Euro Hotel, Elm Road, Wembley Central
Proposed Aparthotel (I don't remember Elm Road being that wide!)
No it's not!
Apart from the Wembley Edge planning application already descibed on Wembley Matters (LINK) another large development proposal that has been around for a while comes to Planning Committee tonight.
This is for the development of the site of the Euro Hotel (previously Elm Hotel) on Elm Road in Wembley Central and the adjoining Spiritualist Church in St Johns Road.
They would be replaced by an Aparthotel covering 10,090 square metres as against the current 1,258 square metres.
The proposal:
Demolition
of existing hotel building and community centre [church?] and erection of a part 6,
part 8 and part 10 storey 318 room aparthotel plus basement accommodation with
associated ancillary facilities, community floorspace (Use Class F1/F2),servicing,
landscaping and cycle and refuse storage.
So what is an Aparthotel. Officers provide the answer:
Apart-hotels
are defined within the London Plan as self-contained accommodation (within Use
Class C1), providing for short-term occupancy, with a concierge and room
service. the length of stay would be limited to a maximum of 90 days per occupant,
and a planning condition would secure that residencies at the hotel
accommodation of 90 days or
more are to be prevented, to ensure that the use of the hotel accommodation
would meet the needs identified within the London Plan and Brent Local Plan for
visitor accommodation.
Each
room would have a double bed, with storage, a shower and toilet en-suite and a
kitchenette facility. Inclusive access has been confirmed as integral to the
design of the hotel. It has been confirmed that10% (16) of the hotel rooms
would be accessible in accordance with London Plan policy E10.
Brent received a 33 person petition in favour of the development which appears to include local businesses and 14 objections.
The impact on neighbouring two storey homes in St Johns Road and Elm Road is considerable and unsurprisingly most of the objections come from them:
From a legal view point, my main objections are:
1) that the
location of this planning proposal does NOT fall under the "Tall
Building Zone". This is a residential zone and height restrictions
should be observed.
2) I have it on good authority that the hotel
group own many proprieties around the area of the existing hotel (I
believe they own nearly all the houses on Elms Road, many of the houses
on St Johns Road going north right up to the bridge and they also own
houses on Acacia Avenue). Consultations have been sent by post to all
these properties and there needs to be due diligence in identifying who
owns the property when the consultations are returned. I strongly
believe that the hotel should only be allowed to vote once.
From a personal view point, my objections are:
The
planned building development would block out all light, many houses on
St Johns Road would be in the shade all year round, with no sunlight
ever hitting the windows or paving; this means it will be mostly wet
underfoot - even worse with snow and ice which would stay longer than
normal.
Parking would be harder for residents, especially on
event days: Hotel coaches would take up 3 or 4 parking spaces and would
only need 1 permit per day to stay. The plans show that two resident
parking bays would be removed and there is already a shortage of spaces.
Please note that on St Johns Road, none of the houses on the west side
of the road (right up to bridge) have off-street parking.
I
would also add there would be major TV disruption for anyone who uses
freeview and has a freeview aerial on their roof, as any house north of
the proposed development will have their aerials pointing in exactly
that direction. TV channels (especially HD) would be limited, or worse
still, freeview may not work at all.
For all the reasons listed above, I strongly object.
View from St Johns Road towards the High Road.
Officers comment on the loss of the Spiritualist Church:
The
redevelopment of the site would involve the loss of the existing Spiritualist
Church. A schedule of areas submitted with the application indicates that the
existing church building has a total GIA of 145sqm. The application proposes
the reprovision of 220sqm of flexible F1/F2 community space over ground and
basement floor level, indicating that the social infrastructure space would be
fully re- provided.
They conclude regarding the whole application:
The
aparthotel proposed with an ancillary flexible F1/F2 space is considered to
make efficient use of the land, which would regenerate the site which would
provide a positive contribution to the emerging streetscene and the positive
employment and economic benefits associated with the hotel.
The
building is considered to have an appropriate scale and massing of proposed
buildings would relate well to the existing and future site context. As the
report acknowledges, there is expected to be some impacts on existing daylight
and sunlight light conditions to existing residential dwellinghouses nearby.
The
impacts would be commensurate with development of this form and such impacts
must be balanced against the planning benefits of the proposal. Overall, and on
balance, the impacts associated with the development would it is considered be
outweighed in this case by the benefits of redeveloping the site, economic
benefits and public realm improvements.
The Planning Commitee begins at 6pm tonight and can be viewed HERE
