Tower plan near Abbey Wood station submitted

An application to build a 25-floor tower and 228 homes near Abbey Wood station has been submitted.

The proposal sits just within Bexley borough as it falls just inside the boundary with Greenwich.

Heights of the proposed block have fluctuated and the final total is 25-storeys with a shorter adjacent block beside the BP garage, which itself is expected to be developed in future.

The development is projected to be build to rent.

Over the road in Greenwich borough sits a recently constructed tower near a Sainsbury’s supermarket – which itself is a relatively new addition.

Transport

A potential issue with the development in years to come is the building hampering a future opportunity to widen a pinch point which slows buses from Thamesmead given there’s insufficient space for a bus lane.

That pinch point will only become a bigger issue as more than 10,000 homes are built in Thamesmead which is a five minute (or less) bus or future Rapid Transit/tram journey to Abbey Wood station.

Constructing the Sainsbury’s so close to the road was an error.

This tower plan compounds it. Lack of foresight will cost in future, b0th in terms of traffic delays and congestion for public transport users alongside a financial cost to eventually fix that.

Parking

Concerns have been raised about parking during consultation. The development is technically car-free except for blue badge spaces but public realm around the tower just over the road in Greenwich borough rapidly turned into an unofficial car park.

Extensive landscaping is seen in new plans.

The Design and Access Statements notes an “aspiration to provide a lushly planted public realm with spaces for relaxation, recreation, and play throughout”.

Will it be maintained? Over the road it isn’t.

This is quite typical on the borough boundary.

Though the existing tower is in Greenwich borough, was approved by Greenwich, money from developers paid to Greenwich and residents paying council tax to Greenwich, Bexley Council are in charge of the area alongside private landowners.

All have failed to maintain the area.

Revenue

Income from the proposed tower to Bexley Council will be low as the borough’s Community Infrastructure Levy rates – payments to a council to help fund services and mitigate development such as funding health centres, improving parks etc – havn’t been revised since way before the Elizabeth line begun.

Excellent transport links are a key reason so many buildings are now proposed near Abbey Wood station.

The station always had good services with central London 20-25 mins away for decades and up to 10 trains per hour for many years, but the Elizabeth line also now ensures Canary Wharf is 10 minutes, the City less than 20 and Stratford 20 minutes.

Add in Thameslink services to places like St Pancras and it’s incredibly well connected. However the rail frequencies in the application are laughably wrong claiming six trains per hour.

The reality is 20 trains per hour across all lines in the peak London-bound. It’s 12 trains per hour on the Elizabeth line and 8 tph on Southeastern and Thameslink towards central London. So many planning applications get transport and frequency levels wrong.

As for CIL rates, Bexley Council have not kept up with changes and so low levels hamper potential income. In fact, SE London borough’s generally seem pretty awful at capturing income from this revenue source.

Lewisham started revising their rates many years ago, paused and never resumed. Greenwich went for very low rates in 2015 (far below what the viability report at the time stated), failed to revise in 2018 as promised when income proved minimal and have only just done so – yet still opted to make major growth tenures such as co-living development rates very low. Few if any London boroughs have done this.

Compared to authorities all over the capital from east to west, north to south ands the three boroughs have been examples of what not to do for the past decade.

As for those behind this proposed tower, the developer is Abbey Wood Sedgemere Limited supported by Danescroft. House of Hiranandani is also involved who state they are “a pioneer in developing integrated communities that have become landmarks in India.” The architects are Grid.

In time Bexley Council themselves also propose building next to the site.