at that and it's paragraphs 1.7 of the committee report puts it all in detail um what it does when it aggregates those together it gives the student accommodation if this was approved would total 4.3 of 4.3 of the ones with housing delivery that we've got either built or in the pipeline which is you know pretty small percentage it's not over concentration in any way lambeth have got other ones my understanding is that the voxel the elbert embankment one hasn't actually been approved there is one at miles street um and there's a further one on um uh the below the sports center opposite voxel park but they're more than 800 meters so for policy terms we can't include those and we would also need to when we consider that 4.3 is it um uh any kind of saturation and what impact does that have um is there any clear substantive harm from that use um you know we need to consider things like um the amount of spend as mr diamond points out in his um email i think i've got the numbers i mean i i think to be fair to councillor goodwilliam we're talking about 1850 something like that is in the 800 meter area that uh that's fine and then i think i think there is something nearing that on the uh on the on the wider nine elms area just turning to miss ferguson's introduction on three specific questions one is about the 198 affordable student rooms um what is the definition of the affordable because in in housing terms there is a very specific definition of what is an affordable housing and in in in this case what is is it 30 percent less than the going rate or 40 percent and is it for perpetuity or or what so it's all very well to throw the line that's going to be affordable student accommodation but how affordable and for how long uh the other is that in most construction uh projects in the borough we've paid given some attention to construction jobs um but given that there is the construction methodology here is uh off-site precast concrete units um is there a risk that the number of construction related jobs is not going to be enough and whether that's there's a way in which that figure has been quantified or not and my third point is about car free nature of the development particularly for people with disabilities who might be housed there or the students with disabilities who might need a car and the second group of course is the 55 units of affordable housing is it is it the intention that none of them would be have access to a car parking space right do you get that mr focusing i've got in effect four questions actually what's affordable students number of real jobs given that half of them will be off site in terms of concrete as a construction and the nature of car free space both as far as students are concerned and as far as affordable council tenants are concerned so the gla spg sets out a definition um i could read it actually if you like um affordable student rent is defined as a rental cost for the academic year equivalent to below 55 of the maximum income that a new full-time student studying in london and living away from home could receive from the government's maintenance loan for living costs that academic year yes it is that's us in perpetuity and then there's the number of construction jobs we think um i've no reason to believe that the 280 jobs haven't been baked that they've been based on the predicted construction of the development and steve diamond who's are um who's been consulting on the application hasn't flagged that as being unrealistic for this type of development um it's been set out in the application so i've no reason to doubt that those aren't those those jobs have been calculated on the basis of the materials that are used as part of the the development and it's car free as far as students are concerned it's car free there's um five disabled spaces that are provided in the sleeper and 55 tenants same yeah yes okay council white um yeah i mean there are some positives with this one i mean i'm going against the grain of uh of the arguments that people have been making tonight and saying that uh we do need student accommodation in london anyone expecting to come to london and uh rent um in the private rented sector is going to get a nasty surprise um um there is also the affordability element here as well and it's nice to see london living rent uh being used as well um because um i think that's an underutilized uh model for um affordability uh in london and the other thing is actually going on to what councillor govindia said he actually the off-site um um part of this in in construction is actually uh meaning that we uh can actually build a lot more than than we currently can because we've got a lack of skilled workers but also you can bring in more people into construction as well because a lot of the the jobs are actually desk based and they're not um site based so you know there are a lot more people who might be attracted uh in that way so that those are all quite positive things uh but i'm rather with um councillor ayres on this the the amount of students um that we have here and the overbearing i mean that there's what there's one picture in here and i can't i can't have it and it's like these three blocks are menacing the local affordable blocks um i mean new new mansion square has got a lot of issues at the moment anyway despite having this as well being menaced by three blocks at at the end of the road um also i was rather perturbed by the um argument the lse put up that uh you know we're going to um you know overbear our uh local um uh affordable uh residents uh so that they can afford uh to to run uh their their courses um i think we're more interested obviously in in our local residents rather than whether the lse can run the um their courses really um and uh this doesn't hit our as has been said that this doesn't hit our emergency uh emerging uh affordable uh rent uh policy um and there's a lack of uh outdoor amenity space has been outlined i mean it's and and another question i have here is about simper mansions being 10.1 meters away am i wrong in thinking that there should be a minimum of 18 meters i'll stop there because i've got other points to make but uh is it supposed to be 18 i think in terms of policy that there isn't a distance set in the local plan sometimes um 80 meters is used as a rule of thumb for developments outside of densely built urban areas i mean i think the committee report refers to a closer distance of six meters between the extant scheme and the um and the um proposed and new mansion square so it's actually further away in the proposed scheme than what was consented yes we consented um god really really close um 18 meters by the way um was that that wasn't face to face though was it i mean i've read the bit in the report of course um and it does say other words and it was like edge to corner or something i can't remember it wasn't face to face it's not direct um there's a angle um it's an oblique angle and windows are facing away and that's at the closest point um if i refer you to pages um 88 to 89 that sets out all the distances in relation to the um mansion square buildings um i think for example paragraph 11.8 shows that there's a distance that stretches between 16 meters and 21 meters um and i think it is the paragraph 11.10 where it talks about the 10.1 the closest distance which again um as i just mentioned it's six meters on the on the extant permission but those those two pages really cover off the separation distances so 18 meters people have a lot of problems with distance uh and what's it mean i mean 22 yards cricket pitch a bit more about 19 meters me to the people in the public gallery perhaps i mean that that kind of distance between the and not face to face so you know have your view um yeah and and the last point i wanted to make was uh that um uh there was there was another positive as well obviously reducing the burden on on the on the private rented sector but you know if this was an affordable uh block that would be reducing the impact on on the the um private rented sector as well and that would be much more in line with the um with the what we have there uh and uh might overcome some of the issues we've had with nine elms which is uh overwhelmingly uh private uh and overwhelmingly been bought to to be rent out rented out as well a lot of those properties so um so yeah on balance i i don't think this is this is going to be good for the area any other oh yes now we've got a councillor humphries councillor uh airs thank you chair a couple of different things um just to uh bottom out there's there's there's a lot of uh mentions at various points in the in the report and also in the late items about the lse and also other institutions but is it correct that that you know it's fine and dandy for these institutions to say they support the idea but has anybody actually signed on the dotted line yet as far as uh saying they're actually going to take this or expressed a serious interest in taking it because it's it's one thing to say they welcome more housing it's nothing to say they're going to take it themselves perennial problem we have it's not just in this market is it it's in housing as well where the housing associations are interested it said but which one and so on yes perennial problem chair no one has signed on the dotted line yet but the institutions don't with student accommodation because they might not get planning permission it's a nice way of putting pressure back on the committee isn't it to say that if you don't get permission then you're gonna get in anyway that's not terribly helpful mr hunter uh well yeah okay um and so that that's that's one aspect another aspect so you know let's let's let's let's let's be pessimistic and more often pessimistic let's let's be pessimistic and assume that uh they they failed to fill this building in a couple of years time there's an empty building sitting there like the one in Vauxhall um is it possible with this modular construction to adapt the building into regular residential accommodation because this is something we've seen once in the co-living schemes as well where there's a potential to adapt the building in the future of the mid of the need that is expressed there doesn't turn out to be there is it adaptable chair yes it is we i mean as with palmerston court remember we did the same there um and this came from some time ago when council league of india sent me an article on uh over supplying card if i think it was particularly and got us on palmerston to um consider this and we've got plans in that one and in here in the design and access statement it shows how it could be converted to c3 residential if there's no demand for such student accommodation does it say that in the paper i don't know well not but it isn't i think for future reference it's very useful thing to have said in the paper but yeah um is that you you go on carry on yeah there's more i'm afraid yeah uh again dragging us back i'm sorry we're getting a bit all over the place but uh back to the uh the jobs offer and the employment offer um again it's it does specifically talk about the the construction jobs uh the the quantity which is is is seems to be fairly settled but what about jobs uh longer term in the rest of the the building it doesn't specify that exactly it's a bit vague in the report about what the offer is for local people in the jobs as far as either in the servicing the student accommodation or in the retail units and all the rest of it i i think that's fair chair um you know there aren't a huge number of jobs there is some uh commercial space at ground floor and there will be some jobs associated with the student accommodation um but mr diamond our edo is content with the proposal and as he points out the student accommodation in the battersea constituency is generating something in a region of 112 million pounds is it he uh has a figure from london economics on that i thought that was quite interesting that i think it was even higher figure than that but that that's the spend of the students isn't it these these these famed international students uh that have deep pockets to buy these places rent these places in the first place um but that that spends london wide it's not in the borough is it some of it will be to the borough but it's secondary employment from local shops and businesses and you know so the students the students that are not in colleges in wandsworth they'll be elsewhere in london and we're doing out more of our sterling work to support the rest of the london economy rather than the local economy as you know this is speculative isn't it i mean i'm sure the duchess and the mason i'm sure the duchess and the mason's arms are looking forward to it with glee so i mean it depends what kind of expenditure you mean where and when if i've been a hard-working student all day i'll probably go to a bar around the corner from there and then get the last tube home at night i was always more likely scenario yeah i mean just to add that mr diamond's also secured in the 106 130 000 for local employment agreement that he'll put towards his job match program so um there are benefits answers it's a very simple question something i just don't understand on the drawings of the student accommodations the corridors are have great long spines for most of their length why are the corridors divided up like that so that blocks of um student accommodation can't be reached by the one on the other side of the wall hi sharon milloy principal urban design officer um yeah the reason is for that i can't hear you no sorry i can't hear me good yeah um the reason for that is fire regulations the scheme had to be redesigned it's got the two two cores now and it's for eternal means of fire escape and the reason i had the corridors have the separate door is to allow students from one side to come through to the other in the event of a fire and it's it's pretty fire regulations also it's an aside but for management it just keeps noise down it helps manage it because you only have see it on uh on plot c on on the upper levels you have seven units seven bedsets bedrooms on one side and i think you have eight on the other so it keeps it to traditionally like eight round decor but primarily it's for fire does that mean to say the long long corridors on estates like uh the arndale will be illegal in future because of change of fire regulations they probably wouldn't pass today's regulations if built now councillor but right okay i don't know what the retrospective position is okay any other oh councillor coakley hasn't had a go yet thank you chair uh we were saying earlier about hypothetical um conditions if the committee wanted to include them and i i do find it slightly concerning the lse comments about how um it's going to be that there's going to be potentially a large amount of um overseas students there and if there was a way to potentially do an informative saying that you know we want to make sure that um you know uh all possible ways of making sure that especially the affordable student accommodation gets a decent amount of of uk-based students there because it is really difficult uh being able to afford living in london especially as a student so um especially that affordable student element it should um it'd be good if that was a priority for uk students if members want to express that view we can pass that on to the inspectorate um it's up to the inspector as to as to what weight he might give to that but it sounds unusual but i'm willing to give it a try accommodation should be targeted to local demand of local students in the sense you cannot create be creating overseas international students uh affordable quota you've surely got to i mean that may be okay but you've surely got to include all the british isles i'm not sure about ireland but you can't i mean i don't know the scottish have a different education but we surely can't exclude no no okay so we're talking about either great britain or the british isles one of one of the two yeah okay yeah the gla sets the guidance for student affordable so we need to check on that but we could add something on depending on review members take um we could think it's i think it's and express sorry apologies with respect chairman uh i think it's important that you know we've been talking a lot tonight mr hunter and the team rightly have talked a lot about what this scheme can do for london i think it's equally as important for the committee to be concerned that we're doing as much we can for domestic students as well it's absolutely fair i don't think there's anything contentious about that at all councillor owens is absolutely jumping up and down i could use i could use vulgar language to express but first time this evening councillor owens what do you sorry councillor owens northcote ward surely the um the business of and i completely agree with colc cancer cold clean and and the other councillors on this about reserving these i think it's 198 affordable student rooms surely that would be covered under the fact that the criteria is below 55 of the maximum income for studying in london through the maintenance loan because if you're an international student you wouldn't necessarily be getting a maintenance loan um so if it was based on the maintenance loan criteria that would apply solely to uk students and possibly not the republic of ireland thank you and i mean people can argue with me if you like and move london um i would be very i mean be very strange to me to exclude all those hundreds and thousands of students i've known from yorkshire lancashire who've come and now live in london i would i would hate that as a thought so i would hope it was sticking to the uk at least um but but on that base were you happy with the uk there councillor colcley or do you want to stick to london i i i think up in general uk is fine sorry you think generally yeah yeah fine okay any other i've got a couple of questions i want to ask myself but council right clearly in the officer's view this is absolutely compliant with both council policies and and london plan policies and therefore clearly um we don't have to ask you uh speculatively to take a view what would happen on appeal by definition you would say that on appeal it would be passed because otherwise it would it's got to be compliant therefore if we're going to find grounds to refuse it we have to find what ways in which it's not compliant or in which it's substantially changed from a previous the extant application and so far only one person and maybe maybe the committee is going to agree to pass it anyway in which case uh i needn't pursue this but if it's going to move to refuse then we have to find um reasons in planning terms that uh will stand a chance of of winning in in appeal and have to be appealing to an inspector and at the moment i've only had i think i've had i don't likes which is fine but it's not a planning reason the only one i've had is an increase in height so although council committee was bullying me for for raising this an hour ago i haven't had anything else um and at some point or other i know this is very difficult and i i don't think i would have been in favor of this scheme uh first time round i can't actually remember what i thought at the time but then the plans were done by with respects um a different party and i may not have approved it but now i'm in reverse position so i'm asking everyone to be very responsible and concerned considered about the view they take um maybe people are going to support it but if they're going to oppose then there's got to be good reasons and reasons that we'd all be comfortable about in defending in in an appeal and so that's what i'm looking for council white council humphries can we can we object on the basis of the daylight impacts um and that's why my question earlier on i was a bit confused because the uh you know there are slight improvements not for all blocks you know simple block um is is overly impacted in both schemes but um can we object on that basis well we can it's whether people think it's credible i mean i'm i'm sorry that wasn't i mean that may be a case that may be one point i'm noting it see we'll council humphries to follow on from council white's point i i i think there is some uh credibility in the in the and where he's going with that because the the the impact of the height on the new extra over and above what we've already got approved uh and the impact particularly on where that's going on as we were talking about earlier on the peabody side so the impact of the overlooking and overlooks on the gardens as well and the amenity space on peabody so the overbearing impact on the neighboring size particularly the peabody one i think has got some credibility as far as something that is definitely a detriment to this application remind me of the increase in number of students between the two applications uh it was residential right of course ah so there's the the sheer quantum of is that it counts sorry council of india so i i looked at in a sense the extent permission and this and in a in a way the differences between the two one is the height and therefore all the things that flow from that and then the other is the nature of the use of those buildings the previous application was wholly residential with ground floor commercial and and community use and things like that and this is obviously two blocks of student accommodation uh the ground floor uses remain more or less in square meters roughly the same and then there is 55 residential units so there's a reduction in housing uh there's an increase obviously in student accommodation there's increase in height and the consequence of the increase in height is uh on the loss of amenity and outlook for for the adjoining blocks particularly peabody as counselor white say so i think i think that um um i'm sure that officers with planning speak um more at their fingertips than i have would be able to craft words around the increase in height creating and overbearing as very overbearing structures with their impact on reduction in amenity and outlook uh and in light in particular in case of the peabody buildings and that in terms of change of views effectively uh from wholly residential bar ground floor uses to residential and student is that the need for housing remains greater high and in fact greater and and whereas the student accommodation this site is not wholly dependent on it whereas the borough's housing needs are greater so i think it's the balance between two types of needs or demands and i would say the housing need and demand is greater and therefore uh that's a good enough reason to say that this is not acceptable personally i don't personally i'm not terribly convinced that those will get very far um i'm going to ask you to uh one of you i'm not oh is council humphries going to volunteer i would go ask one of you to frame because i'm just about to move that the officer's recommendation be accepted and there are certainly some people here who inclined to think that's what we need to do in the circumstances but once uh if that's passed end of story of course but if it's not then we'll need someone to have a an amendment that's acceptable in planning terms so that's all i'm saying does that help you council humphries thank you i i i was i was i was just also thinking about another uh uh credible line of uh of of attack on this one is is is the intensification of the use of the site because it's a very different aspect from 300 residential units on the uh uh uh permission that's already extant to to the hundreds of units we're going to get here so the intensification of the site and we haven't even got onto mr tidley and the uh impacts on deliveries and servicing and all the rest of it because it's going to be much more intensive use of vehicles access servicing all those things which will impact on uh the benefits of the site which all the lovely walkways and such like will be completely filled up with uh delivery mopeds delivering stuff to all those students in those 700 units so the intensification of use of the site will be much greater in this application and it will be in the currently approved one um mr tidley um you're being offered the hot seat by uh by your by your boss here who's well it's kind of um who's saying um mr tidley might have something to say about the uh about well the the mppf as well yeah okay yeah thanks david tidley i'm the um head of transport strategy um i just having listened to the to the discussion so far i pick up on a few points if if if i may to pick up on councillor white's point first to think about the extant permission as the starting point i think it's fair it's it's it's it's right to say that that development would actually would actually result in a larger increase in trips than the the the proposal that's before you tonight particularly in the in the peak hours because effectively um the student student trip numbers in terms of road traffic are less than residential um and so the numbers of journeys will actually be reduced during the peak periods there will be more walking trips because students walk more in terms of their sort of day-to-day activities and then we come to servicing um and i think the the challenge we've served the the application has been accompanied by a very detailed transport assessment that sets out on an hourly basis how the servicing would you know predictions of servicing arrangements and um using um approved methodology and including what occurs at other student accommodation sites to estimate the numbers of of journeys that would be uh would be carried out servicing during the day and that assessment generally demonstrates that the servicing needs of the development could be accommodated by the proposed servicing arrangements the free uh delivery bays that are being proposed um we did pick up at the beginning of the meeting a councillor cockley's comment about conditions and within the paper there are two pretty key conditions one is uh the condition 52 which sorry condition 54 which is the condition uh that the um access to the servicing bays that are on the third party land it's effectively a grampian condition so no very little development could occur before that condition was discharged and then condition 55 is a delivery and servicing plan which despite the application being accompanied by a plan that we think is broadly acceptable there's nevertheless still a condition that before each phase is is occupied details need to be provided of the numbers of servicing per block the times at which these vehicles would service the types of vehicles and how how it would be managed as well so i think going back to the comment we sort of started from really about where we are with an appeal um it may certainly be my view that the the right course of action would be to say that the development is acceptable in traffic and service in town in terms subject to the delivery of these robust conditions rather than to suggest that development is unacceptable despite having these conditions um i think i'll probably just leave it there but that's where i would probably uh come from thank you mr silly um miss council humphries again sorry chair if i could come back on that i mean it it all sounds very plausible but the reality is if you look at page 107 where we've got some of those numbers down at point 49 it says student accommodation the findings indicate 46 percent of users this site are expected to make trips on foot but when we've been told that they're not going to be going to college in the vicinity of the site you'll notice me that they're not going to jump on the underground directly opposite this site to go to their college or use a bike or whatever the the impacts are surely much greater than are estimated here which i presume this report comes from the applicant rather than being done by ourselves so i'm sure that's one reason why they're going to make it sound favorable i mean it says the same thing here so we're talking about on the residential side we're talking about a a a car free site for 55 residential units and so they can't take anything on a car and it says only you know only uh what's it 23 are going to use the underground so if you haven't got a car how are you going to get to work if you're going in 23 of people living in 55 units are going to be uh uh getting about it it's just you know it it may stack up with the numbers and and deliveries i'm assuming we're talking about you know like uh uh ocado lorries and supermarket deliveries and stuff like that but i was i was thinking more about the impact of things like the deliveroo bikes where people get uh their breakfast delivered on and all those lovely walkways around the site uh which are being highlighted as a benefit of the scheme we know how that works in reality in reality on a day-to-day level they'll be full of mopeds going backwards and forwards mowing down pedestrians left right and center if they're trying to deliver their uh let's package from delivery or just eat surely it's just the the gap between where it's not really like that much in nine elms at the moment is it well they have to get their stuff from somewhere just around battersea you know around the power station itself surprisingly i mean there's more deliveries in my road than there are usually there but i just you know there's a difference between students accommodation and people who are actually living there that's exactly my point yeah okay okay i mean i i think that we've got all i i i suspect that there's hardly a committee member here who is 100 sure of whatever it is they're going to vote but i think we can because i know from conversations most of you beforehand you're all a bit divided on it one way or another so unless someone's got anything brand new um i might as well move to the vote might i not no one's going to say anything okay so in front of us we've got a recommendation from the officers that uh this application be approved can i have a show of hands please for those who are in favor of approving it three four four beg your pardon four um and those against as opposed to abstain and then i'm immediately going to turn to you and say okay come up with the words and five against now please come up with the words and by the way when you feel like it which ones of you are going to volunteer to appear at the inquiry on behalf of the council i'm prepared to actually but which one of you lot is going to support me what form on that one council belt sorry you and i have form on that one we do indeed yes oh sorry if people watching didn't understand that i thank you those voting in favor of the recommendations is four votes and those against five so that falls at least at the moment it does if we've got an acceptable um rejection i think perhaps um miss campbell uh will remind us of the vote effectively means that what is proposed cannot happen and if there is no further vote then that is the only vote that this committee has taken so i appreciate your wanting to get reasons for refusal well i can't i can't accept a vote of refusal without any reasons i mean that's just doesn't doesn't work does it i think i think that the recommendation we were told at the beginning of the committee that this was about had they not appealed and had we had the chance to make it we would have made such and such a decision what the vote suggests is that we would not have made that decision and given reasons as you know we always have to well so i did start and and and and you felt that they were not good enough um because you thought the vote might go the other way in the first instance so i may start again that the changes between the extent permission and the existing and this uh proposal is in two areas one is the quantum height and and then the nature of the use of those buildings and the height of increased height and the impact of that on adjoining properties and particularly the peabody block has been discussed and debated here uh suggests that that is a good enough area for committee to rely on as a reason for refusal and that the the change of use in effect from a wholly residential bar the ground floor use uses to residential and predominantly student or overwhelmingly student with some resident residential is the wrong balance for land use and that site given the demand and need for affordable and housing and affordable housing in particular well this is really between five of you um five of you prepared to accept that as a reasonable okay so can i well you seconded yes so the decision we're actually taking is to turn down the officer recommendation on the basis of the words that councillor govinda gave which um my clerk here has written down would you care to read them out just to make sure we've got them right due to the quantitative height and use the buildings the increase in height and the impact on the adjoining properties in particular the peabody the change of use ineffective from the ground floor from residential to predominantly student accommodation no longer is the balance for land use and housing need and the housing need in particular sure the wording will will improve on second reading so those those members in favor of refusing on those grounds five those against that's logically me one okay and abstaining three yeah okay move on to the second application which is lidden road um we have a few pictures if required but i'm not sure that they are are members generally happy with this application lidden road council white come and see yes by all means speak up sorry can i ask a question about that sorry um so um yeah so so um so if the if we're consenting to the demolition with all the carbon release um uh around that uh when the new the new buildings cannot meet the on-site of on-site affordable workspakes its expectations so i don't understand why we would be giving consent to something that doesn't meet our plan as far as the workspace expectations are concerned um and with all the demolition and all the negativity around uh the um uh carbon release uh can you explain why why is it considered a good idea when it when it's not a good idea as far as meeting our um plan around uh affordable workspace um thank you um ellen richards i'm the team leader for the west area um so essentially the policies associated with um on you know for affordable workspace first and foremost seeks to secure it on site um that's uh that's uh that's the best uh aim of the the policy um but it does allow for uh contribution to be made if that's not something that is viable or um is is feasible potentially especially in this case they don't know who the end user might be um and so they don't know whether or not it would be feasible to provide that sort of a small space of affordable so it's been as you can tell from the report there was quite a lot of negotiation on this aspect and our economic development officer um saw the contribution of 200 000 as a good compromise in terms of um enabling the policy uh requirements to be met um while still contributing overall to the to the borough's um um affordable workspace um more roundly um similarly with the carbon offset it's the the policy aims for 100 percent um but in the circumstances when that's not possible um which i think in a lot of cases if it would fail to a degree um but um that's why then the policy allows for contribution so in this case there's a thirteen and a half thousand pound contribution to do to offset that and mitigate it okay any other counselors i have two small points to make um the there's one parking place for a disabled person and it's the furthest from the road and it's the furthest from the um entrance to the building i mean redesign it please get them to redesign it and the other thing is um i think the colors are quite cheery and uh nice um is there a condition that those colors have to be agreed by the council um prior to ordering if there is condition three requires that okay that's my point thank you on that point it it did develop over time in the pre-up and also because of the drp and the colors scheme and everything was was discussed quite a lot so just to reassure you can answer perhaps thank you i thought there were some very positive aspects to this scheme um such as the biodiversity mentioned in 9.7 had obviously been a lot of thought put into that and it was very positive no doubt um encouraged by our excellent officers um i had a couple of questions one was about the worry from residents about noise i thought this was fair particularly things we don't know who the user is going to be and if that would be sort of monitored ongoing and if the um noise insulation would need to be updated in due course you know as standards improve um the other issue is is there was complaint about lack of community engagement and i did think that residents made a good point that it would be good to have local input into sort of the jobs and training um potentially um offered as a result of the financial contribution um if they fail to meet the um local employment targets um separately the transport for london advisory notes there was the issue about um delivery times and also using the force scheme that's obviously very important as we're a borough who committed to vision zero i know that those can't be um they're they're only advisory they're they're requested but they can't be a planning um kind of um demand as it were but do we have a sense of whether or not the applicant is minded to follow those those advisories um thank you that was everything um any help on that so it has been assessed by our environmental health officers um who are comfortable with it subject to a condition about um noise management and further information to be submitted for approval at a later date um i think you were talking about the cert well i'll i shall leave any queries and concerns that you have about highways and transportation in more detail to mr tiddly but there are conditions attached to this again about the cmp and also for delivery and service members will be aware that there's been quite a few schemes approved in in the vicinity of lydon roads recently all of them had been subject to separate individual cmp's but i think as mr tiddly set out in last month's committee they are all done when when you know that there are certain other sites within the same site i mean no riverside is currently being built but that is serviced more i think from the bend and road side and so on so there's they would be monitored and coordinated is the point i think but i shall leave mr tiddly to clarify that in terms of the employment um opportunities and training that's something that our um edo um work really closely with um the developers they enter into agreements they have regular meetings um it's all really geared towards ensuring that as many uh apprentice places for people of onesworth are secured in this case based on the size of it you'd be looking maybe at about uh 15 to 20 apprenticeship scheme places maybe here throughout the different stages of the the process and the development of the building structure and so on as well as um future so all of that is very much i don't know what they do but that's what our edo do and they secure very well so i think there's a lot of reassurance for you there mr tiddly you got anything to add uh only that in the nearly all the cases we'd expect contractors uh to be members of the freight operators recognition scheme and to have the sort of cycling level of safety um standards as well and certainly when the construction management plans come in i always check to see whether or not they are and they they invariably are we may at some stage wish to mandate that through an informative or or or a condition but i i'll i'll make sure i'll check that can answer humphries thank you chair uh just to follow on in this in the same vein because i was i was going along a similar line as you say miss we've seen a sort of gradual intensification of this part of the the the area with the the light industrial and it is it is changing the nature of what's around there and not saying that's necessarily a bad thing but it is intensifying it and it is but i think one thing that is relevant and it's mr tiddly's angle again i'm afraid that is a particular i think concern of mine is that the type of businesses that were the old occupiers tend to be like small scale manufacturers things like that where there was there were less vehicle movements there's less stuff going on in fact and on this particular uh site we had a flyer from the applicant i think we all got one didn't we uh a few days ago and it's it's clear from from his aspirations that he's looking towards to try to find a a tenant that's going to be in the distribution or warehousing sector and the nature of what they're building inclines it towards that with the mezzanine and all the rest of it but that will mean an intensification of use of more vehicles coming and going by the nature of its being distribution and warehousing because the whole point of those places it's it's stuff coming in and going out again so my particular concern and it is particularly this street rather than the other ones in the area is that with the floriat school again at the end of the road it is there is a lot of pedestrian traffic through there at school times so if we're looking at having any kind of restrictions on when those vehicle movements are i think it would be really helpful for the residents who live just around the back there uh that there's there's restrictions on school time deliveries and collections and things like that because inevitably with the intensification of the site there will be more vehicles using that and if they can just avoid those times don't want to impose too much on their business models but there must be times a day when it can be suggested that they can't have lots of stuff coming and going just for the benefit of the residents who live around the back and unusually on this application we haven't had any objections from residents so i appreciate that the applicant and the officers have done a good job on trying to balance that with those residentials at the back and on the side so it's a good job so far but let's just put the icing on the cake and make sure it's not a safe place for people to walk past as well if we can as the first person um responsible for the council building any factories at all that's what i did have lock terrace 1970 whatever it was and started an employment program um when the officers said we didn't need to do anything about that so keeping some jobs alive i recognize as i'm sure you do council humphrey's that um it's all very well being residential but we've got to supply jobs as well and i actually quite applaud the uh the intensification of uses in that particular area and bringing in jobs and i think probably lots of people especially those people with the jobs um agree with that but mr tilly we've got to keep an eye on the traffic implications i'm sure you are yes and interesting you should mention have a lot terrace because that is where industrial and education do tend to co-exist because in our schools quite significantly in in that area of course well the council sold my lovely development 300 000 pounds it was for about 14 million they made a lot of it um council of india's colleagues did um very well but it's now been written it's now about to be replaced isn't it by more student accommodation but but get getting back to this application so yeah yeah it's it's it's it's normal standard that the construction would certainly seek to avoid uh school arrival and pick up times and then the delivery and servicing going forward i think you know it's it's more of a best endeavors because you say it is a it is an industrial use that needs to work um but but but i'm sure they would want to reach out to the community and be a good neighbor is the recommender sorry councillor given you thank you i mean i don't really have a problem with this application though i thought i'd take advantage of the application to make a couple of points about the sites we've now dealt with a couple of other living road sites and there is an intensification going on and a change in the employment in that area i i just hope that somebody is taking stock of the cumulative impact particularly in the residential properties that back onto onto this site and couple along and then the traffic impact that councillor humphries mentioned the other is about the change of existing jobs which are being changed into different types of jobs and and one of the real difficulties is that when an existing tenant or business has to relocate for the period of construction they almost never return and if it's going to be replaced by a logistics distribution thing then there's a change in the nature of employment base of the bar and i'm sure edia uh is aware of it but i i just make a plea that that is not disregarded and when we talk about apprenticeships in this application as i read it the applicant is effectively a developer of industrial space so is he going to provide apprenticeships or is his tenant going to provide apprenticeships and will the the 106 agreement um effectively go with the land and therefore impose an obligation on the tenant or not i wasn't quite clear on that can i challenge the premise of your comment i mean by all means let's have the officers comment but if i looked at all the jobs now in the borough compared with when i first was here um though incredibly large number of very high tech and very high paid and very high skilled manufacturer i mean i i know some people find it but software um it's a very big area of software um so i wouldn't necessarily say they're all going to go just to distribution and lower paid jobs but i don't know whether mr richard's got a comment on that or whether we'd need to go to an employment specialist to find out i would just comment that in terms of the um section 106 agreement the heads of terms sets up very clearly that um it would go with the land ah okay i think that's the planning question the others were things that i hope that officers will take on board with their i mean obviously distribution would exist but i mean there are the other high tech as well okay is the application agreed agreed thank you and move on to the chair can i abstain what on the um on the last paper yes by all means so it's agreed by nine votes one abstention um um saint george's hospital application do we sorry to keep all those people waiting but do we need a discussion on this at all or are we going to council humphries wants to discuss it and council white i don't want to discuss it but i would like to take the opportunity to make a to make a comment if that's all right and i say that we we have lots well not lots because there's a significant number of applications from nhs and and george's in particular over the over the years and i'm usually somewhat scathing about uh what they've constructed uh we had one not long ago they're functional perhaps we say but they're not they're not normally particularly uh uh attractive or anything that's an asset as far as architecture or anything like that but i i think i have to give them the compliment on this one and say for once i think they've actually made an effort and it stands out as a really good example and i'd congratulate them for that and officers for making sure we've got a decent building particularly this one that's gonna be really visible from the road from blackshaw road where you've got the cemetery say it's gonna be really visible so uh i saw nhs and george's in the headlines so oh here we go again so i must admit i was pleasantly surprised to see uh it wasn't what i was expecting a much better building and very good too thank you count saps um i've got a couple of questions um arising from the paper the first one was there was a bit of an issue about the lack of a master plan but then it said on page 237 that there was now an estate plan that had been looked at by planners is this a proper master plan or is this you know does this really count as that um the second um question was it says that and this is probably just me being a bit stupid to be honest but perhaps you can enlighten me it said there were 300 there were likely to be 328 two-way vehicle movements does that mean double it or is that does that vehicles coming in and out in total 328 um i just wasn't sure what that meant and then the other thing is just to say on my visits to st george's have often been shortages of cycle spaces so i was glad to see about the 78 uh long stay cycle places and i hope that they'll continue to to increase the numbers because there's definitely been a shortage in the past thank you i've always taken it and i'd hear wait just hear what mr tilly says but i've always taken 328 in and out to mean 328 in and out if you see what i mean so mr tilly please reassure me after all this time i i think i'm not going to reassure you cancel two-way means one in one out is two that's two two-way trips but that's if that makes makes sense it's that means 656 trips let me give you an example of a mother a parent takes a child to school the parent goes to school one trip the parent leaves two trips the child goes three trips but doesn't come back so that's three two-way trips that's why we that's that's why we talk in terms of two-way that's why we talk in terms of two-way trips in most cases somebody will go into the hospital and come back out so that's two trips but the staff will go in in the morning and they won't come out until the afternoon possibly so that's one trip that's why we we do it i'm glad to see that transport officers are worth all of the money that they're paid because they clearly have to have very large brains thank you by the way if there's anyone from the estates of st george's someone's one of the members has said and i will back this because i have the same problem please try and reconsider the signage in the hospital i can never find where i am and i'm in there quite often looking for places um gaff says um what is a biosolar roof i know what a bio roof is i want a solar roof what's a biosolar and the other one is that i'm stunned at the travel distance of building that long with two staircases one at each end there's a long travel distance especially if some of the people there are going to be quite poorly and if there's a fire it's going to be really quite awkward to get them out so that's just i'm used to seeing travel distances in in residential places so that those travel distances amazed me that that's i mean i'm not i'm sure it complies but i mean it's just staggering tell me about biosolar roof um pv rays photovoltaic rays solar panels and a sedum blanket as well something that photosynthesizes so bio and solar okay thank you and the fire safety principles that would apply for um for residential schemes is different to hospital buildings as well so the paper goes into detail about the whole concept of compartments and evacuation to compartments so the uh the strategy of of the corridors is in relation to where the um evacuation points are so it's different but evacuation point okay sorry not too much of a private chat anyone i missed the word that's all okay counselor coldly thank you chair uh i noticed in um i noticed that there was only a 4.6 percent biodiversity next net gain in this and so then the remaining amount was um is agreed to be off site and i'm sure the condition will make sure that this does actually happen i'm more curious how is this expected to happen is this going to be the nhs trust improving um the biodiversity somewhere else on their site or is it more that they're going to contribute money and we're going to build a pocket park of it or something like that i'd just be curious to how that's going to happen practically thank you so this this is an example of where um it just shows you where the the two policy requirements are or one's a statutory requirement in terms of the biodiversity net gain and then the urban greening factor so this this proposal actually complies with the urban greening factor which is a london plan policy which sets out it gives certain amounts of credits for each different type of element that goes into making a proposal biodiverse and that can be done on any building irrespective if there's any bng on the site so that works if there's just a concrete car park and you're putting in a new building there so you can get this beer because the biodiversity bng wouldn't count because there's nothing to begin with they you don't have to give it back but because they are felling a number of trees and if you imagine the volume of a tree and the amount of diversity that we can contain contained in the canopy as opposed to linear examples then that increases the overall replacement for biodiversity net gain to be increased so the measures that they've over and above what has been achieved on the urban greening factor they haven't managed to make that 10 so the way that bng works is that you can buy off-site credits you can acquire off-site credits that is there preserved you can see the conditions that there they have to provide an evidence base for that that being held into a period of minimum of 30 years so that gain what what happens within the off-site actual units that they buy how that translates and it can be a different size depending on whether it would be you know the quality of the actual unit that you buy whether it's a meadow or whether it's you know sort of like more of a field i don't know but you know i do know that there are different categories but you can make up that um that shortfall evidence that you've done it and then we monitor it okay so so is is there any when this happens is there anything that mean that means necessarily needs to be in one's worth this you know the the meadow or or whatever like it it's the biodiversity that they're going to be purchasing it's going to benefit it's going to like increase the biodiversity of one's worth or not somewhere else it's the way that this has been the this statutory instrument has been um has been developed it it doesn't have to benefit the um the borough the location that it's within it could doesn't necessarily mean it's within the m25 we can express a desire to uh to use you know reasonable endeavors to get the uh the credits as close as possible to the borough but the way that the um the legislation's been been drawn up it doesn't actually specify precisely where it should be it would make sense obviously the closest to the brow but um obviously if there was an opportunity within the site or to buy the credits if there was somebody within wandsworth who had that green land available to sell credits to in this instance st george's then that's the way it would be uh captured in wandsworth but that doesn't exist i mean the commons we own and you know we can't sell credits on a common for instance you never know it might benefit dorset who knows um i picked dorset for a particular reason of course um council white yeah i went to the design review panel for this and it was uh very interesting actually some points that were made and some of the changes that came out of it were excellent uh there's a couple of points that i wanted to to uh ask uh first one was how old are the 26 trees that are going to be removed and the second one is um hospitals generate a hell of a lot of heat um are there plans to capture the heat um produced to reuse maybe for an ambient loop and if if not is that something that we can instruct them to uh to examine at least um the the trees we haven't got the age of the trees that's relatively difficult to determine and i believe you could count the rings but i think you've got to cut it down first um so but they they're categorized you know from a b c d and e so that that is i can't put my finger on the um um on the arboriculture section straight away but um they are here we go two four nine so you can see of the proposed 26 trees you can see what the categories are um and i think in in essence the uh the main disappointment basically was um revolving around um the specimen t1 a london plane which is a category a which is the the highest specimen and t4 it goes on health not necessarily age you can have an old tree but it could be in a terrible health ready to be felled really but um the category a is obviously it's in it's it it's in its healthiest situation and the false acacia it can't be but um they they lie within the footprint of the site and to produce this you know this renal facility that's amalgamating you know the uh the saint george's trust and then that of epsom and st helia i believe you know for this regional facility then unfortunately they have to be felled but the replacement um trees and uh is exceeding what they're being felled but you know unfortunately that that is a negative but outweighed by the overall public benefit of the proposal okay capturing the heat heat um the energy strategy um i've been waiting to extol the virtues of uh of um saint george's um sustainability credentials for quite some time and the fact that this all the measures that have taken in terms of heat capture i mean it has to be believed it has to be highly thermally insulated in the first place um and it actually achieves a bream outstanding uh sustainability level which is the highest you can get so it's a very encouraging sign whilst also uh well exceeding the 43 percent minimum um carbon savings so in terms of all of the measures that are being um being physically incorporated into and the technology going into the the building this is this is a you know bit of an exemplar for the nhs and easily to be the uh highest performing one that i've looked at for some time but is that something that can be looked into if they're not capturing heat because um you know if you see how much machinery and how much um stuff that's going on within a hospital that that is generating a hell of a lot of heat and a lot of it is wasted traditionally uh hopefully this is an indication that uh you know that that's been improved on but it's not you know sort of uh indicated here and is that something that we could raise with them send the note back to achieve this bream score everything's looked at from the thermal capacity of the actual fabric of the building to the machinery to you know what recovery what heat recovery that they use every you know how they heat it how they call it everything's looked at so um the fact is is that it's highly thermally efficient in the first place not to leak heat um or or overheat during the summer so the very fact that it's got this racing is has encompassed all of those facets okay i don't think you can solve the whole problem of loss of a heat i'm not sure you're suggesting it but the whole problem which in i agree with you is enormous in hospitals on just on this one application which is okay is the application agreed oh sorry council i do beg your pardon just for my own personal um knowledge that when uh what is the maximum height of anything that could be built at st george's office is it the six stories of this building uh no the um the site allocation again it's probably it's definitely it's seven to eight stories but the principle of of you know the site allocations and maximum heights is that the reason i ask is that connected with the signage the reason why the signage is so difficult is because the whole hospital is so sprawled out and has so much sort of one story building as opposed to say something chelsea and kensington which is one huge block so i just wondered if in the fullness of time it could it could all go up to six to eight and not be all spread out over such a gosh area god with with respect yeah i mean i was trying to get lost there i was trying to hint this with with councillor white this is a city this is a small city on its own account we can't solve all its problems and issues on the basis of one building in one part of it um if you're going to call for something to cover the whole of st george's then then we can all adjourn for two years and have a big study and take ages this is about one site and one building and it's defensible and material in its own right council of india just on the whole issue of signage and i something i raised earlier maybe it's it's worth say putting an informative about the hospital authorities give consideration to improving wayfinding and and signage uh it's it's it's a bit of a well i mentioned that but that's part of the city again it's not yeah whoever whose ever job it was to design and build this was doing it within one application and that's the way mr grange has been considering it okay is it agreed thank you now we move on to the enforcement actions which is page 271 lovely flu very within 100 yards of us um are we going to have an introduction um he's been sitting here for how many committees never gets a word in if you are going to introduce it make it very very quick i've been waiting for this for months and our small beans compared to the other schemes tonight um a flu erected to the rear uh 60 fairfield road as you can see it discharges in front of the windows of the first floor flat um you know they they can see it straight out of their window and it causes issues of um fumes and odor um we're recommending service of an enforcement notice so they get rid of it or at least come in with a revised application is that agreed and a page or two later on preserving a lovely looking tree on ones of the common is that agreed and that i sorry was trying someone saying something no good um and then there are the the decisions paper and the closure of investigation files the closed appeals everyone's notes all of those and thank you and good evening
Summary
The Committee voted to refuse planning permission for a mixed-use development of student accommodation and affordable housing on Battersea Park Road, and to grant planning permission for the demolition of an industrial building on Lidden Road and its replacement with a new industrial building. The Committee also voted to grant planning permission for the construction of a new Renal Centre building at St George's Hospital.
Application 2022/1835: Land to the rear of 41-59 Battersea Park Road, London
The committee considered a planning application for a mixed-use development of 55 affordable housing units and 762 student bedrooms on a site at 41-59 Battersea Park Road, London. The application, which had been submitted in May 2022, had been the subject of a lengthy negotiation process between the applicant and the council, with the applicant subsequently appealing against non-determination of the application.
The committee heard from officers that the applicant had initially proposed a scheme for student accommodation only, but had subsequently agreed to provide a block of affordable housing on the site. The committee also heard that the applicant had made a number of revisions to the scheme in response to concerns raised by officers and local residents, including reducing the height of the affordable housing block and amending its footprint to retain trees on the frontage of Battersea Park Road.
Officers recommended that the committee grant planning permission for the scheme, subject to the completion of a Section 106 Agreement.
Several members of the committee expressed concern about the scale of the proposed development, particularly the number of student bedrooms. Concerns were also expressed about the impact of the development on the character of the area, the loss of light to neighbouring properties, the intensification of use on the site, and the potential for an increase in traffic and noise. In particular, concerns were raised about the impact of the development on the nearby Peabody housing block, New Mansion Square.
What the residents are saying here is that they need a student apartment block here like a hole in the head. In a nutshell we need prams not bikes and once once you start to see more prams than bikes you you'll know that the nine elms development is has been a success. It really is a development that we need in nine elms like a hole in the head. - Councillor Justin
Concerns were also raised about the lack of detail on the affordable student accommodation, and its likely affordability to UK-based students.
I think it's important that you know we've been talking a lot tonight [...] about what this scheme can do for London. I think it's equally as important for the committee to be concerned that we're doing as much we can for domestic students as well. - Councillor Humphries
However, other members of the committee spoke in favour of the scheme, arguing that there is a need for more student accommodation in London and that the scheme would provide much-needed affordable housing. The scheme would also contribute to the council’s aim of maximising development on sites suitable for it.
We do need student accommodation in London. Anyone expecting to come to London and uh rent in the private rented sector is going to get a nasty surprise. - Councillor White
Following a lengthy debate, the committee voted to refuse planning permission for the scheme, citing concerns about the intensification of use on the site, the impact of the development on the character of the area, and the loss of light to neighbouring properties. The committee also felt that the balance of housing in the development was wrong given the demand for affordable housing in the Borough.
The changes between the extant permission and the existing and this uh proposal is in two areas. One is the quantum height and and then the nature of the use of those buildings and the height of increased height and the impact of that on adjoining properties and particularly the Peabody block has been discussed and debated here uh suggests that that is a good enough area for committee to rely on as a reason for refusal and that the the change of use in effect from a wholly residential bar the ground floor use uses to residential and predominantly student or overwhelmingly student with some resident residential is the wrong balance for land use and that site given the demand and need for affordable and housing and affordable housing in particular - Councillor Govindia
Application 2024/0574: Benbow House, 22 Lidden Road, London
The Committee considered an application for the demolition of an industrial building and its replacement with a new industrial building at Benbow House, 22 Lidden Road, London.
The committee heard from officers that the existing building is no longer fit for purpose and that the new building would provide modern, flexible industrial space. The new building would also have a number of environmental benefits, including a green roof and solar panels.
Several members of the committee raised concerns about the application, particularly the loss of the existing building and the impact of the new building on the character of the area. There were also questions about the likely nature of the end user of the building, given the ongoing change of use of the area from light industrial to logistics and warehousing. Concerns were raised about the proximity of the Floreat Wandsworth Primary School, and whether it would be possible to place limitations on the times of deliveries to the new building. However, officers reassured the committee that these matters would be addressed through the conditions attached to the planning permission.
The committee voted to grant planning permission for the application.
Application 2024/2673: St George's Hospital, Blackshaw Road, London
The Committee considered an application for the construction of a part single, part two storey modular building for use as a Renal Centre, with associated landscaping, car parking and cycle parking at St George's Hospital, Blackshaw Road, London.
The committee heard that the new building was needed to provide improved renal services at the hospital, would be highly sustainable, achieving a BREEAM1 Outstanding rating, and would, through the use of offsite construction, minimise disruption to the hospital.
The committee voted to grant planning permission for the scheme.
Enforcement Actions, Tree Preservation Orders and other business
The committee considered a report on enforcement action taken by the council. The report included details of a case in which the council had served an enforcement notice on the owner of a property in Fairfield Road, London, requiring them to remove a flue that had been erected to the rear of the property.
The committee considered a report recommending the making of a Tree Preservation Order in respect of a tree on Wandsworth Common. The tree, a mature oak, is considered to be of significant amenity value to the area. The committee voted to approve the making of the order.
The committee also considered a number of other matters, including decisions on planning applications that had been made by officers under delegated powers, and the closure of a number of planning enforcement cases.
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BREEAM - Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method - is a widely recognised method of assessing and rating the sustainability of buildings. ↩
Decisions to be made in this meeting
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