Author: Cyril Richert

Although the official period of consultation ended on 18th March, late comments will still be valid and considered until the planning officer publishes its report, and even until the Planning Committee meets.

The Clapham Junction Action Group has sent an objection that you can download HERE.

In a nutshell, our letter made the following considerations:

In 2008 the Wandsworth Society fought against the joint plans of The Council and the developers Minerva during the inquiry into the Ram Brewery development.  The Secretary of State Eric Pickles acknowledged that the Society and all local residents and groups who objected were right to do so and followed the recommendation of the government inspector to refuse the scheme.

1. A skyscraper at the Ram Brewery site is unsound and detrimental to the area

All the criticisms in the inspector’s report are equally valid for this scheme:

• Huge differences in character, size, mass, scale and appearance;
• Little consideration given to the impact of the development on the existing small-scale buildings;
• Clear harm to the character and heritage of the area;
• Dramatic and negative changes to the character of the existing skyline by the new buildings, and particularly the proposed tower.   This will utterly dominate the scene, changing the local town’s character and undermining the quality of the surrounding area.

2. The proposal is in breach of the local policy

2.1. Once again, images provided by the developer ignore government criticisms and local guidelines

All the images re-used in brochures to illustrate the proposal to the public are in contradiction to the inspectors’ recommendation of NOT using wide angles that distort perspectives. They are in breach of The WBC Development Management Policies Document saying that visual assessments will be required to accurately represent what would be seen by the human eye and that the use of wide-angle lenses will not be acceptable (para 2.49 page 23).

2.2. The developers provide statements that contradict the policies

In policies (SSAD), the site is sensitive to tall buildings. We therefore have difficulty in understanding how the scheme can be acceptable, since most of the buildings are more than five storeys and in one case SEVEN times that height. How can this be acceptable?

Applications for tall buildings will be required to address a list of 15 criteria in order to demonstrate compliance with Core Strategy Policies IS3d and IS3e. In theory, each single building above the 5 storey limit set out in the SSAD should have to comply with ALL the criteria. We have gone through the list for the whole site, we find that not only does it fail on the main criteria… but also that most attempts to justify the massing and tall buildings of the development are flawed.

Additionally, we support the comments made by the Wandsworth Society in their letter dated 18^th March 2013. You can read their objections HERE, and to quote them:

“We reiterate [that we support] the regeneration of the Ram Brewery site but not in the way proposed by the current developers who have disregarded planning policies. We have shown that there is another approach to a successful redevelopment of the site which would be much more respectful and sympathetic to the scale of the town centre, in line with policy.”

It is still time to send your message to Wandsworth Council. You can send a letter by post, write an email or even post directly online using the comment box on the Planning portal.

Ref: Planning Application 2012/5286 – Ram Brewery

Toby Feltham
The Planning Service
Wandsworth Council
The Town Hall
Wandsworth High Street
London SW18 2PU
planningapplications@wandsworth.gov.uk

In order to be more effective, you may send your message to:

• us, CJAG (post it in our contact box)

• your local councillors (especially if they approved the previous flawed plan!)

• members of the planning committee (by asking your letter to be forwarded to each member of the planning application committee):

• Cllr Nick Cuff (Chair): ncuff@wandsworth.gov.uk
• Support officer: Ms. Ozu Okere: ookere@wandsworth.gov.uk

• Jane Ellison, Battersea MP: jane.ellison.mp@parliament.uk

Here are a series of drawing from the developer documents (with no use of wide-angle view or nice flowers and people smiling all along):

And if you want to know more about the proposal, you can read our other articles:

• Ram Brewery: a list of reasons for objection
• Ram Brewery: still many reasons to object
• Is the Ram Brewery already approved by Council before even the consultation?

UPDATE 05/04/2013:

The Battersea Society has objected (you can download and read HERE) as well as the Putney Society (you can download and read HERE) and the Wandle Valley Forum(you can download and read HERE).

On the planning portal there is currently 179 objections (way above the hundred objections received for the previous application), 21 supports and 4 general comments.

Filed under: Ram Brewery