KA Planning

St Anselms - KAPF Representation on Planning Applications 11/01826/FUL and 11/01822/FUL

2011-11-10T01:58:00.000-08:00

KAPF Representations on The Pathways planning application in respect of St Anselm’s Church, Kennington Road (11/01826/FUL) and the related planning application in respect of Centenary Hall, Cottington Street (11/01822/FUL)

Who we are

1. The Kennington Association is a voluntary membership association of around 400 members drawn from the wider Kennington area, in the north of the Borough of Lambeth and neighbouring areas of the Borough of Southwark. Our aim is to promote and maintain the Kennington area as a good place to live and work, and the Kennington Association Planning Forum is a group of Association members, with interest in and experience of planning and development issues, that develops planning policies and makes planning representations on behalf of the wider Association.

2. The Kennington area comprises an interspersed mixture of Georgian and Victorian conservation areas and social housing estates, some with significant deprivation. The Association’s concerns therefore include conservation, open space, affordable housing and employment and skills issues in relation to its area, and the extent to which developments in the Kennington and Vauxhall areas, such as the present St Anselm’s redevelopment, will benefit Lambeth residents and jobseekers and address issues of deprivation, or detract from public amenity.

The Developments

3. We have the following comments

The admirable aim of the development is to provide, through intensified use of the site, extra diverse opportunities at the heart of Kennington to meet the requirements of training centres, start-up workshops, education and housing, while maintaining existing nursery and church worship uses on site, to the overall benefit of this community.

The main issues for us are

the external design,
the change of use, on this site at the edge of the Kennington retail centre, to include A3 (restaurant) and B1 (starter workshop) uses, and
the impact on local amenity, including traffic, parking and noise

4. Dealing firstly with external design issues, our reporting architect comments as follows

“The essential elements of the existing listed church buildings are respected in the proposals, and the alterations and extensions along the Sancroft Street elevation and in the existing rear car park are in scale and appropriate to the Conservation Area. Indeed, they represent an improvement in the way they link the building elevation along Sancroft Street. . In particular, the architectural treatment of the new additions facing Sancroft Street are in harmony with the adjacent Sancroft and Cardigan Streets, with Georgian sash windows and doors, etc. Far from detracting from the scale of St Anselm’s Church, they will enhance the character of the area. It is worth noting that the existing draft Kennington Conservation Area Statement (2009) is critical of existing buildings at this end of Sancroft Street (paragraphs 2.70 and 2.71), and the application proposes more harmonious replacements”

5. As regards change of use issues, some objections have been made on the grounds that the church is outside the specified retail ‘local centre’ and should not be used for office/commercial purposes. Against that view, we argue as follows:

In the event, St Anselm’s is arguably at the heart of Kennington, at the junction of Kennington Road and Kennington Lane. Indeed, the Community Noticeboard for Kennington is situated on the front of St Anselm’s Church. It is an “edge of centre” location, and clearly more central than the old Regal Cinema site on the corner of Black Prince Road, another edge of centre location, where retail development was permitted in 2008, and yet another Tesco is set to open in 2012.

Dealing with proposed changes of use, the mix of uses is innovative, in the way that it brings together a range of employment and outreach initiatives, alongside the church and community uses. Several of these uses are already functioning in an embryonic way at St Anselm’s or at Centenary Hall, Cottington St (which is subject to a separate application 11/01822/FUL). In addition to the church related and nursery uses, the main new uses comprise:

the small business units
the Clink restaurant, where staff are ex-offenders, having received necessary training,
Into University (supporting young people aspiring to reach university), transferring from the Cottington St site
the residential units offering support for ex-offenders

· The proposal to have these together on one site offers the potential of a creative and supportive environment, which has attracted widespread support from many leaders of the community in Kennington and beyond.

· On the separate application on Centenary Hall, Cottington Street, the application is for conversion from D1 to C3 (application 11/01822/FUL). The intensification of the community use on the St Anselm’s site together with the provision of the supported living units on the St Anselm’s site makes it appropriate for the use of Centenary Hall to change to residential. The planning case for both applications is set out clearly in the Applicant’s Planning Statement (accompanying both applications). We have not been made aware of any objections from residents in the vicinity of Cottington Street to this proposal.

· It should be noted from paragraph 8.29 of the Applicant’s Planning Statement, that the applications propose a net increase of 420 sq metres of community space across the two sites. In addition, the applications propose a significant net addition in residential provision across the two sites (in accord with Policy S2 of the Lambeth Core Strategy), and it should be noted that 14 of the 17 residential units on the St Anselm’s site are proposed to be supported living units (see paragraphs 8.10-8.12 of the Planning Statement, and further detailed comment in paragraphs 8.16-8.24).

6. Issues of local amenity relate to traffic, parking and noise. We comment as follows:

With reference to the assertions of shading to Stables Way, this street actually runs north-south, and the existing four storey housing on the west side will have sunlight and daylight over the roofs of the two-storey proposed buildings on the east side of Stables Way.
The proposition that this development will generate unreasonable traffic and noise is questionable. The main entrances to the proposed development are in Kennington Road. Sancroft Street and adjoining streets are in the Congestion Zone, and most users of the development will arrive on foot or by public transport.

· The Applicants’ Traffic Statement Report by Steer Davies Gleave dated May 2011, refers in Table 4.4 to the additional trips generated by the proposed development. Whilst the objectors are correct that the total number of daily people trips is calculated at 1,261, it should be noted that, in effect, 83% of them would be arriving or departing on foot (people using underground, train, bus, bicycle, or walking). The reference to 107 extra car trips reflects approximately half arriving in the vicinity of the site and half leaving the vicinity of the site. Given the likely spread through the day, the impact on traffic is likely to be slight.

The Applicants’ Parking Survey Report by Steer Davies Gleave dated May 2011 indicates usage of between 40% and 46% of Resident Permit Holder bays at the night time peak (Tables 3.1 and 3.2). KAPF checks on these streets during mid-evening times (when the Clink Restaurant might be open) indicate less usage then, pointing to usage levels of between 36% and 42% around 8pm to 9pm. In paragraph 4.1, the Report states that 87 car spaces were still available in Sancroft Street and Cardigan Street at the night time peak. Even if half the total estimated cars visiting the site were to be present at the same point in time that would require about 25 spaces, being well below the spare capacity indicated. We conclude that the impact on parking is entirely manageable.
As far as noise is concerned, Kennington is increasingly a restaurant area, as one of the few retail uses able to stand up to the debilitating effect of what will soon be three edge of centre Tescos. The limited complaints that KAPF receives from time to time relate to late night opening of public houses, not to restaurants, and relate to times when the Clink restaurant will be closed. We therefore discount arguments about unreasonable noise.

Conclusion

7. Taking account of all these arguments, we conclude as follows:

We recognise that the intensification of uses on the St Anselm’s site may lead to some additional pedestrian and vehicle usage in Sancroft Street and vicinity, but KAPF does not consider that this is sufficient to outweigh the considerable merits of the proposed development in terms of the creative mix of uses and potential community benefit, and the physical enhancement of a significant site within the Kennington Conservation Area.
We recognise that there may be unarticulated concerns for some residents about ex-offenders being accommodated on site. However, it should be recognised that many ex-offenders live in all parts of London already, and often such people do not have access to a network of support, which the Pathways project will offer. KAPF concur with many in the local community who have already welcomed this proposal, which, hopefully, will provide a supportive environment, at least for those ex-offenders who will be catered for by this project.
KAPF therefore support both these developments, and we invite the Planning Applications Committee to agree both the applications.

D J Boardman

Chair KAPF

Rodney Ovenden
Elizabeth Scott
Reviewing Officers

KAPF

12 November 2011

VNEB S106 Representation - VNEB Infrastructure Report by KAPF

2011-03-29T03:54:00.000-07:00

VNEB OAPF Chapter 12 S106 and Infrastructure Chapter Consultation

Representation by the Kennington Association Planning Forum.

Who we are

1 The Kennington Association is a voluntary membership association of upwards of 430 members drawn from the wider Kennington area in the north of the Borough of Lambeth, an area that abuts the Albert Embankment and Vauxhall areas of the VNEB Opportunity Area. Our aim is to promote and maintain the Kennington area as a good place to live and work, and the Kennington Association Planning Forum is a group of Association members with interest in and experience of planning and development issues, that develops planning policies and makes planning representations on behalf of the wider Association. The Association was a Rule 6 party at the 2010 public inquiry into the Bondway/Octave Tower application at Vauxhall, successfully arguing for the centrality of well-planned public spaces to the success of large, dense mixed-use developments.

2 The Kennington area comprises an interspersed mixture of Georgian and Victorian conservation areas and social housing estates, some with significant deprivation. The Association’s concerns therefore include conservation, open space, affordable housing and employment and skills issues in relation to its area, and the extent to which developments in the wider VNEB area will benefit Lambeth residents and jobseekers, or detract from public amenity.

Summary

3 The rubric to Chapter 12 enjoins those making representations not to bother repeating earlier representations about the earlier VNEB Study, which lacked a view about necessary infrastructure and its cost. In the event, there has been no sign, since we made our representation in March 2010, of any attempt at dialogue or constructive engagement on the part of GLA planners with those such as ourselves who are critical of “The Project”, and so for the record we restate our summarised conclusions of 2010, trusting that we are not wasting our remarks on closed minds and empty air.

4 Under a heading “Summary – Whose Opportunity?” we said the following

“If these proposals go ahead, a new town of 40,000 will be created on our doorsteps over the next 15 years. That is the equivalent of the population of Welwyn Garden City deposited on Thameside from the Albert Embankment to Battersea, but without the gardens, with no civic heart and on only one sixth of Welwyn’s land. We welcome the preparation of a framework, particularly to govern an area straddling the border of two planning authorities. We also welcome the green initiatives of the river side path and the thoroughgoing attempts to overcome the barrier effect of the railway embankment, to stitch the interior back together with the riverside zone. But we think these particular development proposals try to cram several quarts into a pint pot; in particular in our view these proposals

· Are much too dense – approaching the highest known urban densities in the world, and exceeding those of Mumbai, Delhi and Calcutta,

· do not allow for nearly enough open space,

· fail to provide a civic heart or framework to the community of 40,000 they create

· do not measure up to the challenge and expectations of the Central Activities Zone, particularly as regards the lack of any cultural component

· appear to expect most of the supporting services like schools and doctors to be provided by and at the expense of the neighbouring communities , and

· are “supported” by a transport study which is not fit for purpose, because based on flawed “zero sum” and other assumptions

5 Having considered Chapter 12, and the October 2010 Development Infrastructure Study (DIFS) on which it draws, we can now say the following

the densest options for VNEB development (16,000 dwellings and 25,000 jobs) create a harsh and demographically unsustainable environment,
the infrastructure they demand, on present plans, would be underprovided, and where not underprovided, underpriced - there is a heavy thumb on the scales, directing professionals to underestimate, in some cases against their better judgement
therefore the funding gap is not a "managable" £58m out of £1059m, but north of £500m
So this densest option, as regards the 16,000 dwellings target, should be withdrawn.
there is no commonalty of interest between

Vauxhall and Albert Embankment, infrastructure rich, well connected and already developing strongly under the impetus of the cluster designation (indeed “ravaged by infrastructure” as one architect recently put it), desperately needing its dreaded Gyratory to be tamed, and
Nine Elms and Battersea, infrastructure poor and ill connected, and needing significantly improved infrastructure.

And lumping them together in one “opportunity area” does not create such commonalty
the Northern Line Extension which takes the bulk of the funding gives minimal benefit to Lambeth, even with a station at Nine Elms, where at the suggested location of the station, the public transport accessibility level (PTAL) is already at 6 – excellent. Since DIFS tells us that the Lambeth strip next to Wandsworth Road has been removed from the OAPF, then such a station, as regards the truncated OAPF area, almost entirely benefits the Wandsworth development at Battersea Power Station, its proposed "elite" shopping, and other Wandsworth sites
the levying of the Lambeth part of the OAPF in aid of such an NLE is unconscionable, and arguably outside the scope of a CIL, as not necessary to the development of the Vauxhall and Albert Embankment sites
the long term risk is that the development proceeds, Wandsworth cherry pick the infrastructure to suit themselves, the costs overrun and Lambeth is left to pick up the pieces at its own expense, eg a secondary school and a Nine Elms Station left over to a Phase 2 that runs out of money

The DIFS Study

6 We note that DIFS concentrates on trying to work out how much infrastructure would be needed, and how you would pay for it, if you were to choose the largest and densest possible development profile for the Opportunity Area (16,000 hoped for new dwellings and 25,000 new jobs). One sympathises with the consultant authors, who have been told by their sponsors to believe a number of implausible things, to try and make proposed levels of planning levies (S106 payments, and successors in the form of community infrastructure levy and possible specific Northern Line extension levies) cover estimated infrastructure costs. Every now and then the implausibility surfaces in footnotes where professional integrity requires that the more plausible alternatives be surfaced. In our view, the evidence is being fixed around the policy, and not the other way round - in effect there is a big thumb on the scales.

7 Turning to detail we note that

· The Department of Transport official guidance on estimating the costs of tunneling projects (Web TAG Unit 3.5.9) recognises that known risks of uncertain scale affecting costs can properly be subject to a quantified risk analysis, while the impact of unexpected contingencies of uncertain scale - “unknown unknowns” - which from experience occur in major civil engineering projects at early stages, need additionally to be reflected in cost estimates by the addition of what is termed “optimism bias”, which reduces as projects develop towards delivery

· However, almost all the contingency element has been stripped out of NLE tunnelling costs, as presented by DIFS - an £800m estimate in the December 2009 VNEB Transport Study (at page 97), containing a 57% "optimism bias", as recommended by Web TAG for a tunnelling project estimate at this stage of development has become £563m now, including only a 5% risk premium. This does not appear to be the fully worked up itemized Quantified Risk Assessment called for by Web TAG, but an off the cuff round number.

· Even if we give the NLE the benefit of the doubt as being at the “Conditional Approval” stage, it would still merit a 23% optimism bias, according to Web TAG. And we do not credit the idea that by means of some suitable special private sector funding vehicle, overrun risk can be completely transferred to the private sector at this cut down price – when a large infrastructure project goes wrong, it is invariably impossible for the public sector to wash their hands of its completion, and compensation negotiations with a delinquent contractor are protracted and expensive. 23% optimism bias would add £130m to the NLE cost. We note that this is a “footnote” issue for the professionals advising!

· And we note again, as we did in March 2010, that at realistic costing the cost benefit ratio for the NLE is low, and the benefits appear to be diffused around London, both by origin and destination, with rather little seemingly accruing in the Lambeth, or indeed the OA area itself

· targets for affordable housing have been reduced from the normal 40% to only 15%, to boost levy yield from the extra, higher priced market housing, which this relaxation permits, and reduce child yield by 25% .It is not obvious that Lambeth’s aspiration to stick with the 40% target, as regards developments within the Lambeth part of the OA, has been factored into levy yield

· there are lowered assumptions about the proportion of inhabitants who will be elderly or young (not their sort of housing – the “client group” [mostly the developers who paid for the DIFS Study] considers that VNEB developments will have a different age profile to that of the two adjacent boroughs (DIFS para 10.18)) so you can economise on

o health care provision (the young and elderly cost more per head, while fit young professionals cost less, so you can have a third less GP’s than the normal rule of thumb). In a separate note attached, on health issues, we note that the consultation has been perfunctory, and takes no account of the demands of visitors and an extended construction phase

o schools - the preponderance of flats, the mix of small and large flats assumed, and the lower %age of affordable dwellings means that the child yield from development is only around 10% of the expected population, cf 20% for a demographically balanced population in Lambeth itself. There are not even enough children predicted, for a community of 40,000, to warrant just one secondary school – like Hamlyn after the Pied Piper! To reach this conclusion, Wandsworth have chosen to use the lower point of an estimation range, and then knocked off a further 25% for good measure (“private education”), while Lambeth have used the midpoint of their range. If both used the midpoint, the need for a secondary school, and land to accommodate it, is obvious. Assuming conservatively that a modest 2.5 ha would suffice, this would cost £62.5m, (valuing land at the existing use value (EUV) of £25m per ha, as per the values revealed at the recent Bondway Inquiry). The build and fit out costs of such a school would be about £25m, of which £13.5m has been written into education infrastructure estimates already, assuming provision would be made outside the OA. So the costs of the necessary secondary school in the OA adds £62.5m plus £11.5m , or £74m to the infrastructure tally.

o As regards a junior school, the study includes provision for a two form entry school in relation to the Lambeth element of the OA. We attach notes analyzing the recent developments and planning approvals in North Lambeth, their child yield and likely demand on schools, and conclude that a four form entry school is required, at a minimum extra cost of at least £25m for land alone

· The study assumes that existing library services will suffice in north Lambeth, and suggests, perhaps tongue in cheek, that the Lambeth Archive could be displaced to Battersea Power Station. This takes no account of the real risk of closure of both Waterloo and the Durning libraries under the current review. As regards the suggestion that Lambeth cares so little for its valuable archives that it is happy to see them carted off to Battersea, perhaps the best response is “Is you having a Laugh?”

· The study proposes to “fund” extra infrastructure required for police and fire services by denying responsibility for most of it. As the attached note comments, with the new US Embassy, the existing central London Priority Area will undoubtedly extend further into the OA, and we note that the consultation has been inadequate, undertaken with eg the shortly to be superseded MPA, but not with the Lambeth Borough Commander. The study also declines responsibility for a share of the costs of transport improvements at Vauxhall, including works to tame the Gyratory, which is now positively inhibiting development at Vauxhall, while happily accepting all the costs of the NLE .

· and forget about normal central London quotas of green space (“the amount of open space proposed for the OA falls far short of what is needed when applying national standards” Para 19.19) - you can't get your 16,000 dwellings in if you want it green as well - revel in our linear park instead. But the linear park, which from plan in the VNEB OAPF consultation document was to be 1500m long and varied between 100m and 50m wide, would have amounted to about 11.3 ha. Now, however, it is reduced to no more than 3.5 ha, so if it is still 1500m long, it becomes on average 23m wide, not so much a linear park as a drove road. As the study says (para 14.8) “Its linear nature will mean that it will not be possible to accommodate formal outdoor sports provision and only minimal play provision along with seating areas, etc”

· As Lambeth’s SPD on S106 Obligations notes,

“Lambeth Open Space Deficiencies. The National Playing Field Association have a general standard of 2.4 hectares of open space per 1,000 population, Lambeth as a whole is deficient in meeting that standard, in that it has 1.54 hectares per 1,000 of population, projected to fall to 1.44. Lambeth’s Open Space Strategy recommends that a target of 1.6 hectares per 1,000 population is set for 2016.”

· And Lambeth’s open space deficiency areas encompass the centre of Vauxhall and extend down the borough/OAPF border with Wandsworth, as the attached map shows. In this context, the comment in para 14.10 “In LB Lambeth open space provision is within a range of existing parks” is laconic to the point of being positively misleading.

· All the options for development set out in the VNEB OAPF consultation document provided for 14 ha of public open space, while recognizing that this was way below standard. Allowing for about 2 ha of public park at Battersea Power Station, to restore even the 14 ha level (which would bring the OA up to the level of Lambeth’s worst provided ward, eg Ferndale) would require an additional 8 ha, which we price, again at EUV, at £200m.

The funding gap

8 The DIFS study asks us to believe that there is no more than a £58m gap between the £1059m cost of necessary infrastructure and the likely amount of funding, of which the lion’s share is provided by a tariff on development in the OA. At this stage the reader may wish to consult the chart attached. As we show, £62m of this infrastructure is “funded” by denying responsibility for it, including 90% of police and fire costs, and £30m of public transport improvements, half at Vauxhall. A further £63m is “funded” by hoping someone will lend it to us, even though the NLE revenue stream is negative for 60 years (operating costs always exceed revenues), and Wandsworth has ruled out prudential borrowing as burdensome to its council tax payers. This means that the realistic funding available is no more than £876m, and the gap becomes £183m. On the infrastructure side, as we have noted above, there is significant underprovision, and the NLE costs are seriously underpriced. Adding in only the NLE element (£130m), the secondary school (£74m) and the open space (£200m), we have extra costs of £404m , and the gap becomes £588m.

Conclusion

9 We conclude that the consultation options that try to accommodate 16,000 dwellings in the OA will produce a harsh and demographically unsustainable development, and are unaffordable in infrastructure terms. The NLE, while advantageous to the Battersea and other Wandsworth developments is of scant benefit to the Vauxhall and Albert Embankment areas. It is set to deflect and eat up funding that could deal with the congestion at Vauxhall, and tackle the Gyratory, which divides Vauxhall, now positively inhibits development and prevents the creation of a proper heart there. It is unconscionable that Vauxhall developments should be levied in aid of the NLE while leaving its own transport problems untackled, and we shall oppose any such levy.

10 We believe that the proper response to the consultation is to conclude that the preferred option is over dense, demographically unsustainable and unaffordable and should be withdrawn. More modest options, ranging up to 12,000 dwellings should be tried instead, and cheaper transport infrastructure should be explored. We would very much welcome the opportunity to discuss these concerns and conclusions with GLA planners: having to raise them collaterally in the forthcoming Transport and Works Order Inquiry and the S106/CIL Tariff Examination will make for messy and long drawn out proceedings.

David Boardman

Chair

Kennington Association Planning Forum

25 March 2011

Flat 1

39 Chester Way

Kennington

London

SE11 4UR

Planning Update February 2011

2011-02-12T10:13:00.001-08:00

Planning Update February 2011

The Government published its Localism Bill on 13 December, which provides for neighbourhood plans, elected mayors and a whole host of community oriented changes. We have some more detailed analysis on the website, but in practice, a lot turns on what counts as a “neighbourhood”, or at least, what the local Council thinks is a neighbourhood. The Bill defines it as a parish council area, or the area of a “neighbourhood forum recognised by the Council for these purposes”. Since KA’s beef with Lambeth is the latter’s tendency to lump Kennington in with other areas, and not address its particular needs or character, the current arrangements may not be the ideal vehicle for our aspirations. But the forthcoming consultation on the planning future of individual sites (the Site Allocation Document, or SAD) will allow us to articulate a broader view about Kennington’s needs, and we are dusting off and reviewing the comments we made back in 2009.

With a view to identifying KA’s geographic spread, Cathy has analysed the postcodes of members from the membership list, with interesting results.

Of 432 postcodes given

294 are SE11 - 68%
114 are adjacent postcodes - 26%

35 SW8 - 8% (South of Harleyford Rd/Oval and west of Clapham Rd)
33 SE17 - 8% (in Southwark, west of Kennington Park Rd and Kennington Park)
25 SW9 - 6% (South of Camberwell New Rd and east of Clapham Rd)
12 SE1 - 3% (Albert Embankment west of railway line , area round Lambeth North tube and north of Lambeth Rd)
9 SE5 - 2% (South east of John Ruskin Rd and north of Camberwell New Rd)

24 Misc non adjacent - 6%

Back in September 2010, we spent four days arguing Kennington’s corner at the Examination in Public of the draft Lambeth Core Strategy, the successor to the 2007 Unitary Development Plan. The Planning Inspector has pronounced the draft “sound”, with a few small changes, and it was formally adopted by Lambeth Council on 19 January 2011. Again we have further analysis on our website – what will follow is a consultation, probably starting in April, on the planning future of individual sites (the SAD, as mentioned earlier).

Readers will know that the Mayor of London has been consulting on the future of the Vauxhall, Nine Elms and Battersea area (VNEB). The 2009 consultation was in form a consultation on 5 or so different densities of development, but without any costings for the necessary infrastructure. We thought that the top option was intolerably dense, with quite inadequate open space, and a risk that Lambeth would be asked to pick up the tab for Wandsworth’s development. Now we have an Infrastructure Study that confirms our worst fears. There is some detailed analysis on our website, but we consider that the evidence is being fixed to support the densest option, with implausible low assumptions about infrastructure needed, and gross underestimates of the cost of what is, in particular of the costs of any extension to the Northern Line. As you can see, we are not impressed by the assumptions written in to this study, and the conclusion we draw is that the densest options canvassed (remember that the VNEB OAPF was an options consultation, not the definitive word?) are undesirable in themselves, and unaffordable in public realm and infrastructure terms. With publication of this study, the Mayor has added a revised costing chapter to the VNEB Consultation draft, and asks for further comments by 25 March 2011. We shall relish giving them to him…

As regards individual planning proposals, after the three week appeal hearing in July 2010, Mr Pickles, the Local Government Secretary, announced his decision on the Bondway/ Octave Tower on 9 February. We were strong opponents of the proposed development, and were delighted that Mr Pickles agreed with his Planning Inspector and rejected the proposed Tower. The decision will make the provision of new and improved open space the touchstone for much future development at Vauxhall, and we have a more detailed analysis on the website. We think, by contrast, that the Vauxhall Triangle development is a deal less offensive, and on balance can support it, provided it comes with a seven figure Section 106 offer in aid of open space and local parks. But it is a balance judgement, and some other local groups have come down on the other side.

More recently, the developer has repackaged his proposals for 8 Albert Embankment (the Old Fire Station site), and they look a lot better than before in visual terms. But there is still an issue about how much affordable housing is on offer, and how the development sustains employment, in what has been retained as a Key Industrial and Business Area. CLS Holdings have just published imaginative proposals for their site at 86 Bondway, with a new public square (at last a developer who wants to add new open space at Vauxhall) and a suggest elevated walkway over the Vauxhall Gyratory. We also now hear that Lambeth want to sell off parts of the Old Lilian Baylis site, the Beaufoy site and the former Olive School site.

This is going to make for a busy time. The Planning Forum is a group of talented people who know their stuff, but they could really use a coordinator to make the Forum operate more smoothly. If you can help, please email kaplanningforum@gmail.com and volunteer your services.

David Boardman

Chair

Kennington Association Planning Forum

12 February 2011

The Bondway Appeal

2011-02-12T09:50:00.000-08:00

Victory at Bondway

1 On 9 February, Eric Pickles, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, handed down his decision in the Bondway/Octave Tower case, agreeing with his Planning Inspector, and dismissing the developer’s appeal against Lambeth Council’s rejection of his planning application. The community of Vauxhall, which expressed its opposition forthrightly throughout the process, can give itself a well deserved pat on the back, and we are pleased we were able to help articulate in planning parlance that community’s views through the many stages of paperwork and the three weeks of public inquiry back in July 2010. But decisions like this get scrutinised minutely by developers, to see which arguments might work for them in future cases, and which might not, so it is worth examining the decision in a bit more detail.

2 The main issues are conveniently set out in the Secretary of State’s conclusion, at para 26 of his decision letter:

· The Secretary of State considers that provision of a substantial number of new homes, of which at least 20% would be affordable, and a likely increase in employment numbers at this highly sustainable location are significant benefits of the proposal. [So this is in principle a sensible place for residential development and on this site, 20% affordable housing is acceptable, despite the headline policy calling for 40%, because of a “viability” study that says that more would prejudice the economic viability of the overall development. And an estimated increase in “better quality” employment would trump the actual reduction in employment floor space that the proposed development would have made.]

· He considers that the design of the proposed tower is of high quality in many respects and would not harm the wider historic environment. [Here the Secretary of State adopts the views of the Inspector that the proposed Bondway Tower would have been a high quality design, in itself, in many respects, with interesting textures. The Inspector also systematically reviews the impact of the proposed Tower on all the local conservation areas (particularly Vauxhall Conservation Area and Park), listed buildings and the Westminster World Heritage Site, and found it acceptable. If a Tower as tall and bulky as Bondway would have passed muster, at least on this ground, then any argument limited just to visual impact is unlikely to be successful in future.]

· He also considers that, in principle, the appeal site is an appropriate location for a tall building. [This accords with the now adopted Core Strategy, and is consistent with the unadopted Tall Building Design Study for Vauxhall of 2009. But as a tall building counts, on this site, as anything in excess of 30m tall (the proposed Bondway Tower would have been 149m tall), there is plenty of room for argument, and scope for sensible planning guidance, on just how tall and where, tall buildings will be acceptable in future.]

· However, he considers that the absence of complementary public open space from the proposal is unacceptable, [This is the killer argument, and is going to set the terms of debate for all the other high density developments at Vauxhall for the foreseeable future – the Secretary of State and the Inspector both put great emphasis on a part of Planning Policy Statement Number One covering Design (PPS1 – Sustainable Development), a piece of overall planning guidance that otherwise might be regarded as a bland statement of motherhood and apple pie – “High quality and inclusive design should create well-mixed and integrated developments which avoid segregation and have well-planned public spaces that bring people together and provide opportunities for physical activity and recreation.”].

· that the tower would be overbearing in relation to its local surroundings despite some relief being provided by its form, [so arguments about local impact still have traction – per the Inspector at para 551: “Moreover, without associated public space, the visual mass of the building would be overbearing in relation to its local surroundings”, even though he regards the visual impact on the nearby Vauxhall Park as “acceptable”]

· that there are insufficient opportunities for pedestrian movement linked to the wider public realm, [a criticism of the Bondway design was that it did nothing directly to encourage permeability of the railway embankment which divides the centre of Vauxhall]

· that the absence of adequate dedicated play space within or very near the building is materially harmful, [even though the proposed development nominally met the target for overall private amenity space for its residents, the failure to earmark on-site chidrens’ play space within that total, and reliance instead on Vauxhall Park, counted against it. This is going to be an important argument in relation to other proposals, especially if they fail even to meet the total amenity space target.]

· and that the intensity of use to which Vauxhall Park would be subject would erode its recreational function and character. [Given the categoric way in which this argument is formulated, this is going to make the provision of new public space a touchstone for much future development at Vauxhall – as the Inspector says (para 658 et seq): “The Park is not large and is well used. Although the functions of a park and a public square differ, inevitably the Park would come under increasing pressure were public spaces not provided within the area of redevelopment to the west. The effect would be cumulative as further elements were added to the projected cluster of towers. This would be so irrespective of financial contributions to improve the Park and its play facilities. Under the proposals, no complementary public space would be provided, nor is any assured in the future. Without it, the pressure on Bondway, the surrounding areas and the Park would be unacceptable.” But the Inspector acquits the proposed Tower on grounds of overshadowing and overlooking, saying bluntly that you cannot expect privacy in a public park. So these sorts of argument are not likely to be persuasive in future.]

· For these reasons the Secretary of State concludes that the proposal is in conflict with the development plan and with the aims of PPS1, PPS3, and PPG17. He has taken into account the benefits which would be offered by the proposal, but considers that these benefits do not outweigh the significant conflict with the development plan and the aims of national policies in other respects. [So, as is clear from comments above, no amount of S106 contribution could have sweetened the Bondway proposals enough to make them acceptable, in the absence of new open space]

3 We are pleased to see, as we have argued earlier, that this decision puts the provision of new public space at the heart of the argument about the future development of Vauxhall. It is notable however, despite the community concern about congestion in the access to Vauxhall underground station, that the good nominal public transport accessibility level of Vauxhall (measured in PTALs!) still gives carte blanche to further development. The accepted arguments here emphasise surplus capacity on trains (“only two extra passengers per underground train”), while supposing access issues (gateline closures, escalator capacity etc) can readily be dealt with by small TfL improvements. But the latest TfL estimate for gateline improvements is £18m, currently unfunded, and we are going to have to improve our analysis, if proper weight is to be given in future planning decisions to this issue.

David Boardman

Chair

Kennington Association Planning Forum

12 February 2011

Lambeth Core Strategy

2011-02-02T03:44:00.000-08:00

Lambeth’s New Core Strategy

Note by the Kennington Association Planning Forum

1 February 2011

Background

1 The Lambeth Core Strategy was adopted on 19 January 2011 by Lambeth Council, following an Examination in Public before an independent Planning Inspector on four days in September 2010. The report of the Inspector found the strategy to be basically sound, and adoption now paves the way for further consultation on two daughter documents, which fill in more detail, within the framework set by the Strategy. These are the Development Management Document (DMD) and the Site Allocation Document (SAD). At present it is expected that these will be issued for consultation in parallel around April 2011, and be submitted later in the year for Examination in Public before a Planning Inspector at a combined hearing. As it took six months from submission to examination for the Core Strategy itself (March to September 2010) and a further four months from examination to adoption (September 2010 to January 2011), we shall be lucky if we see the completion of this process before the end of 2011.

Substance

2 The Inspector’s report reviewed the submitted Strategy under seven headings, which matched the key themes explored at the Examination. These were

· Issue 1 –Does the overall strategy appropriately address the vision for the whole borough, across the entire plan period, in relation to other plans and strategies and is it consistent with national planning guidance? – essentially yes, says the Inspector; agreed that parts of the borough are not covered by specific policies, but “The fact that parts of the borough are not covered by PN policies or diagrams does not imply that they have been overlooked. On the contrary it reflects that they are more stable places where the scale of any development is such that it can be managed... through the CS strategic policies and through lower level DPDs and SPDs” (paras 10 to 17, especially para 11). This was one of Kennington’s key criticisms of the Strategy, and it remains to be seen how “stable” the environment will be as the Council prepares to sell off many of its key sites for development.

· Issue 2 – Does the CS make appropriate provision for the supply of housing for the plan period and is its approach to house conversions and affordable housing justified? – supply OK, house conversion policy limitations (not allowed in stressed streets) not prejudicial to achieving targets, address issue of methodology for assessing viability of affordable housing at the DMD stage. (paras 18 to 30) This was another of Kennington’s issues, and we want a post implementation review of methodology assumptions written into policy.

· Issue 3 – Does the CS make sound provision for economic development, particularly in terms of the Key Industrial and Business Areas (KIBAs)? – Inspector finds strong demand and limited availability (para 33), but endorses Lambeth’s approach (de-designation of Bondway KIBA to facilitate VNEB OAPF, retention of Southbank House and Newport St KIBA). And note a subtlety: withdrawing KIBA designation reactivates, at least till adoption of site specific guidance in the SAD, an arguably more stringent residual provision (Policy 23 of the otherwise superseded 2007 UDP) protecting employment floor space everywhere outside KIBAs (paras 31 to 41)

· Issue 4 –Is the CS approach to Metropolitan Open Land sound? – “bolder and more proactive” than the previous plans, says the Inspector of the Strategy’s willingness to de-designate part of the Hungerford Road car park before plans for a cultural facility on it are cut and dried, and she finds this sound.(paras 42 to 45) Our Waterloo colleagues thought this risky and the treatment a deal too summary.

· Issue 5 – Does the CS provide a sound basis for the scale and location of tall buildings, having in mind the need to protect strategic views and heritage assets?- supporting work is fragmented, especially at Vauxhall, and there needs to be further urban design assessment, as the Strategy policy S9(d) contemplates. But the overall Strategy is sound, says the Inspector (paras 46 to 50). We beg to differ: in our view the failure to adopt the draft 2008 SPD for Vauxhall and finalise and endorse the BDP design study of 2009 gives the Planning Committee far too little to work with in opposing over dense “cluster” development at Vauxhall, in an area of open space deficiency.

· Issue 6 –Does the CS provide a sound and effective strategy for meeting requirements for open space? – “setting a target for the provision of new open space would be unrealistic in an inner London borough where land prices are high and land is subject to many competing demands.” says the Inspector. Lambeth’s approach has yielded some new provision, but addressing improvements to the quantity, quality and access to open space should be part of the DMD (one of the rare changes to the Core Strategy coming out of the Examination) (paras 51 to 53)

· Issue 7 – Does the CS provide a sound framework for infrastructure,

delivery and monitoring? – broadly yes, says the Inspector, with some minor tidying up language changes and a few new targets to monitor (paras 54 to 57).

Process

3 As we said at the wash up session with the Inspector, it was, in our view, an excessively legalistic process to get to the table (had you made an objection expressly impugning the “soundness” of the policy under discussion that day by the due date) and we had had to contemplate legal action at one stage before a broader view was taken of who could speak. You had to formulate any criticism or suggestions for improvement as an impeachment, as “unsound”, policies that had taken Lambeth planners years to bring to the table. While it may have focused debate at the Examination, it introduced an unnecessarily adversarial tone into the debate between the Council planners and other parties. For whatever reason, there were only two community groups represented (ourselves and waterloo Community Development Group), but lots of developers. We think the process would have benefited by inviting other amenity groups to the table.

4 But once we were at the table, the formulation of questions by the Inspector, and the focused but reasonably informal style of discussion, made for a realistic probing of the issues, and although the whole process took barely four days, we left the proceedings with a sense that we had been given a fair crack of the whip, even if we differed over the conclusions reached. It is fair to note, however, that our Waterloo colleagues, who have a deal more experience at such affairs than we do, thought the discussion much more truncated than those they had taken part in at the equivalent Examination on the Southwark Core Strategy, or on the draft replacement London Plan

Follow up

5 The Head of Planning at Lambeth, Les Brown, has offered us at KA a meeting to review any lessons we can learn from the process of consultation on, and examination and adoption of the Core Strategy. If other colleagues think it helpful, we might suggest a wider participation, to include interested amenity societies who might usefully have taken a larger part in the process.

David Boardman

Chair

Kennington Association Planning Forum

1 February 2011

Objection to permitted hours - Off Licence Application by ABY Convenience Store

2010-11-24T00:55:00.001-08:00

Subject: Objection to permitted hours - Off Licence Application by ABY Convenience Store
To: licensing@lambeth.gov.uk
Date: Tuesday, 23 November, 2010, 23:53

Off Licence Application, ABY Convenience Stores, 297 Kennington Rd, SE11 4QR

Objection on behalf of the Kennington Association as to proposed permitted hours

Who we are

1 The Kennington Association is a voluntary membership association of around 430 members drawn from the wider Kennington area, whose aim is to promote and maintain Kennington as a good place to live and work. The Kennington Association Planning Forum (KAPF) is a group of Association members with interest in and experience of planning, development and licensing issues, which develops planning policies and makes planning and licensing representations on behalf of the wider Association.

Nature of Objection

2 The application asks for permitted hours extending to 1 am on Sunday to Wednesday and 2 am on Thursday to Saturday. We have no objection in principle to off licence sales from these premises. There are already two off licences in the vicinity, one with a usual closing time of 9 pm, with 10 pm on Friday and Saturday, and one a small convenience retail outlet with later times, coexisting with several public houses with late opening times to 1 am at weekends. So far, these arrangements have not given rise to any significant nuisance to the surrounding residential areas.

3 But we consider that there is a risk of disorder and nuisance if off sales are permitted from this outlet just as public houses are closing, as there is already a certain lingering from departing customers patronizing the nearby kebab shop, which has itself extended its hours to cater to this trade, and contributes to a continued street presence after 1 am. To allow off sales after 1 am would in our view not be desirable in these circumstances and residential surroundings.

D J Boardman

Chair

Kennington Association Planning Forum

Flat 1

39 Chester Way

Kennington

London SE11 4UR

23 November 2010

Application 10/03318/FUL - Old Regal Cinema/Bingo Hall

2010-11-23T00:35:00.000-08:00

Subject: Application 10/03318/FUL - Old Regal Cinema/Bingo Hall
To: tpac@lambeth.gov.uk
Cc: lcampbell@lambeth.gov.uk, mharrison@lambeth.gov.uk, srmorgan@lambeth.gov.uk, dmmorris@lambeth.gov.uk
Date: Monday, 22 November, 2010, 16:51

FAO Mrs Ruth Smithson

This is a representation from the Kennington Association, opposing, as it presently stands without further conditions, the renewal of planning permission for A2/B1 office use on this site, because, as the developer himself told the council, there is little prospect of such a permission being implemented.

Given the community concerns about the decade long disuse of this site, I am copying this to Prince's Ward councillors. I invite them to ensure that this application comes to committee, and is not dealt with by officers under delegated powers.

David Boardman

Chair

Kennington Association Planning Forum

Application 10/03318/FUL – Renewal application for A2/B1 permission at the south end of the Old Regal Cinema/Bingo Hall site – Representation by the Kennington Association

Who we are

1 The Kennington Association is a voluntary membership association of around 430 members drawn from the wider Kennington area, whose aim is to promote and maintain Kennington as a good place to live and work. The Kennington Association Planning Forum (KAPF) is a group of Association members with interest in and experience of planning and development issues, which develops planning policies and makes planning representations on behalf of the wider Association.

Summary

2 We oppose renewal of this office permission, because it is, as the developer himself says, unlikely to be implemented. If it goes ahead, it should be limited to two years only, and community uses (D1) should be explored meanwhile.

Background to development on this site

3 This is a complicated case. The key developments in planning terms appear to be as follows:

Community/church use of the former Regal cinema/bingo hall was granted, under Permission 97/01041/FUL of 16 December 1997. This was implemented, with use for about two years by a church group, whose activities raised amenity issues of noise and traffic congestion. Because this use was actually implemented, community/church use (Use Class D1) is the last lawful use of the cinema end, and could be resumed without the need for further planning permission [We note that this interpretation may not be shared by the council, who seem to say that the D2 leisure use is the current last lawful use]
Permission 00/00431/FUL granted 20 October 2001 permitted the part demolition and extension of the then existing building to provide 62 flats, and a change of use for the cinema end to leisure use (Use Class D2). Because this permission was commenced (and indeed implemented as regards the flats), it endures without time limit, and D2 use for the cinema end could also be taken up without the need for further planning permission for change of use. As we read the S106 agreement, it was solely about affordable housing on site, (a not particularly generous 16 affordable units out of 62, or 26%) and had no provision for the payment of any community sums
Permission 07/01817/FUL granted 17 January 2008 for a period of 3 years (and which is about to expire, hence the renewal application) allowed a change in use of the cinema end to financial and professional services/business office use (Use Class A2/B1(a) ), along with 8 more flats. The developer successfully argued that there had been extensive marketing of the cinema end for D2 uses, but no takers, apart from what he described as an "insubstantial" interest in D1 community use. It was therefore time (said the developer) to widen the net of potential users by extending the permitted uses to include office uses, which were consistent with the location as on the fringe of the retail area of Kennington Cross. There was no new S106 agreement
Permission 09/03384/FUL granted 20 April 2010 for a period of 3 years allowed a change of use of the cinema end to retail use (Use Class A1), along with the 8 flats previously contemplated. Again the developer successfully argued that the cinema end had been widely marketed, this time for A2/B1 use, to no avail, and that it was time to cast the net wider again. On the basis of a retail study that this Association regards as both factually wrong (no other top up retail in the vicinity, it says, when there are 3 such outlets, 2 within line of sight) and wholly unrealistic in its estimates of surplus top up spending in the area, A1 use was allowed, despite the site being outside the Kennington Cross retail area in the local plan. There was no new S106 agreement, and this retail permission will endure till April 2013 irrespective of what happens in relation to this renewal application for the 2008 office use permission

Argument

4 The continued decade long disuse of this corner site in a prominent position at the heart of Kennington is a reproach not only to its developers but also to the planning system that permits it

There is no good reason for renewing this permission for office use, which would merely continue a process of planning leapfrog
First, there has been a substantial procedural failure in giving appropriate notice of this application to the public, in that a site notice was posted for a single day (12 October 2010, before the nominal posting date) after which it disappeared. It follows that no site notice has been posted at any time during the statutory site notice period. The Committee should mark this irregularity and decline to entertain the application until assured that a site notice has been posted and not removed for a relevant 21 day period
Second, there has been a material change in circumstances since the grant of the original office permission in 2008, namely that there is good reason to believe it will never be implemented. As the developer’s own design and access statement declares in September 2009, in relation to the retail use application, “However the January 2008 planning permission has not been implemented due to the lack of interest in the ground floor commercial floorspace. The marketing evidence in Section 5 shows that no Class D2, A2 or B1 occupier has been interested in the ground floor unit over a 20 month period” [I note that the developer omitted to inform the planning committee of the D1 interest from the local church, which had been repeatedly fobbed off by the developer’s agents]
Nor is there any likelihood that this position will change if the developer continues to market the property half heartedly (only D2 use noted expressly on the developer’s agent’s website) at a rent well over the odds (£23 per square foot for a shell building, quoted in the marketing survey for the 2009 retail application, “price on application” currently : cf £17 per square foot being asked currently for similar sized but actually refurbished office accommodation in the next street (Messrs Kalmars, for 6 Sancroft St))
As the planning law notes, the likelihood that a permission will not be implemented is a material consideration which may warrant refusal (Sovmots Investments Ltd v Secretary of State [1979] AC 144 )
Should the planning committee nonetheless be minded to extend the office use permission we ask that

The committee makes it clear that it expects the developer to engage seriously with the community about viable D1 uses for the building, and in particular with the neighbouring St Anselm’s Church, and
Any extension be limited to a life of two years, not three, so that it expires at the same time as the retail permission granted in April 2010, to encourage a decision about the use of the site, rather than repeated leapfrogging of permissions

The committee should be aware that we regard the retail study that persuaded its predecessors to grant the retail permission earlier in 2010 as vitiated by material misstatements of fact and wildly overoptimistic estimates of surplus retail spending, and we shall oppose any attempt to renew the retail permission.

D J Boardman

Chair

Kennington Association Planning Forum

Flat 1

39 Chester Way

Kennington

London SE11 4UR

22 November 2010

KA Volunteer Needed: KAPF Coordinator

2010-09-28T00:54:00.001-07:00

KAPF Closing Statement to Bondway Inquiry

2010-08-09T00:38:00.000-07:00

CLOSING STATEMENT TO THE BONDWAY INQUIRY
By
DAVID BOARDMAN
On behalf of
The KENNINGTON ASSOCIATION

I sat last night, having measured my trees, at 7 pm in Vauxhall Park, amidst the joggers and the picnickers, the tennis players and footballers, the dog walkers and the departing children, the homebound commuters and shoppers, and watched the weak sunshine making its way through the tree canopy, and listened to the wind soughing through the trees, from time to time drowning out the muffled sound of train and traffic. And as an extra picnic party arrived at 7.30 pm, to occupy an area even then being swept, in the mind’s eye, by the Bondway Shadow, with my acetates of the proposed tower to hand, I asked myself what possible “material considerations” could justify plonking down this monster of a tower in our tranquil backyard. Let us see how the arguments stack up.

As I conceded in Opening [CD8/4], the people of Vauxhall now know, whether they like it or not, that they have been well and truly clustered, and Mr Philpot drew my attention to a relevant London Plan extract [CD4/1] in cross examination. The issue is not whether there is to be a cluster, but what sort? And courtesy of the Freedom of Information Act, we have procured Lambeth Council to disgorge two urban design studies of the issues and possible forms of cluster. There are four on offer, only one of which would countenance a building of the proposed Bondway Tower’s height (149m) on its site.
• VUDS 2006 [K1.14] - a clump round Vauxhall Cross/Triangle, with a peak height there of 140m
• 2008 Draft Vauxhall SPD [CD5/2] – a similar clump, but with no peak height prescribed
• 2009 Draft VNEB OAPF [CD4/3, hereafter “OAPF”] – the least particularised, the crenellated table top with gaps, with buildings “in the region of 150m”
• 2009 Design Study [K1.15] – a preferred rising profile towards the north

And both the planning documents acknowledge the need to temper the impact of tall buildings on heritage assets:
• “Strategic viewing corridors, river prospects, local views and the historic environment require detailed consideration in relation to any tall buildings in the Vauxhall Heart, and proposals which would adversely impact upon those elements will not be accepted.” [Draft Vauxhall SPD] [CD5/2]

• “there are a number of key issues to be considered in terms of the emerging tall buildings strategy for the OA: - ... The potential for tall buildings to compromise key local views from conservation areas both within and beyond the OA” [Draft OAPF] [CD4/3]

Consistently with this general position, three out of four of these studies reduce the height of the tall buildings in their cluster nearer the conservation areas to the east. Only the OAPF, with its unparticularised tall buildings blob at Vauxhall would allow the Bondway Tower at 149m to even get to the starting line.

The Bondway Tower would be the effective precedent, setting the form of the cluster for the foreseeable future, and we think these urban design considerations are highly material considerations against the present application.

There must also be a question mark whether a policy free developer-led tower building campaign will give us anything but residential towers alone, with no significant retail or leisure component. Will that actually regenerate Vauxhall – give it a heart and make it a “destination”– as the developer claims? It is notable that after 10 years of residential led regeneration in the form of St George’s Wharf, Tuckermans can comment on Vauxhall

“Vauxhall as a location is well provided for by transport facilities, benefiting from the
train and tube lines as well as the new bus station. It is also a short walk to Westminster and Victoria. However, retail amenity is poor and the local environment has no ‘heart’ from either a community or business perspective. It is also viewed as a harsh environment due to the one way system, the clubs and the vagrant population. It is therefore generally seen as a secondary office location by the property industry and business community.” [A7.3 para 2.4]

Throughout this Inquiry we have been exercised by the sheer density of the development, which in residential terms come in at around three times the upper limits of the Mayor’s density matrix [CD4/1], and in plot ratio terms around 20:1. As we noted in proof [K1.1] and evidence in chief [K1.17] these recent residential towers are way beyond the ranges contemplated by the density matrix, beyond even the 500 units a hectare upper limit of “Living at Superdensity” [CD6/8], referred to in proof.

In our view we are sleepwalking into a wholly different range of buildings, without assessing the impacts of living in these ways. We note that few if any of the recent appeal decisions for tall residential towers raised these issues, and the mix of dwelling sizes generates a “child lite” development on policy assumptions about child yield, suggesting unsustainable demography and unstable communities. So for example, the child yield from the proposed development is 117, out of an estimated 880 inhabitants, a child proportion of about 13%. This compares with a Lambeth proportion of 19% [2001 census] [CD6/8] and the 25% proportion embodied in the OAPF [CD4/3]. In addition, amenity space has to be contrived in unusual ways, (it proved impossible to provide open air child amenity space on this site, and the developer has to look to an existing park to satisfy this requirement) and there is a serious issue about pressure on public amenities and services from such a concentrated development.

For these reasons we regard the wholesale setting aside of the density matrix as a significant departure from plan (both London and Lambeth) which has not been justified. We agree strongly with the evidence of Lambeth’s witness Mr Rees that this is overdevelopment, and the proposed tower would be an overbearing development, contrary to UDP Plan Policy 33 [CD5/1] .

The employment arguments have been well trodden during this Inquiry, and we put them again for the record. The development site forms part of an MDO [MDO 81] within a Key Industrial and Business Area [hereafter “KIBA”] [[CD5/1].
• On such a site, UDP Policy 22 provides that “Here some residential and other non-employment uses are acceptable on appropriate parts of the site. The overall development, however, should be predominantly employment-based, incorporating the maximum feasible amount of employment development -...”
• The policy gives developers anxious to demonstrate their conformity to policy two safe harbours in the policy itself, and an overriding one in the rubric to MDO 81 itself
• In this case we are testing whether a development 90% residential, with a commercial GDV of 1.5% (as emerged in the evidence of Mr Billington), and which actually reduces by 40% the existing employment floor space on the site is actually “predominantly employment-based, incorporating the maximum feasible amount of employment development -...”
• As appears from the common rubric to MDOs 80 to 83, each MDO is a site, and some are also groups of sites. In the latter case, one third of floorspace on each constituent site has to be for employment use, unless it can be demonstrated that, through comprehensive development, this amount of employment floorspace can be achieved across the entire MDO site. The developer is unable to acquire the remaining small site in MDO 81, and certainly cannot demonstrate that the one-third target can be achieved.
• It follows that the development does not conform to UDP Policy 22.

As regards affordable Housing, Mr Billington’s evidence has been enlightening, and the disclosure of the full viability assessment and expert appraisal [A6.5] helpful, and will enable the Secretary of State to have a better view of the working of the viability testing machinery. This regularly abates the 50/40% affordability headline rates in policy to barely half those levels, even with developments of up-market flats, which might be expected to have the capacity to deliver nearer policy headline rates.

The viability test essentially tots up the likely value of market sales and the capitalised value of commercial contributions, and deducts the likely construction costs, prescribed levels of developer profit and financing charges and any social housing grant, to assess how much headroom is left for affordable housing, while still leaving a residual value just above the existing use value [hereafter “EUV”] of the site. Crucial to this process is the estimation of flat prices in future years – in the case of Bondway, if it were to secure permission, the first estimate of prices will have taken place about 6 years before completion and actual sales (2009 assessment and a four year build completing in 2015 [see Construction Statement at CD2/4A para 1.44]). Such estimates are notoriously error prone – Property Forecasts, the leading forecaster in the field for town and city specific forecasts finds that even three years ahead, only 25% of its forecasts are within 15% of the true level.

What has emerged from witness testimony is how sensitive the % provision of affordable housing is to the estimates of market sales. Mr Billington testified that an increase of 5% in market sales estimates (and this was the difference between the professional views of those compiling the original viability assessment and of the Council’s expert appraisers of it) increased the affordable homes percentage emerging from the viability test from 23% to 32%, an increase of no less than 40% (9 percentage points) in provision.

We ourselves have doubts about the market sales assumptions currently embodied in the viability assessment, (around the £600 to £635 level per sq m), given current prices at the nearby St George’s Wharf development, anecdotally in the £700 per sq m range. This is only partly cured by the provisions for second and subsequent review, just before any permission were implemented, as, given the four year build time, this still involves estimation of flat prices four years ahead. We think such estimates are inherently uncertain, and likely to be conservative, and we think the evenhandedness of the methodology is in question.

The whole area needs a dose of sunshine, so that society can see whether the balance is being properly struck between developer and wider public interests, and to that end we consider that in this and similar cases, if permission were granted there should be a post mortem following completion, to audit the assumptions and estimates made, either as a stand alone audit by the Council, with developer co-operation, or via an addition to Sch 4 of the S106 agreement [CD1/10B], stipulating such a report by the developer.

English Heritage [EH] [CD2/19], Westminster Council, our Waterloo colleagues [W2.2] and Miss Hoey, the local MP have all expressed their concerns about the impact of this proposal on distant views. There is a risk of piecemeal erosion, and the impact of the proposed tower on the M12 view from the Cenotaph [CD2/4E], as noted by Miss Hoey, is notable. So also is the beginning straggle of tall towers in the distant view from Westminster Bridge [CD2/4E image M19 Cumulative], where either the cluster profile of the 2006 VUDS [K1.14] or the argued rising profile of the 2009 study [K1.15] are to be preferred on aesthetic grounds. We commend these opinions to the Inquiry and the Secretary of State and adopt the EH view as expressed in its representation:

“Our view is that we support good quality contextual modern architecture, which can enhance the historic environment given careful consideration of the relationship with its surroundings. By virtue of its scale and massing of the proposal, its significant harm on the setting and significance of the World Heritage Site, listed buildings and conservation areas, and loss of local heritage asset it is difficult to see how this could be achieved without a significant reduction in scale and height of the building.” [CD2/19]

As we say in our supplementary note on wide angle lenses [k1.16], which Mr Coleman uses for his 72 studies of the Tower [CD2/4E], they mislead the eye by providing extra foreground, reducing the significance of distant objects, like the proposed tower. For that reason, we regard Mr Coleman’s pictures as markedly understating the impact of the development, which becomes even more obtrusive and overbearing, particularly in its impact, broadside on, on Vauxhall Park and its conservation area. All the parties to the appeal agree that the only real assessment of the visual impact of the proposed scheme is to go and see the views personally, armed with acetates showing the outline of the proposed development above the existing skyline.

Given this circumstance, when the issue comes to rest with the Secretary of State, it will be necessary for the ultimate decision taker to be able to say, and record in their decision, that they themselves have looked personally at the views concerned before reaching their decision, and not merely relied on the misleading photographs in the case, else they will not have had regard to a relevant consideration.

The testimony of all the residents and community representatives who gave evidence to the Inquiry [eg R1 – R8 and evidence of Miss Hilling] was that the proposed tower was overbearing and intrusive to their community, their conservation area and the park it embraced. And they were already a vibrant, largely self built community, in no need of “repopulation” as the developer suggests.

As regards plan policies governing the impact of this broad tall tower on heritage assets, they are plentiful. We cite in particular:
• UDP Policy 33 – overbearing and developments affecting conservation area settings (overdevelopment issues cited above)
• UDP Policy 40 – tall buildings harming the character of conservation areas and impairing the development possibilities of surrounding sites without a wider masterplan (impact on Vauxhall and St Mark’s conservation areas, including Vauxhall Park in particular, and representations from neighbouring property about impaired development possibilities – and absence of master plan!)
• UDP Policy 45 – development adversely affecting the setting of a listed building (Woodstock Court)
• UDP Policy 47 – Development outside conservation areas harming settings and views in and out (Vauxhall and St Mark’s conservation areas above) [CD5/1].

We also remind ourselves of the terms of the draft SPD [CD5/2] and OAPF [CD4/3] cited above, which both recognise, in terms, the need to temper the design of tall towers at Vauxhall to take account of the impact on heritage assets.

In the circumstances, we think the case is made out that the proposed development breaches all the plan policies cited, and should be rejected on those grounds too.

Mr Philpot, in cross examination, sought to persuade me that, as regards a residential led development such as this one, there was no practical difference between the “employment led” areas washed pink in the OAPF land use diagram of OAPF p27 [CD4/3], and the “residential led” areas washed yellow. If he is right, there is little point in planning for the OAPF – it will be a developer free for all, with social infrastructure grudgingly provided by developers, if at all, and a question mark over whether it is capable of delivering the employment aspirations of the framework. We remain of the view that there is such a distinction, and wait to see if it is strengthened in subsequent drafts of the OAPF.

Both we and Miss Hoey, with her wide experience of the problems of Vauxhall, support the provision of a Metropolitan Police Neighbourhood office in the development, which is provided for in paragraph H and Sch 3 para 5 of the S106 agreement [CD1/10B], but only if the Secretary of State considers that it satisfies the now statutory tests of necessity, directness and proportionality. We argue that it does in broad terms – we draw attention in proof [K1.1 and K1.8] to the gap in police station presence in Vauxhall, the development adds 880 residents to an area with high levels of crime for robbery and serious violence to the person, and the 90 sq m of office space is hardly disproportionate to the overall scale of development, at upwards of 50,000 sq m. We urge the Secretary of State, were he to permit this development, to agree also this modest contribution to the public safety of its residents and their neighbours.

We drew attention in proof [K1.1 and evidence in chief [K1.17] to the issue of public transport accessibility, judged by PTAL rating, versus capacity of the infrastructure itself. In policy we now find recognition that both are important to the satisfactory location of development, and we note in particular UDP Policy 9 [CD5/1 and its London Plan equivalent] and OAPF p76 [CD4/3].

Transport assessments that concentrate on Underground train capacity at Vauxhall miss the point (at least at present) – what is at issue for the moment is gateline and escalator capacity, and we are near to various trigger points in passenger numbers that will increase periodic gate and station closures to deal with congestion in these access arrangements. We illustrated the consequence of such closures on successive days in proof [K1.6]. This Bondway development did not present a full cumulative analysis of transport impact [see CD2/4D], lacking material for recently consented developments like the Vauxhall Sky Gardens. The Secretary of State should be informed that subsequent developments, like the Vauxhall Triangle development, will need a more complete analysis, and when this is available, we may find that congestion begins to trump accessibility, unless there is significant expenditure on mitigating infrastructure.

As regards mitigating open space deficiency, we argued this in detail in proof [K1.1] and evidence in chief [K1.17]. It is clear that additional open space at Vauxhall is critical to the success of any cluster there:
“Within the Vauxhall Heart, intensification is expected to occur with new development creating a cluster of taller buildings of exemplar architectural quality. New buildings will be expected to form a cluster framing a central public space with building heights varying according to the relationship with the river and residential hinterland.” [Vauxhall draft SPD] [CD5/2]

“We support the 40m wide public space to the west of the site, which is proposed as part of Lambeth’s Vauxhall Area SPD, and feel that the success of the cluster is, in fact, dependant on the implementation of this. However, the ground floor of this building will need to work hard to animate the space, which will be of considerable scale. We urge the local authority to ensure that the public space is well designed, carefully integrated with adjacent new buildings and offers significant amenity to local residents.” [CABE Report on Bondway Tower] [CD2/18]

And we heard a similar view from Mr Rees in evidence, of the vitalizing and humanizing effect of well designed public open space on tall building clusters.

There is a clear audit trail in policy too:
• “50(c) New Open Space, Greening, and Green Chains – The creation of new open spaces, urban “greening” initiatives, and the linking and improvement of open spaces will be supported, especially in areas deficient in these features. Developments which materially add to the demand for open space, which are proposed in an area of open space deficiency, or where existing open space needs improvement, will be required to contribute to appropriate improvements in open space provision in the immediate area. Where on-site provision or provision in the immediate area is impractical or insufficient, developers will be required to contribute to such initiatives elsewhere. Arrangements for the longterm maintenance of new and improved open spaces will be secured.” [UDP Policy 50(c)] [CD5/1]
• The development lies in an Open Space Deficiency Area (see UDP Map 2, p135)
• There is a two part tariff for S106 contributions in Vauxhall and Waterloo, under the adopted SPD on S106 obligations [CD5/7]:
“Lambeth Open Space Deficiencies. The National Playing Field Association have a general standard of 2.4 hectares of open space per 1,000 population, Lambeth as a whole is deficient in meeting that standard, in that it has 1.54 hectares per 1,000 of population, projected to fall to 1.44. Lambeth’s Open Space Strategy recommends that a target of 1.6 hectares per 1,000 population is set for 2016.
2. New open space and investment into existing Parks. The creation of new open space will be encouraged on site or in the immediate vicinity. If this is not possible a financial contribution will be sought to increase open space provision in areas identified in the Lambeth Open Space Strategy, and/or expected towards investment in existing parks and open spaces.
3 Enhanced contributions Waterloo and Vauxhall – Additional higher financial contributions will be sought on a park or open space project basis from commercial and residential developments in these two opportunity areas to support environmental and physical regeneration objectives.”

And we understand that such enhanced contributions have been made in Waterloo, with Shell agreeing £1m for open space on a 37,000 sq m commercial development, and Elizabeth House agreed £1.5m for open space on a 280 unit development [CD7/4].

It is not for us to speculate here why the Council’s officers have failed to implement the Council’s adopted policies for open space contributions at Vauxhall. But it is clear that there is a need for new open space to vitalise the proposed cluster, and established machinery for securing contributions to finance it.

The 880 people who would occupy the Bondway tower generate an additional demand for 1.4 hectares of open space, at Lambeth’s 1.6 ha per thousand standard, and that in an open space deficiency area. Bondway’s pavements and back passage do not sensibly minister to this need. The generated deficiency is actually equivalent to half of Vauxhall Park (2.82 ha) [see CD6/16]. It is no use the developer piously hoping someone else will provide it – it is part of the necessary mitigation from choosing to develop a high density residential tower, and he should put up the funds to acquire mitigating space, or choose to develop something else that does not put excessive strain on the infrastructure.

I was chided in cross-examination for leaving the developer in uncertainty about the value of S106 contribution we would seek. Plainly we can’t have a developer left in uncertainty, and I calculate that 1.4 ha at EUV is £38m, and I would regard that as an adequate level of mitigation of this particular detriment of the development. However, given the terms of the SPD and CABE comments about open space at the heart of the cluster, we would be able to welcome £10m (0.4 ha, the size of the open space at the heart of the cluster, contemplated by the draft SPD [CD5/2], valued at EUV) as useful funding and a clear recognition of need.

This is a conservative measure of the damage that would need to be mitigated if the development went ahead. If you build what you are pleased to call vertical villages, you need to remember to provide the village green – if you build Georgian terraces stacked into the sky, you should not forget that ornament of urban living, the Georgian garden square. If we are told that it is quite impossible to fund a development like this and provide the necessary open space, we should not weep, and might invite the developer to try his hand at a mix of uses that does not look to his neighbouring developers to provide necessary infrastructure he does not care to, and over burden the existing public realm.

I have no doubt Mr Lindblom will talk of the benefits of park and playspace and public realm contributions, especially in an open space deficiency area – and even invite us to be grateful. But these are £1m solutions to £10m problems, and problems caused by the developer itself to boot.

My conclusion, sir, is simple. In this case you are creating the effective precedent for the Vauxhall cluster of tall towers. This is the:
• Wrong starting point for the Vauxhall cluster
• With the wrong mix of uses
• In the wrong form of tower
• With the wrong mitigation, and

I invite you to recommend the Secretary of State to reject the application.

David Boardman
Chair
Kennington Association Planning Forum

6 August 2010

Lambeth Core Strategy - Examination in Public - KAPF representations

2010-08-09T00:34:00.000-07:00

Date: Monday, 2 August, 2010, 11:47

Simon Osborn, Esq

Programme Officer

Lambeth Core Strategy Examination in Public

Dear Sir

I attach further statements on behalf of the Kennington Association, in relation to

affordable housing
employment land
tall buildings

We are disturbed that no community association has been listed in your provisional list of participants, only developers and the Council, and that such an abbreviated timescale is being adopted, to deal with so many issues (4 days only, cf 8 days for the equivalent proceeding in Southwark).

We ask that we be listed for all four days' discussions

Yours sincerely

David Boardman

Chair

Kennington Association Planning Forum

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Note by the Kennington Association Planning Forum

Lambeth Core Strategy

Examination in Public –Affordable Housing - Policy S2(c)

1 This Association is a Rule 6 party at the current Bondway/Octave Tower Inquiry, at which the full Affordable Housing Assessment and Independent Appraisal for the proposed, predominantly residential, development were put in evidence. From these, and evidence emerging at the Inquiry, it is possible to form a more detailed view of the methodology of viability testing using the “Three Dragons” toolkit.

2 The current issue of the toolkit requires, before the application is lodged, a comparison of likely costs of development, particularly construction costs, financing charges and developer profit at standard rates, versus likely proceeds, particularly the estimated value of ultimate market sales, and capitalised value of any rental element like office floorspace. The amount of affordable housing is computed as that proportion of the residential build, with or without housing grant, that is calculated to allow the residual value (proceeds minus costs) just to exceed the existing use value of the site. In the Bondway case, the affordable provision emerged from this process as 23% affordable with grant (cf the 50% headline rate in policy)

3 This calculation is performed well before determination of the application (in the case of Bondway in mid 2009, with appeal not likely to be determined until the last quarter of 2010). Typically it is subject to independent technical appraisal by outside experts on behalf of the Council, and in the Bondway case they estimated future flat prices as 5% more than the developer. It emerged in evidence that this higher figure would support not 23% but 32%, a full nine percentage points higher, a highly leveraged result.

4 This affordable provision is subject to a review mechanism, under which the process is repeated 3 months before implementation. This still involves the estimation of flat prices some four years before completion, which is a highly inaccurate process. As the attached note shows, the professional forecaster Property Forecasts, forecasting house prices only three years ahead for towns and cities, finds that only 25% of its forecasts are within 15% of the actual results (2009 actual compared with 2006 forecasts).

5 Given the sensitivity to estimated market sales, there can be no confidence that the methodology is delivering an accurate assessment of the capacity of developments to sustain affordable housing, and an inevitable suspicion that estimates will be made conservatively, to the detriment of affordable housing provision. There is no regular post implementation review of the assumptions made, once actual market sales proceeds are known, and if there is to be any confidence in the methodology, there should be. We think Policy S2(c) should be amended to provide for just such a post implementation review.

David Boardman

Chair

Kennington Association Planning Forum

2 August 2010

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Note by the Kennington Association Planning Forum

Lambeth Core Strategy

Examination in Public –KIBAs - Policy S3(b)

1 This Association is a Rule 6 party at the current Bondway/Octave Tower Inquiry, at which a development with

· 90% residential floor space,

· one and a half percent commercial Gross Development Value,

· on a KIBA (MDO81 under the current UDP) requiring 30% employment floor space for any redevelopment

· a reduction of 40% in employment floor space compared with the existing use of the site

argued that it should be allowed to proceed.

2 In the light of this development, pressure to bias “mixed use” development very heavily to the residential end, is likely to dramatically reduce employment floor space in aggregate. This would be to the detriment of employment uses, along with the de-designation of the Vauxhall KIBAs and the softening of the employment space test, so eg that provision of employment floor space of no more than 50% of site area would satisfy the policy. We oppose the de-designation of the Vauxhall KIBA, and argue that Policy S3 should have as an underpinning minimum, that no redevelopment on a KIBA should reduce existing employment floor space on that site.

David Boardman

Chair

Kennington Association Planning Forum

2 August 2010

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Note by the Kennington Association Planning Forum

Lambeth Core Strategy

Examination in Public –Vauxhall, Tall Towers and Open Space – Policies S5(b), S9(d), and PN2(f)

1 This Association is a Rule 6 party at the current Bondway/Octave Tower Inquiry, at which the basis for a cluster of tall buildings for Vauxhall was examined, together with the issue of provision of additional open space, as an element critical to the success of any cluster. Through Freedom of Information requests, this Association was able to illuminate these issues by putting before the Inquiry two urban design studies of potential clusters at Vauxhall, commissioned by Lambeth Council, but previously unpublished, and these are attached to this note.

2 At least 4 sorts of cluster are on offer at Vauxhall, all in studies or draft planning documents, and nothing useful in adopted policy. As the 2006 urban design study foresaw, the absence of adopted planning guidance has meant that tall tower proposals are coming forward piecemeal, and some, such as Bondway, cite the Draft VNEB Opportunity Area Planning Framework’s suggested cluster as justification for a 150m tower to the south, close to conservation areas and Vauxhall Park, rather than the draft SPD’s proposed cluster with its roof lines rising toward the Vauxhall Cross site in the middle.

3 Supplementary planning guidance is urgent, and the cited policies are deficient, in that they fail to require new open space at the heart of any cluster. This was a significant element of the draft SPD (at p72) and was seen as critical by CABE to the success of the entire cluster, when reviewing the Bondway design. But developers are declining to provide it, looking to the next set of developers to do what they are unwilling to do themselves.

4 We strongly believe that these policies, particularly S9(d) and PN2(f) should be amended to require any cluster at Vauxhall (which is indeed in an Open Space Deficiency Area) to be designed round additional new open space, and that developers should expect to contribute to its establishment in kind or cash equivalent, as already provided for by the current Lambeth SPD for S106 contributions for open space in Vauxhall (Appendix D1).

David Boardman

Chair

Kennington Association Planning Forum

2 August 2010

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Historic accuracy of 3 year forward flat price estimates – Note By KAPF

Source: Propertyforecasts.co.uk – 29 July 2010

Historic accuracy figures summary, Towns & Cities (tested Sept 2009)

As with the Neighbourhoods, comparisons are between forecasts we made in Aug 2006, from Land Registry data to June 2006, and filtered Land Registry data up to the end of second quarter 2009. Averages for Towns & Cities are calculated from postcode sector (neighbourhood) forecasts, using (mainly) the Royal Mail definitions for towns and averaging relevant sector values .

· Overall for houses, around 81-86% of three-year historic forecasts are classified A or B, down around 10% from last year; 25-29% are classified as A, significantly down from last year’s 64-70%.

· Around 38 % of A forecasts for houses are within 15% of the averaged filtered Land Registry values at June 2009, well down on last year, with only around 7% within 5%.

· For houses, 27-28% of A and B forecasts are within 15%, and 25-26% of all forecasts (including U) are within 15% at the end of three years. For flats & maisonettes, this figure has fallen somewhat to 23% of A and B forecasts within 15%, and 20% of all forecasts.

· Less than 2% of all house price forecasts are classified as U; for flats & maisonettes, around 5.3% are classified U.

· Around 26% of all forecasts are in the same overall direction as the smoothed Land Registry data. For A category forecasts, this is 33-37%.

· Average error at the end of three years for A classified forecasts is around +16% (standard deviation SD of 6.5%), while that for A and B classifications together stands at around 21% (SD around 11.4%). For flats & maisonettes, average error for ‘A’ and ‘B’ classifications was +22%, with an SD of 11.7%.

· Overall average error was between +22.8 and +23.7% for houses (SD 15-16%), and +28% for flats & maisonettes, with a somewhat higher SD of around 20%.

Once again , a ‘-’ sign against an error value would show an underestimate, while positive values show over-estimates. All values indicate overestimates, as one would expect in the boom-and-bust climate prevailing over the last three years.

Flats & Maisonettes:	'A'	'B'	'C'	'U'	ALL
Proportion of dataset (%)	10.6%	54.3%	26.3%	8.8%	100%
Average error	13.8%	21.8%	34.3%	67.0%	28.2%
Standard Deviation of error	7.8%	13.4%	26.0%	40.7%	24.8%
Proportion positively correlated	51.2%	28.7%	27.5%	19.3%	30.0%
Average correlation	0.02	-0.17	-0.21	-0.29	-0.17
Within 5% after 3 years	10.5%	8.5%	5.4%	0.4%	7.2%
Within 10% after 3 years	28.2%	17.7%	12.4%	1.1%	16.0%
Within 15% after 3 years	52.4%	27.5%	18.4%	2.4%	25.5%

David Boardman

KAPF

29 July 2010

Bondway Inquiry - Tall Building Reports

2010-07-28T00:45:00.000-07:00

Dear Neighbours

Two tall building reports were winkled out of Lambeth by FoI requests, and it is surprising they have not been published. We have now put both studies into evidence at the Inquiry.

Regards

David

Copies can be found on our website under 'Attachments':

http://sites.google.com/site/kenningtonassociation/links-1

OPENING STATEMENT TO THE BONDWAY INQUIRY 20Jul2010

2010-07-28T00:33:00.000-07:00

OPENING STATEMENT TO THE BONDWAY INQUIRY

DAVID BOARDMAN

On behalf of

The KENNINGTON ASSOCIATION

It is a commonplace of the planning system that applications are to be determined in accordance with the development plan, unless material considerations indicate otherwise. Community institutions such as ours tend to place great emphasis on the plan, as in many cases they have helped shape it – developers such as the applicant often seem to emphasise the material considerations warranting departure, or with well funded eloquence subtly argue that the plan always meant something other than previously thought.

The Vauxhall community has not been well served by the planning system. The Vauxhall gyratory traffic system is universally detested by residents, and the competent authority, Transport for London, fails repeatedly to engage with the community about what if anything can be done about it. This creates what the applicants are pleased to call a “traffic dominated backwater”, which they seek to “repopulate” with their proposed residential tower, to transform the area into a vibrant Central London destination. As it happens the existing community feels itself to be quite vibrant at present, thank you very much, nor do they regard themselves as a backwater, in need of “repopulation” like some failed colony. But there is plenty of aspiration for regeneration, and a recognition that, lying as Vauxhall does so close to central London, in an Opportunity Area, that regeneration will inevitably involve more intensive development.

It now seems clear, following the Secretary of State’s decision to allow the 180m St George’s Tower back in 2005, that some form of cluster of tall buildings would emerge at Vauxhall. It is sobering to think, five years on, as the foundation works for that Tower are just beginning, that at the time, the Minister was prepared to trade some damage to heritage assets for more affordable housing and the hope of boosting regeneration. The crucial issue for the people of Vauxhall is “what sort of cluster?”, and here again the planning system has been lacking in providing useful guidance. Draft documents abound, including a draft Vauxhall Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) from Lambeth Council, and the draft Vauxhall Nine Elms Battersea (VNEB) Opportunity Area Planning Framework, but as Council witnesses have asserted in their proofs, little weight can be ascribed to them until formal examination or adoption. In other parts of the VNEB area, a limited number of developers have substantial parcels of land at their disposal, often of tens of hectares, and are coming forward with considered schemes for mixed development and a substantial public realm component. But land holdings in Vauxhall are fragmented, and individual developers may only have sites a fraction of a hectare in size. In those circumstances, it is all the more important that there are urban design studies to inform the shape and scale of any emerging cluster, as the CABE/EH guidance on Tall Buildings enjoins, to prevent a piecemeal free for all.

In our original proof, we lamented the lack of such a design study, and the applicant, in rebuttal, comforted us with the observation that the findings of an unpublished design study had informed the formulation of the draft Vauxhall SPD. Now we find we can in our turn comfort the applicant, through the miracle of the Freedom of Information Act, by placing before the Inquiry extracts from the actual Vauxhall Urban Design Study, rescued from Lambeth Council’s archive. And that study argues for a different cluster than the one sketched in the draft VNEB Framework, generally rather lower to prevent interference with heritage assets, centred on a tower on the Vauxhall Triangle (Vauxhall Cross) site, with any Bondway Tower subordinated to it. This would reduce the scale and massing of any Bondway Tower considerably, as advised by English Heritage in their evidence, and we shall be urging the merits of this approach in our evidence.
Other aspects of this application are equally problematic. On what is intended by the adopted Lambeth UDP to be a site with at least 30% of employment floor space, the applicant manages only 10%. On what is a Key Industrial and Business Area (KIBA), the supposed regeneration actually manages to reduce employment floor space by 40%. In an area the draft VNEB Framework designates for employment driven regeneration, the applicant offers 90% residential floor space. With a density of 1297 units per hectare, the application not only exceeds the upper limit of 405 units per hectare of the Mayor’s Plan Density Matrix, but even exceeds the 500 units per hectare upper limits of Design for London Report “Living at Superdensity”. It will be interesting to hear the applicant’s subtle arguments for such material departures.

As regards the design of the Tower itself, it is plain that for once, CABE and EH find themselves on opposite sides of the argument. As noted, EH is exercised by the impact on heritage assets, including the long distance views of the Westminster Heritage Site, and prefers a reduction in scale, height and massing. CABE, on the other hand, broadly favours the building design, while expressing reservations, where it comes down to earth, that the building and the public realm were imperfectly engaged. Furthermore, the applicant has missed the plan target of amenity space of 10 sqm per flat by 1 sqm, which he then seeks to make up by providing an amenity floor which residents have to pay to use, in a manner discriminatory between residents of market and affordable flats. For these and other reasons set out in our proofs, we do not think the design of the Tower passes muster.

On the issue of affordable housing, the Rule 6 parties have not had full disclosure of the original justification for departing from the 50/40% targets of plan policy, and we consider that the interests of justice require that such material is disclosed to this Inquiry and all the parties. We remain sceptical as to the accuracy of the estimates of market sale proceeds, and doubt that even the proposed review will cure matters, as it appears it will itself take place well before sales actually take place. We therefore favour a second review, to take place when say 90% of the market flats have been sold, to audit the assumptions made, and provide an additional commuted sum to the Council, if that proves warranted.

We share the concerns of EH and Westminster Council as to the impact of this massive tower on its heritage surroundings, and in particular Vauxhall Park. We doubt if Mr Coleman’s lush descriptions of its impact will find any resonance with residents, and towards the end of these proceedings, we will find out, when we ask them.

As we note in our proof, despite the excellent transport accessibility at Vauxhall, judged by PTAL rating, there is a significant problem in actually getting to and from the Underground because of gate line and escalator capacity. The applicant’s transport study was unable to include Vauxhall Sky Gardens in his cumulative traffic impact study, which concentrated on train capacity, which is not in issue, as opposed to gate line and escalator capacity, which is. Already, the congestion at Vauxhall Underground is giving rise to sporadic gate closures, and this will get worse, as development continues. This and subsequent developments should address these issues, else, as we note, at some stage, congestion will trump accessibility.

Finally, the issue of open space. You will know, Sir, that Lambeth as a whole is deficient in open space, and this proposed development lies in an Open Space Deficiency Area under the adopted UDP. A development of 376 flats exacerbates that deficiency by 1.4 hectares, a sizeable fraction of the area of Vauxhall Park itself. CABE thinks that the success of any cluster at Vauxhall is dependent on the implementation of a 40m by 100m public space immediately to the west of the application site. Such a space was to be found in the draft Vauxhall SPD, but significantly, no longer features in the draft VNEB Framework. The applicant favours such a space, cheerfully suggesting that the Council should designate his neighbours frontage to achieve it. We think the applicant should put his money where his mouth is, and offer an appropriate sum to the Council under S106 to help acquire such a site. This would also accord with the Lambeth adopted SPD for S106 payments, which expressly contemplates “additional higher financial contributions will be sought on a park or open space project basis from commercial and residential developments in [the Vauxhall and Waterloo opportunity areas”. Were this application otherwise to proceed, we consider that a much enhanced S106 payment would be warranted, to mitigate the open space deficiency it exacerbates, and help provide the new open space necessary to make the development succeed. A symbolic payment of £10m would be a good start!

We look forward to exploring these issues in the course of the Inquiry.

David Boardman
Chair
Kennington Association Planning Forum
20 July 2010

KA Rebuttal Proof of Evidence_Bondway 9 July10.

2010-07-28T00:24:00.001-07:00

TOWN & COUNTRY PLANNING ACT 1990 (As Amended)

SECTION 78

THE TOWN & COUNTRY PLANNING (INQUIRIES PROCEDURE) (ENGLAND) RULES 2000

PROOF OF

REBUTTAL EVIDENCE

DAVID BOARDMAN

ON BEHALF OF

KENNINGTON ASSOCIATION PLANNING FORUM

(KAPF)

In connection with an application by

Vauxhall Bondway Ltd

(a company registered in Jersey)

for planning permission for the development of site at

69 – 71 BONDWAY, VAUXHALL, LONDON, SW8 1SQ

Planning Application No & Planning Inspectorate Reference

APP/N5660/A/10/2123877/NWF

1. A2.2 – MR FILSKOW

1.1 Mr Filskow notes, at para 2.1.4 of his proof, (A2.2) that as regards Vauxhall, “the masterplan design is not sufficiently progressed at this time to precisely prescribe the future context”. This chimes with our concern (KAPF Proof, K1, para 5.2 to 5.3) that there were no urban design studies, of the sort enjoined by the CABE/EH guidance (CD6/1), to help inform the location, density and built form of any developing cluster. None the less, Mr Filskow considers that the design is “compatible with the draft masterplan” (para 2.1.7), that the site provides “a unique opportunity to kick start the regeneration of the area” (para 2.8.1) and urges the Council on to “kick-start the delivery of its masterplan intent” (para 5.5.1, 4) by in effect designating the site of its neighbour’s frontage as public open space.

1.2 Given our concern at the lack of such an urban design study, we made a Freedom of Information request to the GLA for any such unpublished study, with negative result. At GLA suggestion, however, we made a similar request of Lambeth Council, and on 5 July they identified to us their holding of a single colour A3 hard copy of such a study, prepared for them in December 2006 by Building Design Partnership. We have inspected the copy, which Lambeth have been unable to copy for us in full by today’s deadline. Accordingly, we have had black and white extracts made of the key elements, and we exhibit them to this proof as K2.1.

1.3 This 2006 study, which should be given due weight as the only urban design study available to the Inquiry, notes (p3) that

“[The St George’s Tower Appeal] highlighted the importance of providing a development framework for Vauxhall as the approval of the St Georges Tower has already resulted in pressure for further tall buildings in the area. It is vital that tall buildings do not develop in an ad hoc manner in Vauxhall.”

1.4 Given the current press of unco-ordinated applications for tall towers, the words are prophetic.

1.5 This extended study of possible configurations of a cluster of tall towers concludes with a preferred option (p41) of a cluster centred on Vauxhall Cross, with a tower of 140m, with other towers, such as one at the Bondway site, subordinate and shorter than it, (heights of the subordinate elements varying between 65 and 110m). It recognises, rightly in our view, that the St Georges Tower, if built, cannot sensibly be the focal point of the cluster, but is rather, in our terms, an outlier, bookmarking the edge of the urban area.

1.6 This considered study reinforces the arguments of English Heritage, (CD2/19) that the scale and massing of the proposed tower are too large (contrary to the views of Mr Filskow and the applicant’s other witnesses).

1.7 Mr Filskow says repeatedly (para 2.8.6, 6.4.7, 7.3.1) that the amenity floor on the 36^th floor of the building (in practice only a fraction of the normal floor plate, given the tapering of the building) will be accessible or available to all residents. Such a designation allows the applicant to add this floor space (671 sqm) to the tally of private amenity space (3271 sqm), bringing the apparent total to 3,942 sqm, above the target of 3,760sqm (10sqm per dwelling) (see para 7.1.1, 7.1.2 and 7.4.6). But none of the proofs appear to repeat the revealing statement of the Supporting Planning Statement (CD2/2 para 10.13)

“Communal facilities within the block

10.13 Communal facilities will be provided on the 36th floor of the building (671m2). These uses will include a reading room, nursery/playroom, room for booking for community use and a gym. There will also be access to one of the terraces/winter gardens for the community. All of the residents of the tower will have access to these facilities and therefore these will also be tenure blind. As it is anticipated that an affordable housing provider will not be prepared to entertain a high service charge for the residents of the affordable element, it is expect that these residents will subscribe to use the shared amenity floor.”

1.8 So all residents will be expected to pay extra for the private amenity space the policy says should be part of their ordinary entitlement, and to get it, tenants of affordable housing will need to exit their part of the building (because their lift does not go to the 36^th floor), re-enter via the market flats entrance, and in effect subscribe to a private health club. As the law once noted of the doors of the Ritz Hotel, open to rich and poor alike. We do not regard this as first class design.

2 A5.2 - MR ABSOLON

2.1 Other colleagues may comment in detail on Mr Absolon’s evidence, but in relation to the Local Policy section of his proof (paras 5.6 to 5.12), I would note in particular that Policy 47(g) of the adopted UDP (CD5/1, Conservation Areas), states explicitly that

“(g) Setting and Views - Development outside conservation areas should not

harm the setting of the area or harm views into or from the area.”

And I note that this is expressly supported by para 8 of the Secretary of State’s letter of 31 March 2005 in relation to the St Georges Tower Appeal. (CD7/12/B)

2.2 Our position, and that of other objectors, is that the scale and massing of the proposed tower do harm both views and setting.

3 A6.2 – MR BILLINGTON

3.1 As Mr Billington notes at para 5.5 of his proof, the GLA Guidance for using the Toolkit says

“the actual amount paid for the site should be considered contextual/comparative only, when negotiating schemes” [our punctuation]

but is otherwise silent on the issue.

3.2 However, the applicant paid £36m +VAT for the site, while willing to proceed with a development that generates a residual value, according to the assumptions fed into the Toolkit of little more than the existing use value of £8m. This makes us think that the assumptions about the proceeds of market sales are highly conservative – and we note that the Council’s assessors raised just this issue. No satisfactory explanation has been tendered to bolster these estimates. A review mechanism is a helpful mitigation – but if it is instituted when any permission is “implemented” – which, by comparison with the St Georges Tower, could even be when groundwork commences in 5 years time, and in any event probably 1 or 2 years before actual sales of flats, the Council will be little wiser as to the actual prices likely to be realised.

3.3 So we think this concern can only be assuaged by the addition of a second review stage, triggered say when 90% of the market flats have been sold/marketed, when the assumptions proferred can be audited effectively, and a further sum made available to the Council, for off site provision, if it turns out that additional affordable housing would have been viable. We therefore propose that the S106 agreement as to affordable housing be amended accordingly

4 A7.2 – MR TAYLOR

4.1 The issues of urban design of the cluster, an alternative configuration of the application design with less scale and massing and design of amenity space arise on Mr Taylor’s proof as they do on Mr Filskow’s, and have been dealt with there.

4.2 As regards conformity to the development plan (section 6 of his proof), Mr Taylor’s best argument seems to be that other developers have got away with departing from the plan as regards employment floor space, so why not this application too. This is undermined by the fact that the development provides less employment floor space than it destroys (5,852 sqm proposed versus 6,317 initially declared). And it now appears that the existing floor space is more like 9,000 sqm (WCDG proof W1 para 5.12).

4.3 In para 7.16 the identified land use for Vauxhall under the draft VNEB OAPF (CD4/3) is said to be “high density mixed use development providing a focal point for offices, retail and housing”, putting these three uses on all fours. In the event, this is a truncation of the true definition, which (VNEB OAPF p26 ) is “High density mixed use centre focal point for office and retail including housing” [my emphasis], a designation covering about 50 hectares of the Opportunity Area, and which is contrasted with “High density mixed use housing-led intensification” . Housing led intensification on sites intended for employment led intensification prejudice the whole balance of the Framework.

4.4 Mr Taylor’s section 9 on Support for a Tall Building in Vauxhall can now be illuminated by a proper urban design study, which essentially concludes, as regards this site, yes, but not with this excessive scale and massing.

4.5 At Section 12 of his proof, Mr Taylor asserts that the S106 agreement offered is satisfactory. We disagree, first as regards Employment (Item G2 in the Lambeth SPD Annex, CD5/7) and secondly as regards Open Space (Item D1 in the SPD Annex)).

4.6 As regards employment, on the footing that the existing employment floor space is about 9,000 sqm, the loss of employment floorspace now exceeds 500 sqm (on a KIBA redevelopment no less!) and the applicant qualifies to make a “wooden spoon” payment under G2 to mitigate this.

4.7 As regards Open Space, I note that the applicant’s witnesses continue to avoid the issue that the site lies in an Open Space Deficiency Area. And the SPD provides for a two part tariff in Vauxhall, not merely the formula calculation based on past investment in existing parks, but a project based supplement designed to create new open space. We note that extra open space near its site appeals to the applicant (eg A2.2 para 5.5.1 and 4), as it does to CABE (CD2/17), and 0.3 or 0.4 hectares is contemplated. Given the open space deficiency the applicant’s development would exacerbate, we think more is called for, but 0.4 hectares would be a good start, and we think he should up his S106 offer by at least £10m (calculated at the existing use value of his site of about £27m per hectare), to help acquire it.

D J BOARDMAN

Chair

Kennington Association Planning Forum

9 July 2010

Northern Line Extension (NLE) Consultation

2010-07-05T05:07:00.000-07:00

Subject: NLE Consultation
To: info@northernlineextension.com
Date: Tuesday, 29 June, 2010, 16:25

You invited comments on these repeated proposals for the NLE.

This Association commented in some detail on this issue, as part of the consultation on the Draft Vauxhall Nine Elms Battersea Opportunity Area Planning Framework. One never knows whether such comments are passed on, or considered at all, so for the record, we make them again here.

It is not at all clear whether these proposals do anything for the residents of Vauxhall, with their increasing congestion problems in accessing the Vauxhall stations, and TfLs apparent unwillingness to engage with the actual community about what if anything can be done about the Gyratory.
They lack the costing information which was set out in the VNEB Transport Study, which may or may not still be valid. Now is not the time to invest in public works where benefits barely exceed costs - and if the developer builds it for free, he will want equivalent value in extra development over and above the dense development already planned.
They do not address the likely congestion problems that will set in at Kennington Underground station, (particularly for Kennington residents trying to access the Northern line there via the restricted lift and gate arrangements), both from separation of the Northern line services and the extra movement between platforms arising from the proposed NLE traffic.
In these more stringent times, there are smaller ticket items, such as gateline relief at Vauxhall (£50m) or escalator expansion at Vauxhall (£100m) or upgrade of Kennington access (£?m) which should be a first call on transport funds

David Boardman

Chair

Kennington Association Planning Forum

28 June 2010

Appendix KAPF Comments on Chapter 8 Draft VNEB OAPF

"Chapter 8 – Transport

We think the transport study underlying this Framework, although elaborate and complicated, is not fit for purpose, because based on flawed assumptions

· The PTAL output measure of accessibility, used in the studies, high levels of which mandate denser developments under the Mayor’s Plan guidance is itself flawed. In areas where the issue is congestion and lack of capacity, it measures the time you take getting to the bus stop, plus the time you spend waiting at the stop until the first bus arrives, but if that bus is full, it omits the time you spend waiting until the one comes with room for you to get on it.. (As the VNEB transport study notes “PTALs are only able to represent the ability to reach public transport; they take no account of available capacity either on public transport services or at stations.”)

· The “borough balancing” assumption (p 78, para 8.2) is that for transport planning purposes future growth from elsewhere in the two boroughs is reallocated to the VNEB area, to “ensure that this study remains consistent with the London Plan forecasts” , ie that growth and transport demand elsewhere will be correspondingly less, as jobs and housing in VNEB increase. This seems wholly implausible, given the “Klondyke” nature of VNEB for developers, and the different time horizons of the borough plans and strategies and VNEB, and the overlap of VNEB into two boroughs. (This assumption eg makes the model predict, in the absence of a Northern line extension, a reduction of passengers at Kennington Tube station over time).

· The transport modelling takes no account of the developments at Elephant and Castle

· Para 8.3 says that the intensification of employment in VNEB scenarios leads to “significant increases in inbound as well as outbound morning peak public transport trips”. So what assumptions are being fed into the model about what proportion of VNEB jobs are going to VNEB or neighbouring residents, whose journeys to work would have much less impact? Are these standard assumptions or are they tailored to a combination growth of housing and employment in the same area?

· In this regard, it is not reassuring that the bulk of benefit from the NLE appears to accrue out of area, both as regards origins and destinations (Transport Study p 161). Is the NLE, designed to raise PTAL ratings in the interior of the OA, thereby enabling denser housing development, actually just benefitting through traffic?

· The transport modelling takes no account of the displacement of freight traffic caused by concentration at Stewarts Road

· The Framework’s “Get out of Jail” card to bring the transport accessibility (measured in PTALs) in the middle of the VNEB area up to high levels, is an extension of the Northern Line from Kennington (NLE). Such extensions are notoriously difficult to cost, and often overrun timetable and budget. Eg, while developers were initially to pay for a large part of the Jubilee line extension to Docklands, in the end they paid less than 5% of the total cost of £3.5bn.

· Our cockshy estimate of 4.3 extra kilometres of tunnel, at between £180m to £260m a kilometre, based on 1994 London Underground costings for tunnelling in the Battersea area, uprated for increases in earnings, suggests a cost of between £770m and £1.1bn. We note that the transport study at p 97 estimates a cost of between £670m to £1060m, depending on route chosen.

· Such an NLE is barely cost effective unless built for free by developers, and these costs dwarf other social infrastructure costs (above) and seem beyond the reach of “normal” S106 charges. Developers asked to stump up the best part of a billion pounds will in our view inevitably seek to recoup this sum in extra development density, on what is already expected to be one of the densest developments in the world.

We note, at p 171 and Table 39 of the Transport Study, that further studies are contemplated:

Further sensitivity tests assessing the value and effects of:
borough balancing of future OA development; and
addition of OA development without applying borough balancing.
Investigation into the effects of interaction of OA development with adjacent development areas such as the development nodes at Waterloo and Elephant & Castle.
Revised Scenario 5 Further modelling to assess the impact of the ‘Revised Scenario 5’ which, subsequent to this study was taken forward in the final OAPF document
A comprehensive review of the Vauxhall gyratory and other key TLRN routes within the OA, with particular consideration for proposals to improve the urban realm and cycling provision. This should be a joint review by TfL and the relevant planning and highway authorities.
Investigation of the effects of displacement of freight activities following reallocation of existing land use to new developments; this will be further addressed in the final OAPF document.
Investigation of station design and provision of capacity at Vauxhall, Battersea Park Road, Queenstown Road and Wandsworth Road NR stations.

To be frank, these should have been the starting points of any study that addressed the realities of the transport issues underlying the Framework, and we await the results of such a study with interest. It should also address the station design, accessibility and capacity of the Grade II listed Kennington Underground station, under a NLE option – the residents of Kennington do not relish the prospect of being held at the ground level gates in rush hours because their limited lift capacity and congested platforms are not equal to the extra transit traffic generated by a Northern Line Extension."

KAPF - Proof of Evidence for Bondway Inquiry

2010-06-29T09:17:00.001-07:00

TOWN & COUNTRY PLANNING ACT 1990 (As Amended)

SECTION 78

THE TOWN & COUNTRY PLANNING (INQUIRIES PROCEDURE) (ENGLAND) RULES 2000

PROOF OF EVIDENCE

DAVID BOARDMAN

ON BEHALF OF

KENNINGTON ASSOCIATION PLANNING FORUM

(KAPF)

In connection with an application by

Vauxhall Bondway Ltd

(a company registered in Jersey)

for planning permission for the development of site at

69 – 71 BONDWAY, VAUXHALL, LONDON, SW8 1SQ

Planning Application No & Planning Inspectorate Reference

APP/N5660/A/10/2123877/NWF

1. PERSONAL DETAILS AND EXPERIENCE

1.1 I am a Master of Arts of the University of Cambridge (Natural Sciences) with a qualification in Applied Mathematics.

1.2 Having worked in London for most of my working life, I retired from the civil service in 2005, and since 2007 have lived in Kennington in the London Borough of Lambeth, in property which my wife and I have owned since 2001. While living in Billericay in Essex in the 1980s I was a co-opted member of the Billericay Local Area Committee, a Committee of Basildon District Council exercising local planning powers. I also represented the Billericay District Residents’ Association on planning issues, including appearing at the Examination in Public of the Essex Structure Plan and the Billericay Local Plan Inquiry.

1.3 In 2009 I was appointed Chair of the Kennington Association Planning Forum.

2. THE KENNINGTON ASSOCIATION

2.1 The Kennington Association is a voluntary membership association of upwards of 420 members drawn from the wider Kennington area in the north of the Borough of Lambeth, an area that abuts the east side of the Vauxhall area. It was established in reaction to the Congestion Charge, whose boundary bisects the Kennington area, and now continues as a non-party-political pro-active lobby group for the quality of life in Kennington, our residential neighbourhood in the heart of London.

2.2 The general aim of the Association is to promote and maintain the Kennington area as a good place to live and work. This area comprises an interspersed mixture of Georgian and Victorian conservation areas and social housing estates, some with significant deprivation. The Association’s concerns in the planning context therefore include conservation, open space, affordable housing and employment and skills issues in relation to its area, and the extent to which developments in the Vauxhall area, such as the present Bondway development, will benefit residents and jobseekers from the wider Lambeth area, or detract from public amenity.

2.3 More specifically, the Association’s aims are laid down as

· To foster a sense of community within the diverse population of the Kennington area

· To campaign in order to maintain and improve public services

· To act as an advocate in matters of public planning and architectural proposals

· To work to protect Kennington’s historical heritage and improve its amenities and environment

· To work to promote the general health and well-being of its people

· To work with other groups and authorities, as appropriate, to these ends

2.4 The Kennington Association Planning Forum is a group of Association members with interest in and experience of planning and development issues, that develops planning policies and makes planning representations on behalf of the wider Association. As Chair of the Planning Forum I made objection to the proposed Bondway development at the Lambeth Planning Committee on 24 March, and I now set out this proof of evidence on behalf of the Association.

3 SITE , SURROUNDINGS, PLANNING HISTORY AND APPLICATION PROPOSALS

3.1 These are all conveniently described in the Statement of Common Ground. In particular we draw attention to the arc of conservation areas to the south, east and north of the Bondway site, one beginning less than 150m from the site. The location of the surrounding heritage assets and open spaces are conveniently summarised and mapped as Figures TA2.19, and TA2.20 of the draft Vauxhall Nine Elms and Battersea Opportunity Area Planning Framework (CD4/3, hereafter VNEB), and included here, as Exhibits K1.1, and K1.2, annotated to show distance contours from the Bondway site at units of 150m (a distance approximately equal to the height of the Bondway Tower, at 149m). The proximity to and density of heritage assets and open space near the Bondway site may be contrasted with the relatively sparse immediate neighbourhood of the Strata Tower at Elephant and Castle (also 149m high), another area favoured with the designation as an emerging tall building cluster.

3.2 The site also falls within an area designated as an Open Space Deficiency Area under the current Lambeth Plan (CD5/1 Map 2 p135). Under VNEB (CD4/3), the site falls in an area designated as “high density mixed use centre focal point for office and retail including housing” (our emphasis), a designation that covers about 50 hectares of the wider Opportunity Area, part in Lambeth, part in Wandsworth.

4 CONSULTATION

4.1 Of the responses to consultation, we single out for particular mention subsequently those of

· CABE , in relation to quality of design (CD2/17)

· English Heritage, as authoritative opinion on impact on heritage assets and views (CD2/19)

· Westminster City Council, as the recognised gatekeeper in relation to long distance views and protection of the Westminster World Heritage Site, and

· The Friends of Vauxhall Park, Viva Vauxhall, the Fentiman Road, Richborne Terrace and Dorset Road Residents’ Association, and the Vine Housing Co-operative, as authentic voices of their communities.

5 PLANNING CONSIDERATIONS

No Presumption

5.1 The developer, at paragraph 1.3 of his statement of case (CD1/4), declares that “The policy presumption in emerging policy is for a tall building on the [Bondway] site.” We disagree. To be sure, the promotion of a cluster of tall buildings “at Vauxhall” must now be regarded as policy, most definitively in location terms through Policy S9(d) of the Lambeth Core Strategy Submission (CD5/11), and Figure 10.1 of the Draft Vauxhall Nine Elms Battersea Opportunity Area Planning Framework (CD4/3), which denotes a circle of diameter 600m in the Vauxhall area as the site of a “Proposed tall building cluster at Vauxhall”. The Draft SPD for Vauxhall (CD5/2), which would have given more definitive spatial advice about location, appears to have been put on ice, in favour of the Draft VNEB document.

5.2 So we lack, as part of planning guidance, the detailed urban design study enjoined on planning authorities by the CABE/EH Guidance (CD6/1) para 2.7

“In identifying locations where tall buildings would and would not be appropriate, local planning authorities should, as a matter of good practice, carry out a detailed urban design study. In addition to considering the wider objectives of sustainable urban design that apply to all new development, as set out in By design, this should:

– take into account the historic context of the wider area through the use of historic characterisation methods (the English Heritage publications Conservation bulletin issue

historic landscape characterisation and the forthcoming Using urban characterisation, provide useful guidance)

– carry out a character appraisal of the immediate context, identifying those elements that create local character and other important features and constraints, including:

n natural topography

n urban grain

n significant views of skylines

n scale and height

n streetscape

n landmark buildings and areas and their settings, including backdrops, and important local views, prospects and panoramas.

– identify opportunities where tall buildings might enhance the overall townscape

– identify sites where the removal of past mistakes might achieve a similar outcome.”

5.3 Nor therefore do we have the detailed 3D urban design framework contemplated by para 2.9 of the Guidance (CD6/1)

“In areas identified as appropriate, or sensitive, to tall buildings, local authorities should consider commissioning more detailed, three-dimensional urban design frameworks to be adopted as supplementary planning documents as support policies to core

strategies and/or as area action plans. The potential impact of buildings of various heights and forms can be modelled to assess their effect on context including on

other local authority areas, and on each other. This should help to inform the decision-making and place-making process.”

5.4 In this context we cannot regard the study at TA3 of VNEB (CD4/3) as more than the Views Study it declares itself to be, apt to providing conditional support to the “cluster” designation, but not to identifying apt sites. This leaves us with the following extract from VNEB as the material guidance (CD4/3 Chapter 10)

“At Vauxhall, the Vauxhall Tower c. 180 metres is considered to be the pinnacle of an emerging cluster of tall buildings, other buildings in the cluster should have a secondary relationship to it. Buildings in the region of 150 metres are likely to have such a relationship and anything taller is unlikely to be acceptable. Cumulative impact on affected views would need to be demonstrated, as well as a consideration of other planning benefits particularly in relation to their contribution to other strategic objectives for the OA and particularly to the delivery of the public realm strategy.

Tall buildings within the emerging cluster at Vauxhall should appear as individual elements on the skyline and avoid appearing collectively as a solid wall of development within the setting of the Palace of Westminster from the river prospects or from views within or close to the World Heritage Site. The Palace of Westminster should be maintained as the main focus within the townscape composition when viewed from Waterloo, Hungerford and Westminster bridges.”

5.5 Together with this, we have the designation of the 600m diameter circle, which amounts to an area of about 28.3 hectares. Since the developer of the consented Vauxhall Sky Gardens is able to erect his tower on about 0.15 hectares (CD6/14), this suggests that in principle there could be upwards of 100 possible tower locations “at Vauxhall”, none of which, short of a detailed study can benefit by a “presumption”.

5.6 So we must judge this application, as any other, against the Mayor’s Plan (CD4/1) policies, in particular 4B.1, 4B.9 and 4B.10, and the Lambeth Plan (CD4/1) Policy 22 and the rubric to the designation of the site as MDO81, without any presumption of a tall building on the site. This position may be compared to that for the Bankside emerging tall building cluster, where there have been detailed design studies in the run up to the formulation of the Southwark LDF (See eg the conclusions of such a study at Appendix K1.4 attached), which materially facilitate the creation of a coherent assemblage.

Material Departure from the Local Plan

5.6 We can therefore say that the application departs materially from the development plan, in particular Lambeth Plan (CD5/1) Policy 22 and the rubric to MDO 81, in that the development occupies a site within Major Development Opportunity Area MDO 81, within the Vauxhall Key Industrial and Business Area (“KIBA”), which is a “Locally Significant Industrial Area” in Lambeth, in the sense of Plan Policy 3B.4 of the London Plan (CD4/1). Pursuant to that Policy, the Lambeth Plan has developed local plans and criteria to manage the area,

· both at large - extract from Lambeth Plan Policy 22 - “Parts of KIBAs have MDOs (as shown on the Proposals Map) that are listed as Mixed Use Employment Areas and described under area headings in section B of the Plan. Here some residential and other non-employment uses are acceptable on appropriate parts of the site. The overall development, however, should be predominantly employment-based, incorporating the maximum feasible amount of employment development - either at least 50% of the site area or 50% of the replacement floorspace should be B1/B2/B8, including the work element of any work-live scheme, unless otherwise specified in the MDO. A lower proportion will be considered for schemes predominantly of affordable housing. The scheme should include improved access for the employment uses, separate, as far as possible, from the residential access.”

· And specifically – the Plan rubric, applying to the four contiguous MDO sites MDO 80 to 83 runs “All four sites, or groups of sites, are mixed-use employment areas. At least 1/3rd of the floorspace on each site within each MDO should be for employment use, unless it can be demonstrated that, through comprehensive development, this amount of employment floorspace can be achieved across the entire MDO site. The retention of original mid-Victorian building at 71 Bondway will be addressed as part of the Vauxhall Area Action Plan, with potential for development on former filling station/smaller warehouse to front and small site to south. Redevelopment of unsightly Keybridge House encouraged. New Vauxhall Station tube entrance.”

5.7 But the development offers no more than 10% of employment uses floorspace, and provides no demonstration that comprehensive development of the remainder of the MDO 81 site will achieve the 1/3^rd target overall. Indeed, there now appears to be doubt whether the proposed development even increases the likely employment it would engender over that potentially provided by the employment floorspace in existing buildings on the site

Material Departure from the Mayor’s Plan – Beyond “Superdensity”

5.8 In addition, the proposed development would be a material departure from the Mayor’s Plan (CD4/1), (the spatial development strategy for the area), because too dense a residential development. The site is said by the developer to be 0.29 hectares in area and the application is for 376 dwellings, giving rise to a density of 1297 units per hectare. This is upwards of three times greater than the upper limit of 405 units per hectare in Table 3A.2 of the London Plan (CD4/1) (though we actually measure the site area as 0.268 hectares, yielding an even higher density of 1403!). It is sobering to note that when Design for London produced their 2007 report “Recommendations for Living at Superdensity” (CD6/8), they defined superdensity as the range from 150 residential units per hectare to 500 units per hectare. At densities of 1297 units per hectare, we are way beyond superdensity – monsterdensity would be more apt.

CABE excited, but reserved

5.9 We acknowledge that CABE (CD2/17), concentrating on design issues, was excited by the scheme, while expressing reservations where the building came down to earth

“This is an exciting and interesting scheme. The elegant massing and good proportions have produced a successful form and we are satisfied, in principle, that the proposed height could be appropriate. We have reservations about the design of the canopy and feel that the building’s relationship with the ground plane requires further work to ensure that the development engages with the public realm, both existing and emerging. However, overall we are confident that the applicant demonstrates a commitment to high quality design, and we therefore support the planning application.”

5.10 While supporting the planning application and wishing the project well, CABE also expressed other concerns

“Although we acknowledge that this is only partly within the applicant’s control, we are not convinced that the layout of the base of the tower and the surrounding public realm are fully integrated yet. We support the 40m wide public space to the west of the site, which is proposed as part of Lambeth’s Vauxhall Area SPD, and feel that the success of the cluster is, in fact, dependant on the implementation of this. However, the ground floor of this building will need to work hard to animate the space, which will be of considerable scale. We urge the local authority to ensure that the public space is well designed, carefully integrated with adjacent new buildings and offers significant amenity to local residents.”

“More work is needed to enhance the pedestrian experience on Parry Street, with its tight pavement and harsh road environment. We welcome the undercutting of the ground floor at the corner with Bondway but feel that the aspiration for trees within the narrow pavement may be unrealistic and further measures should be sought that provide a more generous pedestrian environment along this section of Parry Street.”

5.11 It should be noted that the public space referred to above, to which CABE attaches such importance for the success of the cluster, does indeed feature in the Draft Vauxhall Area SPD (CD5/2), now on ice, but does not find a place in the illustrative master plan for this area in the draft VNEB Framework document (CD4/3 - see figures 9.15 and 9.16).

Other design features

5.12 Despite the applicant’s declared commitment to good design, the proposed tower manages to miss the Lambeth target for amenity space per dwelling by 1 sqm, which for the building as a whole adds up to 376 sqm, equivalent to 5 or more extra flats. The means to alleviate this is to propose a separate amenity floor, free at point of use to market tenants (because funded from service charge), but to be paid for by separate subscription by social tenants. This is discriminatory against social tenants, who already have segregated entrances to their dwellings. We regard “separate but equal” facilities as inherently unequal and discriminatory

5.13 Nor does the design for this "Fat Tower" enhance the public realm – leaving aside till later a discussion of its impact on heritage assets and open space in its neighbourhood, it fails to enhance the public realm at ground level by providing a narrow strip of hard landscape mitigated only by suitably disciplined isolated trees. The provision of a canyon alley/tunnel next the railway embankment is more likely to degrade, rather than enhance the public realm, and does not encourage permeability. The views of CABE (CD2/17), noted above, are material here.

5.14 It follows that such design features contravene the policies for good quality buildings, including tall buildings, in London Plan (CD4/1) Policies 4B.1, 4B.9 and 4B.10

Affordable Housing

5.15 This Rule 6 party has not had access to the applicant’s Three Dragon’s assessment of viability of the 30% affordable housing proposal incorporated in the application, and access to the Council’s assessor’s views only in the last few days, at second hand. From that it appears as follows

on the applicant's conservative assumptions about sales prices of market flats, and the amount of social housing grant available, only 23% affordable tenures would be viable, based upon an existing use value of £8m for the Bondway site with its existing commercial storage and office uses
on the appraiser's more central assumptions (better sales prices and more grant), 34% affordable would be viable
but the council accept 30%, with a reappraisal mechanism built in, to be triggered when work starts, with an underpinning 20% affordable tenures and no upper limit, with any affordable tenures in excess of 30% to be provided by a commuted sum to go towards construction at the Council’s instance off site.
on the basis that all this development is viable, with the developer making 17% on market sales of £151m - which is about £25.7m, and the revenue proceeds less costs modestly exceeding the existing use value of £8m

5.16 However, the applicant, according to the Land Register Title Entry (Appendix K1.5), acquired the Bondway site in 2007, not for the Existing Use Value of £8m, but for £36m plus VAT. In the circumstances, if the development is intended to proceed promptly if permission is granted, it must surely show, in the applicant’s mind, that revenue proceeds less costs will modestly exceed the purchase price of £36m plus VAT. In the circumstances, this suggests that the assumptions about purchase prices embodied in the appraisal before the Inquiry are seriously conservative, and we have not been told the full tale. We await enlightenment from the applicant’s witnesses.

Adverse impact on Nearby Open Space, Heritage Assets and Views

5.16 The major impact for many Vauxhall residents of the proposed Bondway Tower will be its visual impact over a wide area, and its more particular impact on the setting and shadowing of conservation areas and open spaces, especially when broadside on. Given that the applicant’s model so far exhibited has tended to concentrate on the building, rather than its context, we have sought to use other available models to give a sense of the impact of the building and its surroundings, and we are grateful to the London Building Centre and Kylun Ltd, the developer of the proposed Vauxhall Triangle Towers for allowing us to photograph their models and put the results in evidence at this Inquiry. The Building Centre model includes the consented Vauxhall Sky Tower, but not Vauxhall Sky Gardens, or Bondway Tower, while the Kylun model includes the Sky Tower, the Bondway Tower, and its own proposals for two towers on the Vauxhall triangle site (Vauxhall Sky Gardens lies just beyond its model edge). This helpfully meets the CABE/EH guidance (CD6/1) at para 3.4

“Where a tall building is justified by its relationship to a cluster, the proposals should be illustrated in the context of proposed and approved projects where this is known, as well as the existing situation.”

5.17 We set out a number of views of the area and of the emerging cluster at Appendix K1.6

5.18 In para 4.1 we noted the representation of English Heritage (CD2/19), as authoritative opinion on the impact of the development on heritage assets and views, and their attitude must be accorded major weight

“Our view is that we support good quality contextual modern architecture, which can enhance the historic environment given careful consideration of the relationship with its surroundings. By virtue of its scale and massing of the proposal, its significant harm on the setting and significance of the World Heritage Site, listed buildings and conservation areas, and loss of local heritage asset it is difficult to see how this could be achieved without a significant reduction in scale and height of the building”

5.19 And after setting out their concerns in the context of the planning considerations, including PPS5 and the Practice Guide (CD3/7 and CD3/8), they conclude

“We would therefore request that the issues raised above are taken into consideration in the determination of this appeal, and that unless information has been provided which seeks to address these concerns that the recommendation should be for the appeal to be refused”

5.20 Westminster City Council, with its particular concern for the integrity of the Westminster World heritage site is exercised by many of the same concerns as English Heritage, and doubts whether the Vauxhall Sky Tower, the so far phantom pinnacle of the Vauxhall cluster, will ever be built. It concludes (representation para 9.1) that a further tower in the Vauxhall area would result in demonstrable harm and further erosion to some of Westminster’s finest designated heritage assets, which are of both national and international significance, and it urges that the appeal be dismissed.

5.21 In the face of these authoritative views, we note that Mr Coleman, of Citydesigner, has produced a 390 page encomium of the applicant’s tower, analysing 72 views showing a superposition of the proposed tower and other consented developments (CD2/4/E). To judge the force of his positive opinions we juxtapose his views in a number of areas with those of English Heritage and Westminster Council. So as regards the existing building on the site

English Heritage (representation of 23 Oct 2009 – CD2/19) – “We are disappointed that the redevelopment proposals have not considered adaptation of the existing building, which although heavily modified still makes a positive contribution to the streetscape and is one of the vestigial remains of the area’s past industrial landscape”

Coleman (para 4.4.3 CD2/4/E) – “The Site includes a late 19th Century warehouse building, which has been altered over the last 100 years. The building is not of architectural importance, its only significance in the townscape being its age and former use. It should, therefore, be considered expendable to enable the regeneration of the Vauxhall area today.” (our emphasis)

5.22 As regards the important views M10 from the Banqueting House, and M12 from the Cenotaph

Coleman – (M10) “The effect is to add a building of a visible high quality of design to a view which consists of elements from all ages. The dominant feature remains the Victoria Tower, with buildings of many different ages in the foreground, including the 2005 Women at War Memorial in Whitehall. The buildings in the backdrop mask specific areas such as Millbank and Vauxhall, which represent the modern city beyond the WHS. The Proposed Development creates a ‘moderate’ quantitative impact, which would be adverse in character were it not for the high quality of its design. It is, therefore, ‘adverse mitigated’. “

Coleman - (M12) “The view is already one which addresses the modern city beyond the Westminster World Heritage Site. The Millbank Tower, whilst a fine piece of architecture in its own right, does not fully honour its position in this view, being only a simple rectilinear form. The Proposed Development gestures towards it and in doing so, makes the combined buildings a more interesting focus to the view. This is a ‘moderate’ quantitative impact because, though it is very small in the view, its position is prominent. It is qualitatively ‘beneficial’ because it improves the composition of the focus beyond the Westminster World Heritage Site.

English Heritage – “We have significant concerns about the impact of the proposed development on longer views toward Parliament Square from Whitehall. The Palace of Westminster is designated as a World Heritage Site and a grade 1 listed building. It also lies within the Westminster Conservation Area. The “glimpse view” of a more open landscape of Parliament Square’s south eastern corner is an essential element of this world-class historic environment. The built form of the proposed tower will be a significant visual entity in views from the Banqueting House (View M10) and the Cenotaph (View M12), changing the character of the view from an open aspect to one enclosed by development.

Westminster Council – (M10) “The appeal development would be most prominent at M10 which is a view from the junction of Horse Guards Avenue to the north of Banqueting House where it would fill the gap of sky between the equestrian statue of Field Marshall Earl Haig and Victoria Tower which is central to the Palace of Westminster World Heritage Site. Victoria Tower and Field Marshall Haig are currently legible and striking silhouettes which are intrinsic to the overall quality of this view along Whitehall. Investigations on site confirm that the impact would be more extensive than the appellant’s assessment of M10 suggests. Rather than being “momentarily seen” and despite the street trees the development would be visually evident north and south of M10 on this eastern side of Whitehall. The impact is therefore not confined to a single linear viewpoint but adversely impacts a dynamic sequence of views which are characteristic of Whitehall and intrinsic to its contribution as a designated heritage asset. The appellant’s assessment of the effect of the impact on M10 also concludes that the “visible high quality design” would mitigate any “moderate” adverse impact. However, the City Council considers that this is a misguided conclusion as the detailed design of the development cannot be fully appreciated from this distance and matters of consideration are related largely to silhouette, massing, height and appearance after dark.”

5.23 As regards more local conservation areas

English Heritage – “The proposed development will also impact significantly on the setting of several conservation areas local to the site. In particular Kennington Conservation Area (View M29) above the grade II* listed Woodstock Court and St Stephen’s Terrace, within the Albert Square Conservation Area (View M35)”

Coleman – (M29) “This is only a momentary incursion into the profile of the listed building. It is somewhat redeemed, however, by its high quality design. It does not dominate the lantern. This is a ‘slight’ quantitative impact given it is a single point effect. Its character is ‘adverse’, but this is lessened by the quality of the Proposed Development’s design.”

Coleman – (M35) “The Proposed Development appears as an elegant addition to the view and as a landmark for Vauxhall. Though a large building, it is broken into parts which are of a non-dominant scale in this context. The emphasis on its triangular form is well suited to the angular changes of direction caused by the straight terraces negotiating the curved street. The high quality of the design makes the Proposed Development a beneficial addition to the view. The impact is ‘moderate’ in quantum, owing to the fact that the terraces continue to dominate the view. It is ‘beneficial’ in character, because of the harmony of scale and geometry, the high quality of the design and its landmark attributes.

5.24 It is evident that Mr Coleman is somewhat more enthusiastic on the views of his building than the mainstream opinion of English Heritage and Westminster Council, and that for him, his perception of the quality of the design of the Bondway Tower forgives nearly all intrusions into the skyline. In the meantime, we look forward to putting his comments on the views from such locations as Albert Square, Fentiman Rd, Lawn Lane, Vauxhall Park and Spring Gardens to the representatives of the community organisations who will be giving evidence to the Inquiry.

5.25 For our part, irrespective of its design, we see the Bondway Tower as a sprawling construction, capable of dominating the skyline for up to 600m all around (a distance 4 times its height), overbearing, particularly when seen broadside on, and (late in the evening) overshadowing the Vauxhall Park, which lies between the 150m and 300m contour lines around the proposed Bondway Tower, within the Vauxhall Conservation Area. It adversely affects the setting of the Albert Square, Vauxhall, St Mark’s and Vauxhall Gardens Conservation Areas, and that of the grade II* listed Woodstock Court. We note in particular Policy HE7.5 of PPS5 (CD3/7)

HE7.5 “Local planning authorities should take into account the desirability of new development making a positive contribution to the character and local distinctiveness of the historic environment. The consideration of design should include scale, height, massing, alignment, materials and use.”

5.26 In this regard we agree with English Heritage CD2/19) that there needs to be a significant reduction in scale, height and massing of the proposed building, and on this ground also the application should be refused.

Prejudice to the VNEB Planning Framework and Good Strategic Planning in London

5.27 As noted at para 3.2 above, the site lies in an area designated under the Draft VNEB Planning Framework (CD4/3) as for “high density mixed use centre focal point for office and retail including housing”.(our emphasis). Such designations cover about 50 hectares of the 195 hectare Opportunity Area (about 36 hectares in Wandsworth and 14 hectares in Lambeth – See Figure 5.1 of VNEB, annotated with areas, attached as Appendix K1.7) If a developer is allowed to build an excessively dense residential tower with no more than 10% employment uses floorspace, on a KIBA to boot (a Key Industrial and Business Area being Lambeth’s equivalent of the London Plan’s Locally Significant Industrial Area), it would run a coach and horses through the emerging VNEB Opportunity Area Planning Framework (CD4/3). Such a development would undoubtedly be cited as a precedent, for at least the 50 hectares of similar designation, to ignore the employment aspirations of the framework, and develop at far higher residential densities than the 255 per hectare planned on average under VNEB. In planning terms, we would argue that it was contrary to good strategic planning in London, a ground for the Mayor to refuse consent under Article 6(1)(b) of the Town and Country Planning (Mayor of London) Order 2008 (SI 2008 No 580), and /or premature as contemplated in paragraphs 17-19 of The Planning System: General Principles (CD3/2).

Inadequate response to proposed MPA Condition/S106 contribution for Neighbourhood Policing Office

5.28 The representation from the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA) of 4 May 2010 (CD2/20) records that they had been able to reach agreement with the developer for the provision of a 90sqm neighbourhood police office at a peppercorn rent on the first floor of the proposed development, but that the provision had been vetoed by Council officers as not constituting employment generating floor space. The MPA argue, convincingly in our view, that such an office falls within the B1 use class, would sustain 6-10 employees, and its provision is warranted eg under Lambeth Plan Policy 53 (CD5/1).

5.29 Furthermore, we think the operational argument is well made. While the Vauxhall area (Oval Ward) is average for crime overall, it is high for personal robbery and most serious violence. Developments such as Bondway bring with them a growing population and Vauxhall lies in a gap in the police station network (see extracts from the Metropolitan Police Crime Mapping Site, attached as Appendix K1.8, including the location of existing police stations).

5.30 We oppose the main Bondway application in general, but if the Inspector were minded to recommend it to the Secretary of State, we would urge him to include the presence of a neighbourhood police office on the agreed terms either as a condition or as a recommended S106 obligation.

Wholly Inadequate S106 contribution to mitigate Exacerbated Open Space Deficiency

5.31 The development is located within an area of public open space deficiency identified in the Lambeth Plan (CD5/1 Map 2, p135). As the Lambeth SPD on S106 Obligations (July 2008) (CD5/7) notes, at para 3.10.6,

“The majority of wards in the Borough are deficient in open space. The National Playing Field Association have a general standard of 2.4 hectares of open space per 1,000 population, Lambeth as a whole is deficient in relation to this standard, in that it has 1.54 hectares per 1,000 of population, projected to fall to 1.44 due to rising population. Lambeth’s Open Space Strategy recommends a target of 1.6 hectares per 1,000 population for 2016.”

5.32 Lambeth Plan (CD5/1) Policy 50(c) provides as follows:

“(c) New Open Space, Greening, and Green Chains – The creation of new open spaces, urban “greening” initiatives, and the linking and improvement of open spaces will be supported, especially in areas deficient in these features. Developments which materially add to the demand for open space, which are proposed in an area of open space deficiency, or where existing open space needs improvement, will be required to contribute to appropriate improvements in open space provision in the immediate area. Where on-site provision or provision in the immediate area is impractical or insufficient, developers will be required to contribute to such initiatives elsewhere. Arrangements for the longterm maintenance of new and improved open spaces will be secured.”

5.33 Consistently with this, Lambeth in the SPD provided for formula based contributions per estimated head of increased population of £628, based on historic levels of Lambeth investment in parks and open space. Under these historic levels of investment, the then deficient level of 1.54 hectares per person in Lambeth was projected to fall to 1.44 hectares per person. This reflected continued growth in Lambeth’s population, and very little growth in public open space – the Lambeth Annual Monitoring Report for 2008/9 recorded an increase of open space in Lambeth of just 252 sqm, largely from demolition of buildings on open space (see extract at Appendix K1.9). Under these formula arrangements, the Council seeks and the developer offers a S106 contribution of £489,000 (para 11.3, Statement of Common Ground CD1/2).

5.34 But Annex D1 to the SPD (CD5/7) also provides as follows

“Enhanced contributions Waterloo and Vauxhall – Additional higher financial contributions will be sought on a park or open space project basis from commercial and residential developments in these two opportunity areas to support environmental and physical regeneration objectives” [our emphasis]

5.35 But no such enhanced contributions have been sought in relation to this application, while areas of open space, seen by CABE as essential to the success of any cluster of tall buildings at Vauxhall, disappear from planning policy (see para 5.11 above).

5.36 As a measure of the inadequacy of the proposed S106 contribution, we may take the proposed increase in population arising from the development, and Lambeth’s declared standard for public open space, of 1.6 hectares per thousand population. Reckoning 2.34 persons per dwelling, as suggested by the VNEB draft Framework (CD4/3), this equates to an open space deficiency of 2.34*376*1.6/1000, or 1.4 hectares. How much would such an area cost at Vauxhall? The Transport study underlying VNEB, at p 97 (see extract at Appendix K1.10), records GLA advice to TfL, in the context of costing the land necessary for station improvements, that land in the Opportunity Area should be valued at £4 million per hectare. On this basis, the cost to acquire 1.4 hectares to remediate the open space deficiency would be £5.6 million, over eleven times the formula based contribution actually sought.

5.37 Alternatively, the land could be valued at the existing use value of the Bondway site, that is at £8m for the 0.29 hectares, or about £27m per hectare. On that basis, the cost of remediation rises to about £37.8m, seventy seven times the formula based contribution . And if valued at the price actually paid for the Bondway site in 2007, £36m plus VAT (equivalent to £124m per hectare), the cost of remediation hits £173m, about three hundred and fifty times the formula based contribution.

5.38 It is a measure of the excessive density of the development that the open space, necessary to remediate the open space deficiency caused by the increase in population from the development, is about five times larger than the plot size itself !

5.39 The development therefore fails to remediate the deficiency in public open space it creates, and thereby departs significantly from the development plan (Lambeth Plan (CD5/1) Policy 50 and London Plan (CD4/1) policies 6A.4 and 6A.5 refer)

With regard to the matters about which the Secretary of State particularly wishes to be informed for the purposes of consideration of the appeal

a) the extent to which the proposed development would be in accordance with the

development plan for the area;

5.40 As set out at paras 5.6 to 5.8 the proposed development departs significantly from the development plan.

b) The extent to which the proposed development is consistent with Government

policies in Planning Policy Statement 1: Delivering Sustainable Development, and accompanying guidance The Planning System: General Principles with particular regard to:

i) the achievement of sustainable development and sustainable communities through an integrated approach to social cohesion, protection and enhancement of the environment, prudent use of natural resources and economic development;

5.41 As set out at paras 5.12 and 5.13 the proposed development is not consistent with PPS1 and its guidance in this regard

ii) whether the design principles in relation to the site and its wider context, including the layout, scale, open space, visual appearance and landscaping, are appropriate in their context and take the opportunities available for improving the character and quality of the area and the way it functions, having regard to the advice in paragraphs 33 to 39 of PPS1;

5.42 As set out at paras 5.16 to 5.26, the design principles embodied in the proposed building are not appropriate to its sensitive site.

iii) the extent to which the application takes into account the access needs of all in society, including people with disabilities - including access to and into buildings, having regard to the advice in paragraphs 36 and 39 of PPS1;

5.43 We have no comments to make on this matter

iv) Advice on prematurity in paragraphs 17-19 of The Planning System: General Principles, having regard to progress towards adoption of any emerging development plan documents or saved policies under the transitional arrangements;

5.44 As set out at para 5.27 we do not regard the proposed application as compliant in this regard

c) the extent to which the proposed development is consistent with Government planning for housing policy objectives in Planning Policy Statement 3 (PPS3) Housing, with particular regard towards delivering:

i) high quality housing that is well-designed and built to a high standard;

ii) a mix of housing, both market and affordable, particularly in terms of tenure and price, to support a wide variety of households in all areas, both urban and rural;

iii) a sufficient quantity of housing taking into account need and demand and seeking to improve choice;

iv) housing developments in suitable locations, which offer a good range of community facilities and with good access to jobs, key services and infrastructure;

v) a flexible, responsive supply of land – managed in a way that makes efficient and effective use of land, including re-use of previously-developed land, where appropriate;

5.45 We consider, for the reasons set out at paras 5.15 and 5.16 that the proposals fail to meet national, regional or local planning policy or guidance with regard to affordable housing given doubts about the credibility of the viability test called for by Lambeth Plan (CD5/1) Policy 16(b). Nor as set out at paras 5.8 and 5.12 are the requirements of policy as regards amenity space or density met by the proposal.

d) the extent to which the proposed development accords with Government planning policy advice in Planning Policy Statement 4: Planning for Sustainable Economic Growth;

5.46 We offer no evidence on this point.

e) the extent to which the proposed development is consistent with the advice in Planning Policy Guidance Note 13: Transport, in particular on the need to locate development in a way which helps to promote more sustainable transport choices; promote accessibility to jobs, shopping, leisure facilities and services by public transport, walking and cycling; reduce the need to travel, especially by car and whether the proposal complies with local car parking standards and the advice in paragraphs 52 to 56 of PPG13;

5.47 VNEB p76 ( CD4/3) notes in the context of the London Plan, in its Overview of Transport Interventions that

“High density development with high trip generation characteristics is only considered acceptable in locations which have good access to public transport and where the existing levels of transport capacity are sufficient to absorb the impacts of that development.”

5.48 Vauxhall with its high transport accessibility, judged by PTAL level, is taken to be such a location, and the capacity of the rail and underground trains in themselves is high, and likely to be higher eg when the Victoria line improvements start to come through in 2012. But passengers at present suffer from congestion of the access arrangements, particularly the gateline access to and from the underground during peak periods. In discussing the impact of various scenarios for development in the OA, VNEB p80 (CD4/3) notes as follows

“The key stations within the OA such as Vauxhall Underground and Vauxhall National Rail station already experience problems in terms of capacity and congestion particularly during the AM and PM peak periods. When considered alongside the proposed OA development scenarios and assuming no transport interventions further to those already committed these problems are likely to intensify. Of all the stations within the OA Vauxhall Underground station is forecast to experience the greatest increase in passengers. Scenarios 3 and 4 result in similar overall passenger numbers at the Vauxhall interchange and would result in demand exceeding escalator capacity during the morning peak hour. Scenario 5 would further increase the number of passengers alighting at the LUL station which would push demand further beyond capacity during the morning peak hour. TfL has developed congestion relief plans for Vauxhall Underground station aimed at improving gate line and ticket hall capacity as well as step free access. This is currently a committed scheme in the TfL business plan to 2017/18, although it is as of September 2009 it remains unfunded.”

5.49 And the VNEB Transport Study at p 49 (extract at Appendix K1.11), shows that the current peak hour level of alighters at Vauxhall Underground, at 4,700, now exceeds the gateline capacity for exiting passengers of 4,500 an hour, giving rise to congestion from time to time, and delays to boarding passengers for a period through gateline closures of the barriers, to allow congestion to clear. These are not currently large (from commuter observation, perhaps twice a fortnight, for five minutes at a time), but are likely to increase with high density residential development at Vauxhall (more boarders), and increased employment (more alighters).

5.50 VNEB Transport Study at p191 (extract at Appendix K1.12) records that

“There are proposals to increase gate line capacity at Vauxhall Underground station. This would increase the number of ticket gates from seven to twelve and would also install step free access between the ticket halls and platforms. This would bring the gate line capacity in line with escalator capacity. It is estimated to cost in the region of £50 million and is currently unfunded.”

5.51 Such expenditure is eminently suitable for S106 treatment, and the need for it will increase as the effects of development are seen cumulatively at Vauxhall. In its absence, there will come a time when transport congestion will trump high levels of accessibility.

f) whether any permission granted for the proposed development should be subject to any conditions and, if so, the form these should take;

5.52 Yes - see paras 5.28 to 5.30 above.

g) whether any permission granted should be accompanied by any planning obligations under section 106 of the 1990 Act and, if so, whether the proposed terms of such obligations are acceptable;

5.53 For the reasons given at paras 5.31 to 5.39 above, a S106 contribution in relation to public open space is very necessary, and the sum proposed is wholly inadequate.

h) any other matters that the Inspector considers relevant.

5.54 KAPF will comment on other relevant material planning considerations at the Inquiry.

6 CONCLUSION

6.1 KAPF strongly objects to the grant of planning permission for this proposal for the reasons given. We urge the Inspector to advise the Secretary of State to reject this proposal and refuse permission.

D J BOARDMAN

Chair

Kennington Association Planning Forum

22 June 2010

Statement of Case - Bondway - APP/N5660/A/10/2123877/NWF

2010-05-13T01:09:00.003-07:00

TOWN & COUNTRY PLANNING ACT 1990 (As Amended)

SECTION 78

THE TOWN & COUNTRY PLANNING (INQUIRIES PROCEDURE) (ENGLAND) RULES 2000

STATEMENT OF CASE

Presented by David Boardman

ON BEHALF OF

KENNINGTON ASSOCIATION PLANNING FORUM

(KAPF)

In connection with an application by

Vauxhall Bondway Ltd

(a company registered in Jersey)

for planning permission for the development of site at

69 – 71 BONDWAY, VAUXHALL, LONDON, SW8 1SQ

Planning Application No & Planning Inspectorate Reference

APP/N5660/A/10/2123877/NWF

KAPF will provide evidence to the forthcoming Planning Inquiry in relation to the application by Vauxhall Bondway Ltd for the

“The demolition of existing buildings on site and the erection of a 42 storey building

(149m) plus 2 basement levels below ground to provide a mixed use development

comprising commercial units (flexible use class A1, A2, A3 and A4) of 288m² GEA

at ground floor, commercial units (use class B1) of 5,564m² GEA at first, second

and third floor, 671m² residential amenity space at thirty-sixth floor and 376

residential units at fourth to fortieth floors, two levels of plant at forty-first to fortysecond floors, 25 car parking spaces and 22 motorbike parking spaces located in the basement, 568 cycle parking spaces (360 located in the basements, 156

located in storage units on floors four to sixteen and fifty-two at grade), refuse

storage, public realm improvements/ landscaping at street level and the formation

of new vehicular access from Bondway/ realigned vehicular access from Parry Street.”

KAPF objects to this application and opposes the granting of planning permission in this case having regard to national planning policy, the provisions of the development plan, and the interests of good strategic planning in London.

1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 The Kennington Association is a voluntary membership association of upwards of 420 members drawn from the wider Kennington area in the north of the Borough of Lambeth, an area that abuts the east side of the Vauxhall area. Our aim is to promote and maintain the Kennington area as a good place to live and work, and the Kennington Association Planning Forum is a group of Association members with interest in and experience of planning and development issues, that develops planning policies and makes planning representations on behalf of the wider Association. As Chair of the Planning Forum I made objections to the proposed development at the Planning Committee on 24 March, and I now set out this statement of case on behalf of the Association.

1.2 The Kennington area comprises an interspersed mixture of Georgian and Victorian conservation areas and social housing estates, some with significant deprivation. The Association’s concerns therefore include conservation, open space, affordable housing and employment and skills issues in relation to its area, and the extent to which developments in the Vauxhall area, such as the present Bondway development, will benefit Lambeth residents and jobseekers, or detract from public amenity.

2. SITE AND SURROUNDINGS

2.1 In evidence the appeal site and surrounding sites will be described. In particular, reference will be made to the surrounding heritage assets and open spaces, as conveniently summarised and mapped as Figures TA2.19, TA2.20 and TA2.27 of the draft Vauxhall Nine Elms and Battersea Opportunity Area Planning Framework

3. PLANNING HISTORY

3.1 Reference will be made to the relevant planning history of the appeal site and surrounding area. This will include the site’s longstanding land uses and buildings.

4. THE APPLICATION PROPOSALS

4.1 The application proposals will be described. Reference will be made to the background information submitted in relation to the application, the EIA submitted in support of the application, and any other relevant information related to the application.

5. CONSULTATION

5.1 Reference will be made to the consultations carried out by the applicant, the local planning authority and other third parties, and to the volume and content of responses, including the responses of CABE and English Heritage.

6. PLANNING POLICY

6.1 Government advice including that set out in PPS1, 3, 4, 5, and PPG13, and 17 will be considered, as well as various government circulars, including ODPM Circular 05/2005 and DCLG and ODPM Practice Guidance. The relationship of the application to such advice will be assessed. Reference will be made to the Lambeth UDP, the London Plan, the draft Vauxhall/ Nine Elms/ Battersea Opportunity Area Planning Framework, Lambeth’s Sustainable Community Strategy, Lambeth’s Core Strategy submission, various Conservation Area statements, and any other relevant policy documents.

7. PLANNING CONSIDERATIONS

7.1 KAPF’s planning case against the development can be summarised as follows:

· There is no presumption, emerging or otherwise, of a tall tower on this site

· The development constitutes a significant departure from the express terms of the development plan

· The density of the proposed residential development far exceeds the upper limits prescribed by the London Plan

· The building has an unsatisfactory design and inadequate amenity space, particularly for social housing tenants

· At first sight, the development provides an inadequate supply of affordable housing, and the failure to disclose the assumptions, on which the justifying viability study is based, materially prejudices objective appraisal of this issue, and prevents public justice being done in this regard

· The mix of dwellings proposed, amounting to a “child lite” development, creates a demographically unsustainable community, unrepresentative of its residential hinterland, and unresponsive to the housing needs of the existing Lambeth population

· The development has a materially adverse impact on its surroundings and views, particularly the setting of the Vauxhall Conservation Area, including Vauxhall Gardens, and listed buildings in its vicinity

· The S106 contribution proposed is wholly inadequate to mitigate the open space deficiency exacerbated by the residential element of the development

· Agreeing this development with this mix of uses creates a precedent for the VNEB Opportunity Area prejudicial to the emerging Planning Framework, and to good strategic planning in London

7.2 More particularly, evidence will be presented that there can be no presumption in favour of a tall building on this site in the absence of a detailed impact study of the area, and that merely because the Vauxhall area has been designated as the location of a cluster of tall buildings does not warrant building a tall tower on every plot of the developer’s choosing, irrespective of the development plan. Notice will be taken of a detailed impact study made by Southwark Council to inform the location of any development of tall buildings in the Blackfriars area, and the corresponding absence of any such published study for Vauxhall.

7.3 Evidence will be presented that the mix of uses is inappropriate, given the express terms of the Lambeth Plan designation for the site, (no more than 10% of employment floorspace uses on site, despite the Lambeth plan saying expressly at least 30%) and the existence of pockets of significant deprivation in the borough, and high unemployment rates.

7.4 It will be demonstrated that the residential density of the development far exceeds the relevant upper limit of the London Plan, and that this overdevelopment contributes to design deficiencies, in particular deficiencies in amenity space and “separate but equal” facilities for social tenants that are in practice unequal and discriminatory.

7.5 Evidence will be sought from the applicant to justify the low level of affordable housing provided by the development, which otherwise fails to satisfy the provisions of the London and Lambeth Plans.

7.6 Evidence will be presented of the demographic mix in Lambeth and the locality, and its household realisation, and the extent to which the proposed development, in its mix of housing sizes and types, fails to provide a demographically sustainable community, or one responsive to housing need in the vicinity.

7.7 Evidence will be presented to demonstrate that the location is inappropriate for a very tall building and that the height and orientation of the proposal would be over-dominant and have a negative impact upon the character, quality, and amenity of the area and surrounding areas, particularly in terms of local access and permeability, local amenity, local and strategic views, the distinctive quality of the local townscape, and upon the general amenity of local residents in terms of the perceived oppressiveness of the proposed very tall “Fat Tower”. Evidence will be produced that the tower will cause irreversible damage to the character and appearance of various listed buildings and Conservation Areas in Lambeth and the City of Westminster, and to Vauxhall Gardens.

7.8 Evidence will be presented that the proposed development lies in an area of open space deficiency under the Lambeth Plan, that the reasonably foreseeable addition to the residential population occasioned by the development will exacerbate this deficiency, and that any remediation of this deficiency must involve the making available of additional public open space, either in kind, or by means of cash equivalent, reckoned at open market land prices. It will be demonstrated that the proposed S106 payments in this regard are wholly inadequate.

7.9 Evidence will be presented that allowing a developer to build an excessively dense residential tower with no more than 10% employment uses floorspace, on a KIBA to boot (a Key Industrial and Business Area being Lambeth’s equivalent of the London Plan’s Locally Significant Industrial Area) would run a coach and horses through the emerging VNEB Opportunity Area Planning Framework – the development would create a precedent for at least the 50 hectares designated as “high density mixed use centre focal point for office and retail including housing” to ignore the employment aspirations of the framework, and develop at far higher residential densities than the 255 per hectare planned.

7.10 With regard to the matters about which the Secretary of State particularly wishes to be informed for the purposes of consideration of the appeal

a) the extent to which the proposed development would be in accordance with the

development plan for the area;

· Evidence will be presented that the proposals are a significant departure from the development plan for the area.

b) The extent to which the proposed development is consistent with Government

policies in Planning Policy Statement 1: Delivering Sustainable Development, and accompanying guidance The Planning System: General Principles with particular regard to:

· Evidence will be presented that the proposals are not consistent with PPS1 on this matter

· We have no comments to make on this matter

· Evidence will be presented that the proposals are not consistent with PPS1 guidance on this matter, and would prejudice good strategic planning for London, and in particular the Vauxhall, Nine Elms and Battersea area.

i) high quality housing that is well-designed and built to a high standard;

ii) a mix of housing, both market and affordable, particularly in terms of tenure and price, to support a wide variety of households in all areas, both urban and rural;

iii) a sufficient quantity of housing taking into account need and demand and seeking to improve choice;

iv) housing developments in suitable locations, which offer a good range of community facilities and with good access to jobs, key services and infrastructure;

v) a flexible, responsive supply of land – managed in a way that makes efficient and effective use of land, including re-use of previously-developed land, where appropriate;

· Evidence will show that the proposals fail to meet national, regional or local planning policy or guidance with regard to affordable housing. We will assess the current mix of housing, local needs, and the local supply of new affordable housing. We will provide evidence that the requirements in policy for housing amenity space, for residential space standards, and for density would not be met by the proposal.

d) the extent to which the proposed development accords with Government planning policy advice in Planning Policy Statement 4: Planning for Sustainable Economic Growth;

· Evidence will be presented that the proposals are not consistent with PPS4 on these matters

· We will present evidence that the high apparent accessibility of public transport in the Vauxhall area, which justifies higher density development and limitation on car keeping there, masks lower levels of practical accessibility arising from inadequate capacity and consequent congestion.

f) whether any permission granted for the proposed development should be subject to any conditions and, if so, the form these should take;

· We may make comments on this matter at the Inquiry.

g) whether any permission granted should be accompanied by any planning obligations under section 106 of the 1990 Act and, if so, whether the proposed terms of such obligations are acceptable;

· Evidence will be presented that the planning obligations and their proposed terms are wholly insufficient to mitigate the impact of the application were it considered otherwise acceptable, particularly with regard to affordable housing and to open space, having regard to land values in the Vauxhall area.

h) any other matters that the Inspector considers relevant.

· KAPF will comment on other relevant material planning considerations at the Inquiry.

8. CONCLUSION

8.1 KAPF strongly objects to the grant of planning permission for this proposal for the reasons given. We strongly urge the Inspector to advise the Secretary of State to reject this proposal and refuse permission.

Appendix 1 – List of Documents to be Referred to at the Inquiry

KAPF will refer to some or all of the following documents at the inquiry:-

1. Relevant Central Government Circulars

2. Relevant Planning Policy Guidance Notes

3. Relevant Planning Policy Statements

4. Relevant decisions by the Courts and the Secretary of State.

5. The London Plan Consolidated with Alterations since 2004 (2008)

6. The draft Replacement London Plan (2009)

7. London View Management Framework, supplementary guidance, July 2007, and its review (Draft for Consultation, May 2009).

8. Relevant GLA Supplementary Planning Guidance

9. Lambeth Unitary Development Plan, Adopted August 2007

10. Lambeth’s Sustainable Community Strategy

11. Lambeth’s State of the Borough Report 2010

12. Lambeth’s LDF Core Strategy Topic Paper 1 – Affordable Housing

13. Lambeth’s LDF Core Strategy Topic Paper 2 – Key Industrial and Business Areas

14. Lambeth’s LDF Core Strategy Topic Paper 3 – Tall buildings

15. Lambeth’s LDF Core Strategy Topic Paper 5 – Delivery of public transport infrastructure in Vauxhall

16. The growth of claimant unemployment to vacancy ratio by area, LGA 2009

17. SPD: Guidance and Standards for Housing Development and House Conversions

18. SPD: Sustainable Design and Construction (July 2008)

19. SPD: Section 106 Planning Obligations (July 2008)

20. SPD: Vauxhall area (November 2008) (Draft)

21. Census material for Lambeth and Prince’s Ward

22. Joint Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment & English Heritage Guidance on Tall Buildings.

23. Lambeth Open Space strategy (September 2004)

24. Lambeth Open Space Strategy, Quality Audit Update (February 2007)

25. By Design – Urban design in the planning system: Towards better practice (supplement to PPS1, DETR/CABE)

26. Conservation Principles – Policies and Guidance (EH)

27. Relevant Conservation Area Statements and drafts (Albert Square, St Marks, Vauxhall, Kennington)

28. Relevant Lambeth Business and Employment Studies and Surveys

29. English Partnerships ‘Employment Densities: a simple guide’

30. Mayor of London’s Supplementary Planning Guidance on Housing 2005

31. GLA: Housing Space Standards 2006

32. Recommendations for living at Superdensity’, Design for London, July 2007

33. ‘Capital Gains: making high density housing work in London’, London Housing Federation, July 2007

34. Documents referred to in the Rule 6 statements of parties to the inquiry and other relevant sources of information or documents that arise as a result of the production of third parties’ or the appellant’s statements of case, proofs of evidence, Statement of Common Ground and rebuttal proofs.

KAPF reserves the right to add to or amend this list of documents to be referred to at the inquiry.