Notable opposition
Planning application 14/13247 ( Sept 2015 )
We are not alone: Below are recent statements made specifically in opposition to this Old Post Office Site proposal.
"There is a real opportunity to build something at this site that enhances rather than diminishes Kingston’s historic town centre, but the latest proposals do not come near to doing so. For that reason, I urge the Committee to reject the application and ask the developer to return with designs that the community will embrace." see full letter here "We don't want Kingston to be known as the Town of Tower Blocks. It's an historic market town surrounded by beautiful parkland and riverside walks. Let's leave it like that." "The Skyline Campaign wishes to clearly and loudly add its voice to the chorus of objections already made to the clumsy and inappropriate development proposal put forward by St George for the Post Office site. The overall scale of the project is alien to Kingston and will have an extremely negative impact on its particularly fine surrounding historic fabric. Not only will the overall massing of the new buildings totally crush the old Post Office, a valuable local landmark, the taller sections will also inevitably be seen from many miles away, greatly intruding in many quiet, small scale residential streets and leisure settings that have survived through the centuries. The quality of the architecture can be described as "commercial-mediocre" at best; it is generic and not in any way specific to local context. Kingston deserves a lot better! The Council should wake up to the fact that by allowing such a proposal to be built it is destroying the very environment that it is proud of, and that it was elected to protect and preserve. To ignore the great wave of opposition is un-democratic and unacceptable." |
"St George is a company responsible for systematically destroying the visual appeal of large parts of London. Their development in Vauxhall should earn the directors jail terms. There's nothing wrong with building and everything wrong with ugly building. These guys must be stopped." “This seems to be the Vauxhall experience all over; one tall tower (by St George and stealthily approved by ministerial directive in 2005) serves as precedent for another, then they breed and before you know it, you have a cluster (of thirty odd 150 - 200 m tall towers). Now Vauxhall is officially known as ‘Nine Elms on the Southbank ‘, and unofficially as ‘the cash cow’ or ‘the cash point machine’. At least you now know what’s coming to you in Kingston.” "The Old Post Office Site development isn't significant just to people who live around the Fairfield. It will be a major part of the gateway to our historic market town, so I urge all local residents to look at the plans and make their views known" |
