Two further Woolwich towers at former Waterfront site glimpsed in new application
Two further towers set to be built beside the river in Woolwich have been seen in a new planning application recently submitted.
This application covers two blocks beside the not-long-for-this-world Waterfront leisure centre.
Documents show that both bronze and blue are the respective colour schemes.
In the past years I’ve spent hours looking to find out how these two final blocks would appear while researching posts for this site, but could never find an up to date impression.
Anyway, it seems all along I *did* have a decent image given what is now shown.
What a spud.
Anyway, the new app at least shows perspective from Woolwich High Street.
I’ve had what I thought were outdated renders for years, but it has been really quite tricky finding out what Berkeley plan given other applications on various matters in recent years lacked images and gave the impression it would be somewhat different..
Y’see, plans for the first four towers have long been publicly available, the last two were rather less visible.
Two towers of six are already complete while the next two have topped out with cladding now being applied leaving two more on the former Waterfront car park.
Greenwich Council sold the site to Berkeley way back in 2007, so it’s taken 15 years to get this far.
While Greenwich made money from the car park sale, and will in future by selling the Waterfront centre itself, they could only muster 27 net new council homes out of almost 500 at the new leisure centre site on General Gordon Square.
Meanwhile, homeless households in the borough continue to break new records and outpace new council homes constructed at other sites.
Add in Right to Buy, and it’s still a miserable situation for many looking for a truly affordable, secure rented home.
As for the streetscape, there’s still absolutely nothing in terms of plans from Greenwich Council to change the dual carriageway here.
It’s revealing that the submitted image doesn’t show the road as it actually is:
In reality its a grotty area straight out the 1970s.
Both traffic lanes aren’t even usable most of the time as one lane westbound is normally blocked by parking.
Recently TfL sought some funds from other developments to improve cycling in the town centre, as thousands of car-free homes are being built with cycle parking but no safe lanes to reach some developments.
Greenwich planners weren’t keen, and gave about 10 per cent of the total TfL sought.
As for the final two towers, the Community Infrastructure Levy situation in the borough – where Greenwich sit bottom among London councils for obtaining revenue to benefit residents from new builds – cannot be blamed here as the site pre-dates CIL adoption.
It doesn’t however explain why next to no Section 106 income to the authority is spent improving this area.
Money was spent nearby – to do very little to change the road layout:
