Woodgate Tower Protest Group

A View Worth Saving

Current status

Sadly Lambeth greenlit the 14 Story Woodgate Tower development on Streatham Common’s Homebase site despite over a 1000 petitions, 800 + objections & more than 400 objections uploaded on the GLA website. This decision sets a dangerous precedent for developers pushing these type of inappropriate applications in the future, despite overriding public objection. This should not be allowed!

What's next?

The application is awaiting Stage 2 review via the Mayor and General London Assembly (GLA). To get this decision overturned we need to mobilise people power to help us lobby the Mayor and his colleagues to call the decision in for review.

What can you do?

1.

Email Sadiq Khan and GLA Case officer to ask them to call in the decision for review

– Sadiq Khan: mayor@london.gov.uk
– Ccing the GLA Case officer: Nikki.Matthews@london.gov.uk

Sample text for objection letter below.

To Sadiq Khan: mayor@london.gov.uk
CC to GLA Case officer: Nikki.Matthews@london.gov.uk

Dear Mr Khan,

I am a resident of Streatham Common & Vale Ward, SW16 and am writing to you on behalf of local residents to ask for you to call in for review of the development at 100 Woodgate Drive (Ref 22/00300/FUL).

This development would have a devastating and detrimental effect on the local area and seeks to segregate the social housing element of the scheme, something which the GLA has previously deprecated and rejected in other applications.

Not only that but the local community feel that their objections and concerns are not being listened to by those Labour Councillors that passed the development at the PAC on 19th March 2024

Well over 1000 residents petitioned the council prior to the PAC meeting and nearly 1000 residents submitted detailed submissions opposing it in the consultation period. Objectors include high profile local politicians including Bell Ribeiro-Addy, Ward Councillor and Streatham Common & Vale & Cabinet Member for Growth & New Homes Danny Adilypour along with GLA Candidates for Lambeth Marina Ahmed, Claire Sheppard and Christine Wallace

Objections focus on scale and density of the development which make it wholly unsuitable for the area and in breach of several legal requirements including:

– Breaches of the Lambeth Local Plan
– Impact on Immanuel church heritage site and protected Streatham Common view
– Impact on parking with lack of CPZ and only 2 parking bays
– Marginalisation with affordable homes crammed on top of the railway with no access to the playgrounds reserved for private residents only via roof top access
– Impact on light and privacy on local residents

We are not opposed in principle to the development of further homes but this proposal seeks to use that mantra as a fig leaf to gloss over the significant flaws and breaches within the proposal and to maximise the profits of Hadley Property Group.

I implore you to consider these submissions and consider exercising your power under Article 6 or 7.

Yours sincerely

2.

Lodge your objection on GLA Website

NB objections are still being accepted despite text on site saying otherwise

https://glaplanningapps.commonplace.is/planningapps/22-00300-FUL

3.

Email your GLA member

…to ask them to lobby the Mayor to call in the decision:
Lambeth & Southwark – Marina Ahmad marina.ahmad@london.gov.uk
Merton & Wandsworth – Leonie.Cooper leonie.cooper@london.gov.uk
Croydon & Sutton – Neil Garratt neil.garratt@london.gov.uk

4.

Lobby your local councillor

…to make sure they are pushing for the decision to be called in:

Find your councillors details here: https://www.gov.uk/find-your-local-councillors

5.

Donate to our Crowdfunder

Help us crowdfund to support Stage 1 of Judicial Review should the decision not get called in.

https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/stop-woodgate-tower

6.

Follow our campaign

Follow our campaign & volunteer to help out by joining our WhatsApp group: https://chat.whatsapp.com/
GTF54YHpTSP1X7LLFISWSf

ABOUT

We are an association of concerned residents that have banded together to protest the development by Clarion Housing of a massive development that is completely out of keeping with the low-density local area.

Clarion Housing (who have a 1 star rating on the Reviews.io website) would like to build a fourteen storey tower, amidst a collection of other housing that would all dwarf the other local houses in the area.

Despite the fact that there are no other properties that have even six stories, and that they would like to build a tower directly in the middle of a locally protected view. They have paid consultants to provide them with reports that describe it as being okay (but don’t dare provide photos of what the whole actual development would look like in situ). That is what these organisations do. But we have been through those documents, and we have a lot of valid objections, the details of which you will find on this website – please use it to inform yourself and make your objections should you wish.

14 Storey Tower

Will your view be blocked?
Will you have less hours of sun?

Local Services

Will you be able to get doctor appointments in time?
Will you be able to get a place for your child in school?

Traffic

Will you be able to get through the traffic?
Will you be able to squeeze into the train?

PROTECTED VIEW

The top of Streatham Common has a beautiful view. Streatham Common is the only green space in the local area, and it is on a hill which looks down a gentle grassy slope. It follows that the panoramic view from that common, which has been enjoyed by people for literally hundreds of years – has been protected by Lambeth Council.

The Woodgate Tower development is proposed to be directly in the middle of that protected view.

It may seem odd then that Townscaping specialists have said that they do not think a 14 storey tower will have any effect on it? This is because Savills, the Townscaping specialists have been paid to say that it won’t affect it. They also suggest that the view is only ruined if a building creates a silhouette over the horizon, and propose that that will not happen.

This is not true. In any case, when one is considering a panoramic view whether it creates a silhouette is really irrelevant, and, in any case, our mock-ups suggest that the building doesn’t actually sit within a dip and instead does also create a significant silhouette across the horizon – with both the tower and the rest of the buildings in view.

Savills also misrepresent what the Study says: Savills summarise that the main feature of the Lambeth Local View study is a “broad distant horizon” but that is not what the study says.

Instead the study doesn’t use the words ‘broad and distant’ – and simply refers to the content of the wide horizon being “of rooftops and tree canopies” – some of which of course would be obscured by the development. Importantly, they don’t mention anywhere that Lambeth Local Views Study states that there are “No visible landmarks of note” and still further that “the landscape openness is noteworthy” at all. Those would seem important aspects and a failure to mention them somewhat a misrepresentation of what the study actually says.

Also – and more importantly – the fact the Lambeth Local Views Study states that there are “No visible landmarks of note” and still further that “the landscape openness is noteworthy” – also mean that the tower is in breach of the view, as it would mean those two key aspects were ruined.

One need only review the scale mock-ups that we have made in order to see the clear impact that the development will have on the view if it were to go ahead.

It should be noted that Savills have not provided their own mock-ups, this will likely be because they would not help the argument that it is in keeping with the local neighbourhood. But then, and as was accepted by the representatives for the developer at the public meeting, they are not being engaged to provide an objective view of the impact anyway, so much as an argument in favour of the developers right to build their development.

HOUSING DENSITY

None of the images that have been provided of the development show in detail what the tower will look like close up when compared to the current housing stock. Currently we can only see the tower as compared to the other new buildings that will be built.

However – these buildings are also too high. They are six or seven storeys high, when all of the local housing stock (including the last development that was built behind the Homebase) is only three or four. This is the correct height for the area. There is no precedent for going any higher than that, and no justification – other than in order to line the pockets of Clarion Housing, the one star developers.

As you can see – when compared to what the other housing stock looks like – it is easy to see what a monstrosity we are facing here.

The tall buildings report for Lambeth states explicitly that scattering taller buildings out in local areas is not something that is done now – they are to be kept to the clusters to which they belong. This is not such an area.

LINKS

Here you will find a lot of links to useful materials – we include planning notices, references to the actual Local Views Study and to the Tall Buildings Report. Do feel free to make reference to these when you object to the development, as it will help the planning officers see that it is in breach of literally every set of local study that has been undertaken.