Campaigners challenging Woolwich tower appeal raise £2,000 of £8,400 target in 24 hours
Campaign group Speak Out Woolwich has raised over £2,000 in 24 hours with the group aiming to be represented at a November planning inquiry for a tower and blocks around Woolwich Tesco.
The group state:
“CROWD FUNDING UPDATE – WE HAVE RAISED OVER £2000 IN JUST 24 HOURS. THANK YOU! EVERY LITTLE HELPS!
We have had 53 contributions to date averaging nearly £40 each. Our largest personal contribution from a member of Woolwich and District Antiquarian Society was a whopping £400!
This will pay for much needed legal advice on aspects of our case. We now need to reach our overall target of £8400 asap so that we can be fully represented by a barrister at the 6 day hearing.
All contributions small and large will help us reach our target so that we can make sure the community is best represented.”
A page has been set up to donate here.
Site history
Tesco originally planned a tower on site back in the late 2000s. After financial problems for the supermarket giant they sold sites earmarked for housing in Woolwich, Lewisham and Dartford to Meyer Homes.
Greenwich Council rejected plans from Meyer in 2018 though they had given outline permission for a tower a decade before when Tesco owned the land.
An appeal will be heard in late November into Meyer Homes’ proposals for the tower and blocks to the rear which comprises 804 flats. While the tower has raised much publicity its the blocks to the rear that appear to offer many issues with homes densely packed in slab blocks.
Not only was outline permission granted for a tower in the late 2000s but a masterplan for the site was binned by Greenwich in 2017/18 after spending £124,054 and going out to public consultation. That SPD was to have capped heights on the land as this screenshot from consultation documents show:
Ditching the masterplan before adoption will remove legal protection and weaken any case during the appeal. The outline permission from a decade earlier may also play well for the developer as a precedent has been shown.
If planning permission is granted for a development to be built on this site. I personally would prefer a low rise mixed retail/housing development. With retail space at ground level and up to to 6 levels above for rented homes at local affordable rents.
The open space to the front of tesco is ok and would be good if well mainatined and cleaned daily. Sadly this space suffers from similar issues to General Gordon Square but with pidgeons all over the place after discarded food which is thrown all over the place by the people that hang around there all day. Many of whom are drinkers and hang around outside Tesco’s begging. Sadly it won’t be long before the rats are here too.
I’d love to see that land developed on with mixed tenure, but that tower is admittedly too high and not particularly aesthetically appealing.
But hope it could improve that area and surrounding buildings.
Would your whole flat stink of roosters though?
I am completely for the tower. As a new resident to the borough I can see that woolwich desperately needs regeneration and redevelopment. There needs to be a mix of higher income people coming into the area to drive out the crime, improve the public spaces and reduce the loitering problem. And reduce the market for the betting shops- rich people just don’t frequent the paddy power! Everyone knows when richer people move in the authorities actually start to take action on asb, street cleaning etc. I don’t really understand the opposition, other than maybe the tower is a bit too tall, but from what I see at the moment the space is being used as a pigeon farm, there are hundreds of them and it’s disgusting. It’s like people don’t want nice things and want to live in filth. Woolwich will never get noticed as long as there are actual groups out there trying to hinder progress.
This looks like it was inspired by the Flatiron building in New york’s Broadway – a famous landmark, look it up its quite interesting.
I will love it if the appeal gets rejected. Better Looking Woolwich! What’s the betting at paddy Power though?
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