Greenwich Planning Board refuse extension of Woolwich’s Vista Tower
Plans for an extension to Vista House in Woolwich were last week rejected by Greenwich Councillors in opposition to recommendations by planning department officers.
Developers were seeking to add a nine-storey extension onto one end of the building to provide 14 more flats.
Plans have been rumbling around for years, and it was covered back in 2011 (!) when plans were approved. Now updated plans are rejected.
It really is a building with little to no virtues. The building was formerly the Head Office of publishers Morgan Grampian. They vacated the site and instead of rebuilding the drab building the owners decided to stick an ugly roof on top in the early years of the Millennium.
The only positive was a row of shops installed on the former car park but architecturally the main block is a real blot on Woolwich.
This is good news! That building is an absolute eyesore and needs to be torn down.
Completely agree with Sim!
The building and stores at street level all need to be removed.
There’s a gang sign that’s been on the window of the uppermost floor on Calderwood street for months; — the care and maintenance of this building looks awful.
We are flat owners of the Vista Building. We are suffering too not only from poor maintenance of the building but also from an unfair escalating ground rent that reached over £2000 for each car parking space
The head lease (landlord) has connected the car lease to the flat one so that one would not be able to relinquish the car lease on its own Also the ground rent is escalating by £500 every 5 years which makes the flats unsaleable and unmortgageable. As a result our flats’ value have plummeted. Moreover there are a lot of safety and security problems with the said car park. I am sure you were aware of the incident that took place last week of a body found in the car park that resulted in cordoning off around Sainsburys.
At the moment we are highlighting our problem to urge the Council to intercede on our behalf and hopefully withdraw the car park lease from the current landlord.
To keep you more in the picture we are collecting signatures to present to Greenwich Council. We nearly reached our target of 1000 signatures.
Mona Ibrahim
Flat owner
I wonder if this Leasehold and commonhold reform would help…https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8047/