Kingston Residents' Alliance

Major projects:

Eden Campus - OCTOBER UPDATE

Planning Application received.
2 Phased application.
1. Multiple Office Towers and Car Park facility (Unilever's name dropped)
2. Residential Tower block (22 Storey)
Applicant Name Hathaway Opportunity Fund General Partners
Standard Consultation Expiry Date: Wed 04 Nov 2020
Statutory Expiry Date Tue 05 Jan 2021
Kingston Council Case Officer: Toby Feltham
Council Comments page

20/02495/FUL
Full planning application for the demolition of Surrey House, Multi Storey Car Park, Hippodrome and Bo Concept and the erection of 2 (two) Office buildings [Use Class - E(g)(i)] Building A and Building B: Building A 9 storeys (22,144 (GEA) sqms) Building B 11 storeys (11,587 (GEA) sqms). The erection of a replacement multi storey car park of 354 spaces plus cycle parking (for use as a public car park at weekends) landscaping, public realm upgrades, servicing, pedestrian and vehicular access. This application is accompanied by an Environmental Statement. This application is Phase 1 of a 2 stage development - Phase 2 is covered by application reference 20/02499/OUT. | Surrey House, 34 Eden Street NCP Car Park, St James Road Former Hippodrome, Eden Street And Bo Concept, The Roundhouse 20 Eden Street Kingston Upon Thames KT1 1ER Click here for the Council's Planning Portal link

20/02499/OUT |
Outline planning application for the demolition of Lever House and the erection of a Residential (C3) (Private and Affordable) building not exceeding 22 storeys comprising of a maximum of 156 units, along with a ground floor cafe/retail pod (Use Class - E (c)) with all matters reserved except for access, layout and scale. This application is accompanied by an Environmental Statement. This application is Phase 2 of a 2 stage development - Phase 1 is covered by application reference 20/02495/FUL. | Unilever Kingston 3 St James Road Kingston Upon Thames Click here for the Council's Planning Portal Link

BACKGOUND INFO:
CONSULTATION (Closed) -
Developers should sent back to the drawing board - Kingston Council should provide unambiguous guidance to the developers prior to any application being submitted.

PLEASE NOTE: GROUP OF RESIDENTS CREATED A DEDICATED WEBSITE TO DISCUSS THIS PROPOSAL IN DETAIL.

For more info please visit: edencampusviews.co.uk

The Surrey House Island site comprises five buildings bounded by Brook Street, Eden Street and St James Road. The buildings sit between the Kingston Old Town Conservation area to the East and the Fairfield/Knights Park Conservation Area to the West.

Developers are proposing mix used development with approximately 150 new homes, a potential head offices for existing leaseholders, Unilever (not fully confirmed) and retail space and a 81 meter high / 22 storey tower similar height to Tolworth Tower. As it stands, the proposals threaten to overshadow important listed buildings, blight protected historic views and may cause significant harm to views and the related public realm by overbearing and dominating the surrounding streets and houses

All Residents and Councillors were urged to review the public consultation as well as this review and send their opinions to the developer before August 24th. If you would like to comment please send your letters to Planning people at Kingston Council here

Surrey County Hall Consultation

initial comments to: surreycountyhall@becg.com
Second exhibition: November 2020
Planning Application: Submission January 2021

Whilst we support the re-development of the SurreyCounty Hall site in principle, we see the present proposals as completely visionless and inappropriate in their scale, quality and adverse impact on the existing local environment.

For full information on what is proposed please visit developers site here.

Our initial response to developers:

1. What does the community gain from these proposals?

Developers still do not seem to know or propose any worthwhile idea on how to use the main County Hall (a High heritage Significance Building) for the community.

Finding the new purpose of this very important historic gateway site should be at the forefront of any developer’s plan and should not be left as an afterthought – and it is where this consultation fails most. We would like to know if there was any public consultation on how to take this building further? Why there was no proper community/resident consultation with local residents about the future of this site?.

Without addressing the central issue – the core purpose of the building– this development will never get full public support.

2. Two applications presented as one is very confusing:

We believe that, although these proposals are presented as a single development proposal, it is clear that this consists of two separate applications. Regardless of the ownership argument presented in developers webinar (8th Sept), from the Penrhyn Road side, the two sites appear and impact on two totally different neighbourhoods.

We found that “mixing the re-purposing of historic county hall whilst demolishing a car park to replace with tall building clusters on completely different site” confuses residents’ understanding of the proposed plans and does not help anyone in these discussions.

3. Tower Block Clusters proposed are not supported by planning document:

Developer's claim of an “emerging tall buildings arc”around Surrey County Hall is news to residents. There has been no local planning document, policy, consultation or public knowledge supporting this idea and we would like the developer to substantiate this argument.

Where is the planning or policy document supporting a zone of tall buildings on the Thames Riverside? Trying to be as tall as the “St George’s Tower” is one the least convincing excuses any developer could have provided and it cannot be accepted by local residents, most of whom vehemently opposed the St George’s redevelopment at the time.

The proposed towers would be a competing and dominating presence within the setting of a valued heritage asset, which is visible from numerous viewpoints within residential Conservation Areas, as well as other sites of historical significance such as the Old Market Place.

4. Tower clusters of up to 17 floors on the Bittoms Car Park site is unacceptable

We acknowledge that the developers are trying to create housing units by creating differing block heights, but we do not believe the ad hoc design style would mitigate the adverse impacts resulting from the height, scale and massing of the 17 floor tower blocks proposed at Bittoms Car Park. Surely the developer knows there are 3 Conservation Areas close to the application site. The proposed tower blocks cluster would harm the character and appearance of the area and protected Thames views by their height, scale and massing. It should also be noted that these blocks would be adjacent to another proposed tower block, on the Unilever site, as well as a further tower block currently in development at The Royal Exchange site.

5. Where is the Historic England support as claimed in by developers?

Developer mentions that they have the “support of Historic England”. As residents we would like to see the proof of Historic England’s ‘blessing’ of 17 floor building clusters as argued in your presentations. We do not believe any heritage organisation would support tower blocks obscuring and dominating views of the Arcadian Thames. In the next stage of this process residents would like transparency and honesty in their communications with local and national heritage organisations and their response.

Finally :

> developers should immediately start working with local residents and develop a vision before proposing a certain number of floors! Kingston University is not a single entity and does not represent local voices alone. This site is an extremely important asset and should be treated as one.

>. The feedback page on your consultation site is very hidden. They should improve usability and visibility of that inadequate consultation and feedback page.

If you agree you can send your comments to developers here

Canbury Place Car Park

Hybrid application for Canbury Place car park and 12-52 Kingsgate Road for the demolition of the existing buildings and the erection of two buildings to provide residential apartments

Revised application includes: reduction in height from 25 storeys above ground to 17 storeys above ground and associated design changes; reduction in number of homes from 445 to 389 units. Highway alterations, with the introduction of a left-hand turn from Sopwith Way into Richmond Road as part of the first phase of development and minor realignment of southern part of Seven Kings Way to allow the widening of the footway and new trees. Introduction of a left-hand filter lane at the junction of Sury Basin and Richmond Road.

*17+1 storeys it WILL be visible from those crossing Kingston Bridge, the footpath alongside Home Park & in the distance from Richmond Park’s protected view. It will also dominate the view of Kingston Station looking from the town centre (from the south).

Full application details here
Response to the updated application by KSoc: here

Clas Ohlson site

Proposals by Sports Direct to develop the with new (2 storey) retail and 33 flats. The Site comprises a commercial building in a brick Neo-Georgian style, constructed for Woolworths stores in the 1950s. It is located in the Kingston Old Town Conservation Area. This is a perfect opportunity "to repair this damage done to the Historic market palace back in the 1950s." (Kingston Society)

Surrey House

A Major Planning Application
Surrey House, Eden Street KT1 1ER
Planning Application No18/12119

SIte includes a vacant office building, ground level retail units including the Post Office, BoConcept and the Hippodrome nightclub.

The site sits within the Kingston Council's Eden Quarter Development Area Brief (2015) and follows the same planning and policy context used by St George's and British Land's plans in the same area. If goes ahead Kingston Town centre will have additional 1,000 residential units with no additional infrastructure commitment by the developers.

Date Received 09/02/2018
Applicant Developer: SHP Opportunity Fund General Partner Ltd (SHP)
More on: Salmon Harvester

UPDATE: Application REJECTED
APPEAL: LOST