Tower planned for west Greenwich
A consultation has been launched to ditch an approved tower in west Greenwich and replace it with another block containing 420 student rooms.
Tribe are behind the plans on Norman Road near the junction with Creek Road.
The developer claims: “As part of this scheme, we will be delivering a new Creekside Promenade, Café, and Plaza onto Norman Road for the whole community to enjoy.”
That follows similar ideas in the last approved block in 2020.
A previously constructed creekside walk next door to the site though has never opened to the public since completion over five years ago. It remains shuttered to this day.
The site of this latest consultation isn’t the most salubrious, being beside Brewery Wharf industrial site.
It was the site of Ravenbourne tower approved in 2020.
That had 28 floors and 111 flats. It always looked too complex (and interesting) for your bog standard London resi block.
When approved Greenwich Council all but ignored allocating any income to a poorly maintained estate over the road. It was also approved when a low levels of Community Infrastructure Levy exited.
Despite Greenwich belatedly stating in 2021 they would revise those low rates which has seen the borough collect less than most others in the capital for the past decade – sometimes by tens of millions – nothing has yet been heard.
They set a low CIL rate in 2015 quite some way below what the Planning Inspector and viability assessment said at the time was possible then failed to revise in 2018 as promised, in the process costing residents substantial losses.
This has also ensured they’ve still failed to pay their allocation for Woolwich Elizabeth line station. If they had set higher rates in 2015 and then 2018, millions would now be available for various projects borough-wide including transport, estate improvements, health, education and much else.
Will this plan be approved before they manage to set a rate befitting a zone 2 location near excellent transport links? If so, a lot more money for local improvements will go begging.
Are there any S.106 planning agreements that obliged them to provide and open and dedicate a waterside right of way? I’m pursuing a development in Westminster that involved stopping up permanently a public right of way/highway, so a little different, to facilitate the work. The freeholders were obliged under the S.106 agreement to re-open and dedicate as public the right of way once the development was completed. The works were completed in 2012 yet so far no such dedication has been made, and no enforcement of that obligation. And the freeholders treat the highway – St Martins Church Path – as theirs to do what they like – block, park, and more.