There has been a reconsultation of this planning application (22/AP/0850) and the proposal to redevelop the Reed office building at the corner of Crampton St and Amelia St in West Walworth into 146 rooms of student accommodation. We believe that there are strong grounds as to why Southwark Council should reject this application BUT we need people to object to it.
View of the current site:
We would like to thankall those who objected before – but EVERYONE needs to object AGAIN!
The planning application is due to be determined at a Southwark Council Planning Committee before the end of 2022. The number of objections we make NOW is important as this is one of first figures presented at Planning Committee. This is our last chance to object. Our local councillors will support our objections and will attend the meeting along with local residents to present them. Some changes have been made to the scheme that we objected to in April 2022 – but these are marginal, mainly effecting the interior. This is why you need to object again to this reconsultation.
The proposed building – images
1. EASY TO USE GUIDE. Below is an easy-to-use guide to how to object to this application:22/AP/0850 against the redevelopment of 31 Amelia St (corner of Crampton St and Amelia St) into 146 student bedrooms; a building of 8 storeys with an external communal roof terrace for students to use, directly overlooking Pullens Gardens.
a. Go to the Southwark Council Planning Portal
https://planning.southwark.gov.uk/online-applications/
b. Type in the application number: 22/AP/0850
c. Go to the box – Make a comment
d. Enter your details – these will not appear on the published comment – and put down the grounds as to why you are objecting. We suggest some or all of the following. For more information on these grounds please go to our blog on the Walworth Society website: https://walworthsociety.co.uk/2022/11/02/31-amelia-street-se17-please-object-to-this-application/ OR https://bit.ly/3zCFqxl
This leaflet is produced by The Walworth Society and Pullens TRA
2. KEY GROUNDS FOR OBJECTION
Please use some of these to help form your own objections
1. Lack of Consultation. The process is unsatisfactory and inadequate.
There have been no substantive changes to the design and none of the Planning Policy concerns of objectors have been addressed. The developer has failed to act on any of the comments made during the consultation process. Prior to submission only 14 people people attended a virtual exhibition and 2 people attended a webinar. The majority of the comments made were critical, consistent with those outlined below and on the planning portal where there are more than 70 objections.
2. Use of the site. There is huge need for social rent housing in Walworth and Southwark. The Elephant and Castle SPD is clear that there is already a lot of student housing in this area and that no more should be built in this part of Walworth. We object that student accommodation is being developed when housing at social rent is so needed. We believe that student accommodation will not work on this site and that social housing would be a much better solution for its redevelopment.
Current Policy (the Elephant & Castle Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) 2012 states that additional student housing will not be permitted on the north side of Amelia St – why is it then workable and desirable on the opposite side of the road?
A 65m2 communal roof terrace on the 6th floor means that 100+ students could be generating noise overlooking Pullens Gardens and the homes surrounding it. We note the noise at night produced from Julian Markham House which has converted an undercroft for the use of students as an outside social space.
3. Harm to the Conservation Area. The development will cause harm to the character and appearance of the Pullens Estate and the Pullens Gardens which lies in the Conservation Area owing to the massing, height, detailing and poor-quality design of this development as well as the huge impact on Pullens Gardens from the overbearing building.
At 8 storeys high the building is twice the height of the Pullens blocks and 5 storeys higher than the housing in Thrush Street. It is 3 storeys higher that its neighbouring building at 83 Crampton Street which also faces the Pullens. The extra height will be overbearing. The mass is greedy, bulky and lumpen.
The step back at the 6th floor level will not be effective because the full height of the building will always be visible from the park and radically and detrimentally effect its whole atmoshpere and outlook. This will make the park feel darker at one end, totally overlooked and ruin peoples’ right to “enjoyment of the historic environment.” This is part of the communal value of the Conservation Area.
The design is very low quality, with poor details and inappropriate materials and potentially cheap construction methods. It is a dull, overly repetitive box which has no design merit with little decoration or relief. It detracts from the quality of the Conservation Area. The top two floors are dark grey which will stand out and be dark against the sky. The light brick will also make the building stand out. It will look incongruous against the darker mixed London bricks and next to the sculptural decoration and relief around every door and window of the Pullens.
4. Size of the Building. The planned building is much larger in area and height than the existing building and completely fills the site right up to the current fence line which means it will sit further forward on the pavement than the Post Office building and 83 Crampton Street. The public realm is poorly designed.
The building sits forward of both 83 Amelia Street and the Post Office building. Best practise would present one building line to make a continuous street frontage. The step forward further exposes the poor design with a huge blank brick facade on the southern elevation when seen from Manor Baths.
It will make a tunnel-like darker environment on Amelia St which is the principal walking route from numerous estates to the Walworth Road. This goes against the policy of the Southwark Plan 2022 and the Movement Plan 2019.
It will take significant amounts of daylight and sunlight from the flats at the southern end of 83 Crampton Street. Some of these residents have objected.
The ground floor frontage is not policy compliant because it is flat, generic shop front glazing with many blank bays containing service entrances, particularly the central bay opposite the park where one would expect the main entrance to be.
The glazed windows of commercial unit 1 adjacent to the railway line overlook only a brick wall which is 1.7m away from their windows. This produces a dark and dangerous alley at 1.7m wide x 9m long with a gate at the end. This space will be a haven for anti-social behaviour and drug dealing making residents feel very unsafe when using Amelia Street to get to and from their homes.
5. Footrpint of the building. The developers have ignored the advice of their own heritage experts which asked them:
To push back the line of the new building to decrease the sense of overbearing and enclosure that will be perceived at street level on Crampton St and Amelia St. This sense of enclosure also affects the Grade II Manor Place Baths.
To introduce a public realm area and some planting to relate to Pullens Gardens.
There is no public greenery or landscape delivered as part of this proposal.
6. Harm to the Low Line. The development does not deliver or enhance the Low Line (the walking route along the railway viaduct) which includes recent improvements locally such as Spare St and Angel Lane as is required by the Southwark Plan 2022. Both of these are significant and well used routes by many residents with new business and street activity brought by the occupied railway arches. The proposal ignores the requirement to deliver the Low Line or to connect with the proposed Low Line behind the neighbouring Post Office building. Instead it proposes a narrow, dark, potentially dangerous private service alley.
Thank you so much!
The Walworth Society 