Revised Greenwich 27-floor tower plan submitted
They continue to come in thick and fast and here’s another as plans for a previously agreed tower in Greenwich have been revised and submitted.
Developer Tribe are behind the proposal which would see 414 student rooms alongside a small area for light industrial use. Brewery Wharf’s concrete plant remains thus ensuring boats will continue to head to the creek.
This proposal in place of a previously agreed residential block at the junction of Creek Road and Norman Road.
Given it wasn’t a plain box and showed a bit of design flair, it always seemed a long shot whether it’d go ahead. That scheme had 128 flats and topped out at 28 storeys.
Revised plans see a tower with a pink and green colour scheme and pronounced fins from roof to first floor.
Just yesterday I looked at work set to begin another development nearby which is set to include an area of new creekside path. This does too, and with a path between the two already constructed but never opened, a sizable stretch could be accessible to the public.
A café is planned facing the creek and (hopefully) a sizable new path extending some distance past three developments.
Incidentally, the Design and Access statement actually uses an image of the Saxon Wharf site – which is now cleared for imminent housing – as an example of local industrial use.
Income to Greenwich Council via the Community Infrastructure Levy for improving services and infrastructure will be relatively low at £65 per square metre owing to Greenwich failing to revise already very low rates adopted in 2015 by 2018 as promised.
They still havn’t and now look unlikely to until 2024. Newham Council, for example, levy £130 per square metre for student accommodation. Tower Hamlets is £450 psm for market rate and zero otherwise. Hackney would be £373 psm.
Those rates are all when adopted, and so the current rates after annual inflation ensure the gap is in effect even wider.
Developers will be laughing at how little to have to pay in areas such as this site. It’s pretty much still in town centre Greenwich, in Zone 2 and close to excellent transport links, Local residents miss out from a decade of failure by Greenwich Council to set rates close to London norms to capture revenue for local improvements.
These funds can help to at least mitigate cuts from central government. Alas, an estate directly opposite is crumbling away in places.
As for the proposed tower, architects are PRP. Given precedent here with a tower approved in 2020 the development is almost certain to be approved.
The application can be viewed here.
