Category Archives: Planning

William Gaitskell House to be turned into luxury flats

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A 200-year-old building in Paradise Street, Rotherhithe, is to be converted into luxury flats.

Last year Andie Byrnes wrote an excellent piece about the fascinating history of William Gaitskell House which was the home of surgeon ‘Sir’ William Gaitskell and later became a police station .

The building is presently used as offices but now developer Hollybrook Homes wants to convert it into seven flats and build two more flats facing Cathay Street.

Full details are in planning application 14/AP/2332.

Duke of Westminster asks Boris to make Bermondsey a high-density development zone

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Been meaning to write about this for a while, but better late than never.

The Duke of Westminster’s Grosvenor Estate property firm wrote to Mayor of London Boris Johnson asking him to designate the area around Bermondsey Tube Station as an ‘area for intensification’ in the revised London Plan policy document.

Grosvenor owns a large chunk of the Biscuit Factory site as well as the former Scott Lidgett/Southwark College/LeSoCo campus.

You can read Grosvenor’s letter in full on the GLA website.

The GLA website describes intensification areas as follows:

Intensification Areas are built up with good existing or potential public transport links and can support redevelopment at higher densities. They have significant capacity for new jobs and homes but at a level below that which can be achieved in the Opportunity Areas.

26-storey Maydew House could sprout six more floors

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Maydew House
Maydew House

Up to six more floors could be added to Maydew House on the Abbeyfield Estate under plans published this week by Southwark Council.

The Labour council’s cabinet is expected to rubber-stamp proposals for a £24.2 million refurbishment and extension of the 1960s tower block which sits alongside Southwark Park.

The scheme will be partly financed by selling homes for sale in the tower, along with new homes on the site of the Bede Centre which will be provided with new premises inside the revamped tower block.

Work could start early next year on the scheme which will see the tower stripped back to its concrete frame and a new “state of the art cladding design” created for the building in what is described as  “an ‘eye-catching’ visual landmark project”.

The future of Maydew House was the subject of a big campaign back in 2010 when the council – faced with a big bill for asbestos removal – considered selling the whole building for private development

The council began the process of relocating residents from Maydew House in 2015 and the building is expected to be empty by January.

Fisher FC’s new home gets the green light

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Southwark councillors have approved plans for a new home for Fisher FC at the St Paul’s Playing Field in Salter Road.

The new facilities will include a new artificial grass 3G surface, a new clubhouse and changing rooms as well as two 150-seat spectators’ stands.

Fisher FC traces its roots in Bermondsey back to 1908. The club has a chequered financial history and for the past decade it has shared Champion Hill Stadium with Dulwich Hamlet FC.

Ben Westmancott, chairman of Fisher FC, explained how the club has been reborn since 2009 as a community-owned not-for-profit enterprise and urged councillors to approve the scheme.

The proposals for Fisher’s new ground are linked to plans by Fairview New Homes to build 103 homes on the site of the old Surrey Docks Stadium. The scheme includes 33 affordable homes.

The housing scheme is designed by Hawkins/Brown architects.

Fairview will provide £500,000 towards Fisher’s new facilities.

Both planning applications were approved unanimously by Southwark’s planning committee on Tuesday night.

“This is going to be a very welcome development,” said Surrey Docks ward councillor David Hubber.

Stephen Gough, development director of Fairview New Homes, said that work could start on site later this year.

Surrey Quays Shopping Centre redevelopment added to Harmsworth Quays masterplan

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rainbow

British Land, the owners of Surrey Quays Shopping Centre and the former Harmsworth Quays print works, have announced that they are to consider the redevelopment of both sites as part of the same masterplan.

An extract from their latest newsletter about the SE16 Printworks (Harmsworth Quays) site:

Following the first stage of consultation British Land have been looking at how some of the key issues can be addressed at this early stage – such as creating an active public realm and having a joined-up approach to the area. There were strong calls to improve connections to, from and through Surrey Quays Shopping Centre as well as for an improved retail and leisure offer, that makes more of the water-setting.

As owner of Surrey Quays Shopping Centre, British Land are now looking at how this can be achieved. There
is an existing planning permission to extend the shopping centre, however there could be opportunity for a more ambitious solution to help create a more attractive shopping destination that meets and exceeds current needs and connects better with the area.

As the inclusion of the Surrey Quays Shopping Centre is a significant change, British Land and masterplanners Allies & Morrison need to do further work to understand how it could all come forward. This will naturally affect the project timescales and it is anticipated that a combined planning application for the two sites could now be submitted in Spring next year.

The next stage of design will need to consider community aspirations and key issues, as well as Southwark Council’s and the Greater London Authority’s aspirations to create a ‘town centre’ destination in the area.

 

NY comes to SE16: plans for Centre for Urban Science and Progress at Canada Water

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As part of London Technology Week, Mayor of London Boris Johnson has revealed that King’s College London and the University of Warwick are working with Bloomberg Associates, the Mayor of London’s Office and Southwark Council to advance the goal of establishing a CUSP London, a branch of New York University’s Centre for Urban Science and Progress, to be based at Canada Water from 2018.

CUSP London will bring together researchers, businesses, local authorities and government agencies to apply urban science in improving public health and wellbeing.

This international partnership will train a new generation of postgraduate and PHD level urban scientists with the skills and knowledge to benefit London and other major UK and international cities.

Once fully operational the new centre at Canada Water will accommodate over 100 researchers and 500 students.

The Mayor has recently designated Canada Water as an ‘opportunity area‘ while King’s College is likely to create a new campus on part of the Harmsworth Quays site alongside its proposed student residences at the Mulberry Business Park.