Greenwich car park to become housing and shops
Plans are in to build a commercial unit and flats on a car park opposite the former Arches Leisure Centre in Greenwich.
The plans appear to suggest the commercial space will be one unit. A supermarket perhaps? It’s a pretty conservative design, as may be expected close to the World Heritage site.
I’m a bit surprised they havn’t tried to push the roofline up another level.
The car park site is pretty small. Further up is another car park. Is this council owned?
It’s a large site and I’m surprised it hasn’t been sold for housing. It shouldn’t be beyond the realms of possibility to incorporate a basement and ground floor car park behind commercial units, to mitigate against a loss of parking space, with housing above.
There’s also a petrol station in between the two car parks which accommodates a large area of land. I wonder how long that will last.
The planning reference is: 16/2555/F. Click here to see.
The main problem for going higher is the impact on the houses behind – to their sunlight. You can see from the plan the top floor is extremely shallow and falls away very quickly. There is a 37 page daylight and light impact attachment to the planning application!
I’ve been walking past this place for years wondering when it would get filled in and how they would deal with right to light.
Oh yes any more would be too tall but I’m rather surprised they didn’t still attempt it.
They could always go back with a revised application later. This looks as if it will sail through and will add huge uplift in value to the land and owner – potentially helping fund whatever happens next. I could be over thinking though.
Is Peter Singh also the buyer of the actual arches leisure centre too or did the council dispose of these separately? I thought there was going to be an announcement on that but I haven’t heard anything.
This part of Trafalgar Road slows down and is not so desperate as 100m east and onwards – which really needs some new thinking and change.
Some decent-sized shop units might stand a better chance of success than some of the older, small shops along Trafalgar Rd and Woolwich Rd. On the other hand, how many of the new developments with retail units from the last few years actually have their retail units occupied? (Is the Peltons development on Blackwall Lane supposed to have retail on the ground floor?)
Neil the Blackwall Lane units are a real shame. It appears today the developers do less than zero fit-out with no tenant booked. Even a shell fit-out to lock-up stage could mean an ambitious cafe owner could then do a final fit-out for £5k and get on. Right now there is no chance of that – £5k probably wouldn’t even get the glass frontage and door done, let along even laying a floor.
It’s a complete waste of space providing retail units in new developments. The rents are often too high for local businesses and our high streets are already blighted with empty shop units. Much better to provide a few more units for residential occupation.
I am coming around to the idea of ‘town centre’ developments NOT having parking. I live up the road from the ‘main drag’ in Greenwich and the traffic for most of the day is nose to tail. More cars is not what we need and I am a car owner.