Prospect House as was
Readers may remember controversy over the appalling conditions at Prospect House, manahed by Shepherd's Bush Housing Association LINK and its rather dubious history LINK. The planning application to be decided tomorrow at Brent Planning Committee replaces it with 23 storey storey building with residential accommodation from the third floor up.
The building lies between the Grand Union Canal that crosses the North Circular by aqueduct nearhy and the River Brent. It is in a flood zone and a short distance from Tokyngton Avenue and the Agenta House site opposite Stonebridge Park station. Tokyngton Avenue has been flooded three times in the last few weeks.
The site is described by planning officers:
The site is immediately adjacent to the River Brent and near to the Grand Union Canal. The site falls within flood zone 3a. Protection of and access to the River Brent is a keyelement of the scheme as is the flood mitigation measures needed to ensure flood resilience.
This includes reducing the footprint of the built structures, raising floor levels, locating the more sensitive uses i.e. the residential element, at 3rd floor level and above, and the creation of a Flood Warning & Evacuation Plan. A SuDS strategy is proposed to retain and re-use as much rainfall prior to discharge into the public sewer.
It is worth looking at some of the comments on the Planning Portal. It is unclear whether the Metropolitan Police objection has been satisfactorily answered.
Environment Agency
Following an initial objection in relation to an inadequate flood risk assessment; its proximity to a watercourse; and a detrimental impact on nature conservation, the objections have been removed following the submission of additional information. Conditions are proposed to secure details of ecological enhancements for flood risk; and a landscape and ecological management plan.
Inland Waterways Association
Objections are raised for the following reasons:
· The sheer height and bulk of the proposed development would have a harmful visual impact on the adjacent canal as well as frequently causing wind problems for boats and non-boating visitors on the towpath.
· To mitigate, the Council should seek contributions for the provision of community moorings, visitor moorings and/or residential moorings, and the provision of an electrical supply and a water point for servicing the moorings.
Local Lead Flood Authority
No objections are raised because the Flood Risk Assessment is considered acceptable. A condition is requested for details of: an overall drainage plan to include SudS attenuation such as blue roofs; and an access / egress diagram
Metropolitan Police
The Secure By Design Officer does not support the application for the following reasons:
· The walk from the tube station to the site using the footpath next to the A406. During the day there would be some activity but at night it would be poorly used and observed leading to a risk of robbery and other violent crimes from occurring.
· The plans to make the site more permeable and attractive to acquisitive forms of crime such as burglary.
· On the actual main building there is no active frontage on the first two floors (overnight), light industrial is proposed but this would close after a certain time and possibly weekends also leaving no legitimate activity.
There is an interesting comment from the owners of the current Prospect House who say thay have had problems marketing it as 'it is not located in the immediate vicinity of local amenities or the High Street (sic) lowering the appeal to potential tenants.'
Brent Council officers continue to term Shared Ownership as affordable in their description of the accommodation despite admitting recently that it is not affordable to people on the median Brent income.
A viability assessment stated that the amount of affordable housing (35% by habital room) was acceptable despite not hitting the 50% target. Shared Ownership should perhaps be subtracted from that percentage.
The development will be situated next to the highly polluted North Circular Road and a rather poignant diagram shows the distance a parent or carer would need to walk their child to a green space.
4 comments:
Unless I've misread the Committee Report, Officers are saying that the private amenity space which should be provided for each flat is 20 square metres.
The requirement in Brent's planning policy for homes of 3-bedrooms or more is 50 square metres.
Of course, none of the flats has much more than a balcony of little more than 5 square metres, but Planning Officers say that is OK, because there is communal amenity space.
But won't that be subject to air pollution from the North Circular Road?
Don't worry,, say the Planning Officers. There won't be much air pollution on they 20th floor, where part of the communal amenity space is proposed!
Would the planning officers choose to live here? No.
Would they want their family members to live here? No.
Yet they are condidering it as an an acceptable location for others to live!
Anonymous (9 August at 09:42) has summed up the situation over the state of planning in Brent very well.
The only thing that seems to matter is that the Local Plan which the Council adopted last year requires several thousand new homes to be built in the borough each year.
It does not seem to matter what those homes will actually be like to live in.
It does not seem to matter that far too few of those homes (and a much lower number than Brent and London planning policues require) will be the genuinely affordable homes for rent that so many Brent citizens need.
And (looking at another application on the agenda) it does not seem to matter that many of the "homes" will be studenr accmodation (2.5 of which count as homes towards their target).
Would a freedom of information request be allowed to ask how many Brent Council officers actually live in Brent? They are making decisions which affect our lives but we are pretty sure none of them live here.
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