Plans for a 19-storey tower in Rotherhithe New Road have been turned down by Southwark Council’s planning committee.

The scheme included 158 homes, new accommodation for the Southwark Free School and a sixth form centre for the City of London Academy.

Officers had recommended that the scheme be refused on the basis that it would leal to the loss of industrial and warehousing land in a designated area.

Planners also warned that the scheme “represents an overdevelopment of the site” and criticised the 19-storey tower for its “inappropriately large scale, architectural expression and the form, massing and design of the building”.

The level of affordable housing in the scheme had also been a point of contention, with just 10 of the 158 homes designated as affordable.

That the developers SCCD pressed ahead with the application despite the clear steer from planning officers suggests that they are hoping that Mayor of London Boris Johnson will ‘take over’ the case from the council – or that the application will go to appeal and a planning inspector will decide.